That was slightly sarcastic...but I get your point. I fully realize 2 years can change alot of things that we will be continuing to monitor but it's going to take near that before we jump for a few reasons. The primary being we definitely can't pull it off before kids start school this year and I really don't want to move them in the middle of the school year. Secondly, as burned out as I am currently I still have a commitment to hold up getting this new shop up and running...and I need the paycheck for a bit longer to give us the cushion we need for the move and to hopefully afford the home/land we want without taking on dept...because I'm all to well aware that we won't account for everything and life just happens sometimes.
This thread is the like the Natrona County thread a few days ago.
You just compared Ohio to MT?My GF was in Bozeman last week visiting a friend. Friends 2 bedroom condo on the 3rd floor was $300,000.
GF looked a lot in Bozeman $300,000
How does the average hippie making coffee or working in a bookstore afford to live there?
I make decent money in the medical field and those prices give my chest pain.
Just looked at a house with 56 acres here in SE Ohio for $400,000. Our winters are getting milder and the summers hotter.
If you’re moving for the weather, there are more reasonable prices out there.
I’ll be 56 in a few weeks, I really don’t know if I want another house payment
. The reason why land is so cheap in Ohio is because there’s no mountains. Honestly 400k for land without mountains sounds like a rip off I’m leaving tomorrow after a 16 day stint here. Wish I could stay through July but side work in Arizona has to get done.I’m halfway to my Wyoming cabin right now, another 150 miles to go.
It’s a nice morning. 63 degrees, sunny and no wind.
Looking forward to spending the week
If you’re a diesel tech I have a hard time imagining you won’t find a job very quicklyI'm fully ready and anticipating the smart-ass comments...so those are fine too...but I'm hoping to gather at least some valid information though.
**For the record: I can PROMISE you locals...my beliefs, values and voting habbits are in line with how you'd like to keep your state...and I dont want to build new, rather buy existing...you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone...unless you need help, then by all means just ask**
Here is the back story:
My wife, myself and our 10 and 12 year old boys currently reside in southwest Ohio. Both born and raise within 30 miles of where we are now. Not in a bad spot by any means. Rural area, but 15-20 minuted from anything you might need...but things aren't what they once seemed here.
We have made every excuse we can to hit rocky mountain states a few times a years the last 3 years, it's harder to come back to Ohio every time we leave. We all enjoy the outdoors above pretty much everything else...hiking, hunting, fishing camping and just exploring in general...the lack of public lands and crowding around here aren't conducive to our desires.
We came to the conclusion about a year ago that staying here is not in line with our long-term goals/happiness. After numerous trips exploring Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Utah we have narrowed it to Wyoming and Montana to seriously focus on. Having just gotten back from a Billings to Kalispell 9 day tour we found about the only place that checks the boxes in Montana so far is Helena area or possibly Butte. Things are beautiful further north and west, but too expensive and quite honestly chaotic around missoula/kalispell.
I keep going back to Wyoming myself. We still have a couple trips to take to look more in depth at the Big Horn area and towns between the big horns and Cody which we will be checking out a few on our cow elk hunt in October.
What I'm hoping for is some input on areas on East side of the big horns(Buffalo, Sheridan not any further east than that) as well as areas such as Greybull, Powell, Cody, Duboise, Pinedale...
By input I mean the following:
-How accessible and the quality of the necessary services? Groceries, building materials, medical care, Dentists etc...the stuff we all need.
-How are the schools? We have a good, albeit not financially responsible school district presently but our kids are on the higher end of the spectrum intelligence wise, but not raising astrophysicists ...so we just need a solid school system to get them through high-school...and gotta have a football team or our youngest will not cope.
-Work...I need a job...my wife is full remote as well as holds he realestate license(which should have reciprocity in Wyoming) so she can bring her job along as long as we have reliable internet...I on the other hand have been an auto/diesel tech for over 20 years and built up and been general manager of independent shop for last 4 years...Im done with it. Have built a great business up from just 2 of us to 7 employees and just broke ground on new 16 bay shop to be done by years end...and I'm over it. I've simply lost all love for the trade and dealing with people in a retail aspect every day. I'll go back to school if need be no problem...but whats out there for an organized, determined and very technically skilled former auto tech? I'm entertaining finishing a biology degree and trying to get on with fishing and game...I think I'd enjoy the work ...I just don't know if I could swallow the pay.
-Cost of living? We noted Groceries are a bit higher in WY, MT...but not drastically so. Fuel about on par, Initial housing costs are higher for sure which we have WELL educated ourselves on...but how about property taxes? What does Wyoming hit you for on a 2500 sq.ft house on 20-60 acres?($800k-1.3mil range) tax wise?
