Seriously, I think I am beginning to understand what “chasing your tail” means as it applies to humans.
As I’ve mentioned on here many times before, I want to move back to Missouri when we retire. Vince isn’t so fired up about that idea. When we thought Rita wasn’t already blind, I had about convinced him that we should buy a house in MO, I would stay some there and some here, Rita would become familiar with our “retirement” home and . . when he’s done working, off we would go. He wasn’t 100% sold on the idea, even though I found a house, he did agree that I could ask the realtor some questions. We were both pretty happy with the house but just not sure having a place there and a place here was a good idea. Then we found out Rita was already blind. Down the tubes with that great idea of mine!
The house we found truly has everything we think we want:
- Basement
- Safe Room
- Good well
- Chicken coop and runs
- Raised beds for gardening
- 3 car attached garage
- Two – 30 x 40 shops
- Two a/c units for the house
- Nice kitchen
- Fruit trees
- Stocked pond
- 10 acres
- Green grass and trees
And, it’s a bit over an hour from Chad and getting to either Springfield or Joplin is a piece of cake.
We thought Missouri had changed their system and had stopped taxing social security and pension payments. From what I can tell, they’re still doing it so Vince said NO! Why would I leave Texas where I pay zero state income tax and move there and pay taxes on the same income that is not taxable here.
But, I want to live where the grass is green and trees grow!
He decided he would move to the Toledo Bend area of Louisiana or somewhere in east Texas. Really, all I want is Missouri. Really, I don’t care what state . . I just want to be within an easy drive of Chad, Nicole and Addie.
We began looking at houses in east Texas (online). Most of Texas is pretty darned proud of their real estate. After spending hours and hours looking, I said “Vince, if we can get the same house in Missouri for $100,000 less than in Texas, why are you squawking about paying income tax on retirement income?”
Property tax rates are about equal in MO but since, for the most part, houses, cost less, the taxes are a bit less.
Even though we love that house, and even if we knew for sure we were going to retire in MO, we will still wait. It’s just good to know that housing costs are more reasonable there and there are several houses on the market now that we could be happy with so I’m confident when the time comes, if we decide to go there, we won’t have any trouble finding something.
I was feeling pretty confident that Vince was going to agree to moving and then today . . good news (I guess). One of the reasons Vince has been adamant about not staying here are the electric rates. We have solar panels but we may outlive those and we’re still paying outrageous amounts for the transmission lines. The company we are with here has the highest rates in the state and real close to the highest rates in the nation. There’s been a group on Facebook fighting every rate increase they’ve tried to get (often unsuccessfully) but they have held their feet to the fire. We’ve written letters to the PUC, we’ve written to our representatives and today . . it was announced that Oncor is taking over all of Sharyland’s transmission lines and retail distribution business. Oncor has the lowest rates in the state. Once the transfer is approved and finalized, supposedly by the 4th quarter of this year, our transmission rates will drop by 55%.
Electric Bill
This will be huge for people without solar panels but even for us, this is our current bill. If we had already been on Oncor, this most recent bill would have been $28.87 for the TDU delivery charges, less the $9.20 credit and our bill would have been $19.67 instead of $54.96.
Electric Bill
On an earlier bill, instead of $43.60 for TDU, we would have paid $19.62 (weird that number is so close to one of the numbers above!) and with the $31.50 credit, we would have had a net credit of $16.12.
These numbers aren’t going to change our lifestyle but I do believe with Oncor, we’ll end up generating enough credit during fall, winter and spring, that we should never have to pay an electric bill . . at least as long as we live here. On the other hand, my luck . . Vince will decide that’s reason enough to stay in Texas forever.
Pretty amazing, huh?
thequiltingprofessor says
Judy, I love your indecision and honesty – my DH and I are trying to figure out our retirement location, too – it’s hard !!!!
Don’t underestimate Rita – blind dogs are amazingly adjustable. She could move, you would just need to limit her scope of movement at first – one single room, then two, then three….. but she could figure it out. She is still a smart, plucky little dog.
Nancy Boyd says
I am so glad we left Texas. Could not take the Texas summers. Love the seasons and loveMissouri. When you retire and get older you need to be around family. I know you will make the right recision.
cindy says
Judy, I had a dog that went blind between moving out of the old house and into the new house (the dogs stayed at the old house until it was sold). She was a problem outside with a lot of barking at the neighbors, but when we brought her inside, she found her way around and learned the new house with no problem. She had never been around stairs before, so we were worried about those, but she never realized that they were there and never attempted to climb them. Around the same time, the cat, who had been mostly living in the front yard, developed diabetes and had to be brought in in order to be given shots. He stayed upstairs, the dog stayed downstairs. They were friends, but never realized the other was there and both lived good long lives. Rita will adapt to any new house as long as things are put in place and not moved around. Oh, the vet put some sort of stuff in the dog’s eyeballs so they did not develop new pressure and did not have to be removed. Even after that, there were times that I would have sworn she could see. She would walk along the wall (yeah, they got filthy) until her head gently touched the couch and then lay down.
Cilla Tyler says
My agility champion Dachshund went blind at 4 years old and I could take her anywhere and she would adapt. She never allowed her blindness to hinder her happiness (except her agility) or her traveling.
I love your electric bill. Wish it were mine. I pay over $200 a month for electric.
Diana K Stewart says
I hope you have better luck with Oncor than our area. They are not maintaining the lines and we keep having power outages. Never for long periods of time but enough and often enough that the people who work from home are getting quite disgusted. So now there is a group taking a petition to the PUC to get some answers. For us it is not a problem but am concerned about what it does to the appliances etc. Has tripped a circuit breaker or two.
Paula (Texas) says
Judy, you could move closer to the Gulf Coast of Texas. We have plenty of green grass and trees, even though it hasn’t rained at my house for about three weeks!
Lee Young says
I agree, in ‘retirement’, I want green, and trees. I’ve been in SoCal since 1972 and dislike it more as each year passes. I’ve wanted to return to the land of my youth (the Pacific NW) but family is aging & dying off, and family’s been more of a draw than the green & trees. We’ll likely die here even though the hubs wants to get out of this state…he’d prefer somewhere hot I think…he can go and I’ll find somewhere cool – we joke about that all the time.
cassews says
I have given up on the debate of do we stay here or do we move to a piece of property and build .. As long as his parents are alive; I guess we will stay(against my protests) here at our 1/2 plot of land in a subdivision; putting up with neighbors etc…I have thrown my hands up in the air.