Ten Reasons Why We Are Florida-Bound (part 2)

And here's part 2 of our list of reasons why we are doing a move to Florida.

6. Access to Healthy Food

Over the past few years, we’ve been lucky to be part of a CSA in Maryland. With a bit of driving, we can pick up locally grown food once a week for six months out of the year. That is certainly good news. The bad news is that a lot of the foods grown during that time period…well, it’s hit or miss about what we like. This area does a lot of squash. With the exception of zucchini and maybe an occasional spaghetti squash I can go through the rest of my life without eating squash. There’s also a lot of potatoes (which aren’t the best for me) and corn (which comes in at a rate that we can’t possibly keep up with—6-12 ears per week for three months or more!). Looking at what is grown locally in where we are living in Florida, we will have easy access to locally grown bananas, blueberries, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cantaloupes, carrots, cauliflower, celery, coconuts, corn, cucumbers, grapes, green beans, lettuce, limes, mushrooms, onions, oranges, peanuts, peas, potatoes, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, and watermelon (and more!) in various seasons year-round. There will always be fresh fruits and vegetables in season, and we’ll have access to farms to get them.

Aside from the farms themselves, we’ll have access to two farmer’s markets that I know of in in our immediate area and several local butchers and fishmongers and even a local organic honey company and a local tea company using bamboo leaf tea blends (who knew?). There’s a big focus on local, sustainable, organic foods at all of these. Travel to the actual farms themselves will be comparable with driving to farms here, but the farmer’s markets are much closer. I haven’t checked to see if a CSA is available because while we are in an apartment, a CSA is a big challenge to keep up with. As late as last night, there was an announcement about an “artisan hall” being constructed nearby that will house stalls with homemade/homegrown products (bread, cheese, teas, fruits and vegetables, etc.). The area is very much focused on access to healthy foods.

But even with all the great local stuff to cook, sometimes we just want someone to wait on us. With the high tourist demand, there’s a lot more choices of restaurants in the area that aren’t just cookie cutter chain restaurants. (Although truth told, there is one chain restaurant we’re very happy to have down there – Sweet Tomatoes is a personal favorite of ours!) And yes, there’s still plenty of indulgences to splurge on. I may not have picked our new apartment because there’s a French bakery within walking distance, but that certainly doesn’t hurt!

7. Better Socialization Options

The DC metro area is great to find people to socialize with if you are child-free and you are okay with driving long distances in traffic (or taking Metro) to meet up with folks. Unfortunately, if you are part of the child-free scene and suddenly have a kid, it becomes awkward to maintain friendships with those people. Likewise, if you’re over the idea of spending as much time in your car as you do sitting down for meals, it becomes very difficult to maintain in-person friendships.

For the “with kid” set, the DC metro area is also fairly good about providing “mommy dates” for letting kids run around and have a blast while the moms try to pretend to like each other or are being entertained by a place that they wouldn’t go but for the fact that they’ve got this kid date going on. If you are a family with mom + dad + kid, a lot of the groups are geared towards one pairing or the other -- so mom + kid is okay, and dad + kid is okay especially if you are a single parent (otherwise it is a bit weird that a dad is taking the kid to one of these meetups), but mom + dad + kid is unusual. But if you want to find opportunities for socialization that aren’t wholly kid-centric among these folks, it becomes more difficult. There’s not as much focus on doing family things as a family that the whole family will enjoy, especially in the winter months. That is something that is much more prevalent in Florida.

My husband and I have very different views from the majority of people we meet up here in terms of how to live life, spiritual-religious views of the universe, and so on. Someone recently shared an article with me about the DC scene being much more focused on “what you do” (especially in terms of job/career) than who you are. There is a lot of clawing to get to the top, and we’re much more laid back than that. It is more healthy to surround us with lower-stress people…and much less frustrating for the people around us not to have major envy cases about our lack of stress in life because of our choice to have a low-stress life or our socio-economic status.

Because the idea of driving a half hour in Florida is a loooong drive, lots of social activities happen in one’s own neighborhood. I’m certainly looking forward to Food Truck Fridays, but also meeting up with local run-walk family groups on Saturday morning to burn off those calories! Up here, finding similar events would either require a trip on the Metro or driving an hour or more.

8. Overall Quality of Life

This one is an intangible item, but it certainly comes into play for the move. The place where we’re looking to build is working towards being a very forward-thinking type of community in terms of advances in urban planning. Perhaps the seed of this was started with the original vision for EPCOT and what later happened with Celebration, but projects like Destiny and Horizon West are very forward in terms of urban planning and community growing. In many ways, it is like getting into Columbia, MD 2.0 on the ground floor. Being in a community where there is a focus on healthy living and a high quality of life is something that we can’t find (or would be able to afford if it did exist) up here.

And outside of our personal community, there are additional benefits. Little things like being able to eat dinner on our lanai or wander around World Showcase in the evening if we are bored or watch fireworks from our porch…those are intangibles that you can’t put a price on. Also being able to have the start of a new life with a clean slate – that’s something you can’t put a price tag on. It also has allowed us to really dive right in with our change to a pragmatic minimalist lifestyle. It is amazing how much stuff you can clear out of the house when you are preparing for a move!

