OMG...we are moving to Orlando!

[Andtototoo]

I notice on the dis that there are quite a few thread were the poster is moving to Orlando and so very excited about that. Really, I'm not sure why that is. Probably because it's a Disney site. Really though, Orlando is just another place to live. I like having a house here, but it's really no different than anywhere else except maybe the weather difference that it is being compared too.

We are looking into moving to Florida (or GA or the Carolinas) largely due to the weather difference. My husband has Raynaud's Syndrome so being in the cold is excruciatingly painful for him. My dd and I were both diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency after the winter this year (meaning we were both so fatigued, daily life was a tremendous obstacle). We also know two people who fell in icy parking lots, hit their heads, and died in the last two years which makes you a little anxious about daily life, kwim? We've gotten to the point where we are sick of driving in the snow in part because the DOT has moved away from salt use, so the roads are icier than they used to be. So we don't go places in the winter. Which means you are stuck at home. So the weather difference can seriously affect your quality of life. It's not a small thing.

When FL people complain about their utiility bills or property tax rates, they need to keep in mind that it's all dependent on what you're used to. The property tax rates in the parts of FL we've been looking into are anywhere from 75--25% lower than what we pay now. That's substantially less. Our utility bills are similar to more expensive than Florida's. So for us, just looking at the cost of home occupancy, it's much cheaper in FL than where we live now.