How steep are electric rates?
-Finances: Just for clarity...we are in a good financial position presently...If I didn't work for a year or so to go back to school for training/degree finishing we would be fine so long as we don't take on a huge mortgage...currently dept free other than a small mortgage...simply because the rate is to low to bother paying off... plenty of savings/retirement/investments...but if anyone classified us as "rich or wealthy"...Id tell them they need to reevaluate their expectations in life...we are financially secure, not meaning that as any sort of boast, but it certainly plays into the information I'm searching for.
We have no romanticized notions of utopia in the mountains...We know the winters are longer and colder, we know it's windy...all the time, we know it takes longer to get places and winter weathercan strand you at times if not careful, we know there are fires and smoke to deal with at times, we know it's drier and water access/rights must be thoroughly investigated before making any realestate moves, we know we have 15-20 years of work ahead of us still...we have been doing and continue our homework everyday.
We are HIGHLY self sufficient people, raise/grow much of our own food, I've built or rebuilt a few houses and am yet to find much I cant fix, operate or salvage so we can deal with alot of hurdles that would cripple most folks around here...a big part of the reason for the move, we just don't fit in here too well. Fine dining, urban entertainment or nite life entertainment is of no concern to us.
Tell me the bad stuff as well...if you lived there and bailed after few years or even after spending most of your life there...Why? What draws/keeps you there or what sent you another direction?
I'll stop there for the time being and revisit here in a bit...I know I'm putting alot out there and I know we'll haven't answer alot of this for ourselves. I'm just fishing for any info/input to add to the database.
Thanks for anything you have to offer...constructive or not
You just compared Ohio to MT?
That honestly sounds good compared to the 10 month summers we have here in Australia.
It's a personal thing of course, luckily for society everybody is different and different things make people tick. For me if I can't sleep I can get out of bed at 1am and go flounder gigging, check the fields for hogs or coyotes with thermals, etc. We duck hunt all December and January all over the coast, tons of birds and it's all public bays, season starts in November but we're still big game hunting then. Not even gonna get into the huge variety of fishing but if the freezer is stocked with fish we'll kick back on the beach catching and releasing sharks. Low tide go scrape up some oysters, run crab traps, etc... Deer Season is Oct-Dec. For me there's just a lot more to do 365 days a year down here, more options all around. Two of my sons lived in Wyoming for three years and I had a blast up there running around with them, I'd stay for months at a time. I hunted grouse and "guided" them on antelope and elk hunts and we caught rainbows and brookies galore. But I'd always get bored and wrap up and head home. The hunting/seasons up there were short for me. I think the big complaints about the weather aren't that people can't handle it it's just that people get bored and tired of sitting around the house. I'll say this, if the family had some snow machines it would've extended our recreation quite a bit. We all snow ski'd but ended up going to Colorado a lot for that. Never tried ice fishing but I suspect if we did move that would've had to be on the menu but it just doesn't appeal to me right now. I'm sure there's a ton I never discovered up there but I talked to the neighbors all the time, they all hunted and fished but for 7 months out of the year most of them just went out drinking and concerts in Colorado.
It's not that the wind is so bad, it's just hard to go fishing in the wind, hunting can be tough depending what you're hunting, so the wind takes a lot of outdoors days away from you.I've read so much about "the wind"... Hell, we live in one of the windiest spots around here...ontop of a hill at the peak of a valley facing due west. I've spent a cumulative time of over a month in various parts of wyoming over the last few years and yes...its windy...but never has it stuck me as the standing behind a jet engine wind that so many seem to mention...perhaps my timing has just been fortuitous
MT is full as well.Noted...We'll head to MT to fish, will get a divorce before we move just to make that part easier once we are there and I'll start making my kids lives hell from today on so they know what to expect....Oh....and I'll do my best to buy an older estate sale property...that way I know I'm just filling in a void from a deceased resident and not taking up any previously unused space, that just sounds like the polite thing to do.
Thanks!
We have “hills”You just compared Ohio to MT?
I realize you're joking, but lack of women could be a serious concern for a family with teenage sons.
East of here has no draw for us, but eastern Ohio/WV are certainly not without their own kind of beauty.My GF was in Bozeman last week visiting a friend. Friends 2 bedroom condo on the 3rd floor was $300,000.
GF looked a lot in Bozeman $300,000
How does the average hippie making coffee or working in a bookstore afford to live there?
I make decent money in the medical field and those prices give my chest pain.
Just looked at a house with 56 acres here in SE Ohio for $400,000. Our winters are getting milder and the summers hotter.
If you’re moving for the weather, there are more reasonable prices out there.
I’ll be 56 in a few weeks, I really don’t know if I want another house