9. Better Home and Career Options

For professional careers, the DC area has three types of jobs: 1. Federal worker (or contractor working in support of the feds), 2. private company (or non-profit) working in conjunction with the feds, 3. company that is modeling itself on the mindset of working in the capital city. The focus is on doing “whatever it takes” to get the job done, long hours (often without adequate compensation), being “on the job” even when you aren’t on the clock (as evidenced by people addicted to their work smartphones even when they aren’t working!), and the emphasis that you must be driven to try and claw your way higher on the professional ladder. While some of this exists in businesses everywhere, the culture of DC is extremely aggressive about how it is implemented. If you are not cutthroat in attempting to get to the top, you often can end up in a dead-end position with no room for development.

The Orlando metro area is silently making strides towards becoming, in the words of some analysts, the next Silicon Valley. Even if it never goes that crazy, there is a tech renaissance in the area. That’s something my husband can benefit from. And since the downtown Orlando area is so cramped, most of the tech businesses are in the outskirts, which makes for easier commutes.

There’s also the home issue. This house has been marvelous for us. It has provided us a wonderful place to build a family. That being said, the house doesn’t fit well for our family at present. The house is basically two houses slapped on top of each other. Because of the layout, we don’t use the basement level at all (aside from the accumulation of….stuff). That means we’re paying utilities for half a house that we never use. In addition, the upper level of the house, where we live, is really too small for our needs. There’s a lot of adjustments we’d want to make to the house, but spending the money on it would price the house out of the neighborhood. However, if we took the proceeds from the house sale and tried to buy something to better suit our needs (in a better school area), we couldn’t afford it. Moving down to build a house that exactly meets our needs in an area that is better for us (at a price we can actually afford!) just makes sense.

10. Disney, Cruises, Beaches, and other Florida things

Yeah, we couldn’t get around a top ten list without mentioning these.

Disney is a huge draw. With annual passes, there’s so much we can do that doesn’t cost us anything additional. The first weekend we get down there, I’m hoping that we’ll get to go see the Flower and Garden festival free-flight hummingbird garden and then catch Herman’s Hermits in concert. Maybe we’ll let Lily play in one of the splash pads on the way out. I’m thinking a celebratory Dole Whip with rum. Something tells me our next road trip will involve coming up with a bucket list for our first year…

In addition to that, if we want to do Sea World, LegoLand, or Universal Studios, they are all nearby. That also doesn’t include all of the state and national parks, museums, and other attractions nearby. Although they aren’t free like the Smithsonian museums up here, it also doesn’t take an hour on Metro to get to all of them.

Here in Maryland, we can leave our house and in about 3 hours (unless bridge traffic is bad), we can see the “glorious” beaches of Ocean City. In Florida, we can be from our house to Sanibel Island in that length of time. If we want something closer, we can be in Cocoa Beach in an hour. If we want much closer, we can be at Typhoon Lagoon in 15 minutes. ;)

If we want to go on a cruise, we have a lot better selection leaving out of Port Canaveral or out of Tampa (or even Fort Lauderdale or Miami) than leaving from Baltimore. If we want to do a short 3-day cruise, we have that option without having to pay for transportation down to Florida.

We love doing both Marathon Weekend with runDisney in January as well as Reunion with WDW Today in December, but paying to travel down for both of them back to back is exceptionally cost-prohibitive. Right there we can attend those two events but save around $2,000 in travel expenses. It is much better than trying to choose one or the other and then having “travel envy” watching everyone posting how much fun they’re having.

And in addition to that, Florida just has some really cool things you can’t do elsewhere. In DC, you can visit the Air and Space museum. In Florida, you can just go out and watch a rocket actually get launched. There’s a state park that does pancakes on a griddle at your table (think teppan-style pancakes!). Airboat rides. Going to see mermaids in the wild at Weeki Wachee. Picnics on the lawn with the carillon playing at Bok Tower. Feeding gators at Gatorland. Slumming it at Old Town. The huge (22 mile long) hiking/biking West Orange Trail. Picking oranges fresh from the groves. And did I mention Florida has a fascination with castles everywhere made of everything? And bacon festivals. And the Great American Pie Festival.

Because we’re living where we like to vacation, we can take the time and money that we’d normally spend on vacation to Florida and vacation elsewhere—to spend more than just a weekend here or there with family and see other things in this country and around the world.

So that’s it… an insight into why we are moving and why we are moving there. It isn’t for everyone, but for us, no other idea makes sense.

Ten Reasons Why We Are Florida-Bound (part 1)

It’s been forever since I updated this blog. I missed going on and on about a cruise on the Fantasy again in October (marvelous!). Totally skipped over the holidays (lovely!). I didn’t mention going down for race weekend and doing my first 10K (superb!). It’s probably because every free brain cell has been focusing on moving to Florida. This is something that has been in the works for several years now, and it is just such a relief that it is all smoothly proceeding towards fruition.

The main question I get from people is…why? (Well, aside from those who have already made the move to Florida. Those people just ask “Why did you wait so long?”)

Before we move next month, I figured it would be a good idea to get these reasons down to help answer everyone’s question. So here’s the top ten reasons why we are moving to Florida, in random order.

1. Financial Benefit:

Now that we’ve got estimates in for what our bills will be like down in Florida, we’re saving 10-40% for the “basic living” bills (electric, Internet/phone/cable, water/sewer, homeowner/renter’s insurance, mortgage/rent, and car insurance).

Groceries are cheaper, not only because of price (which is only about 5-10% cheaper), but because I’m not driving 1 hour round trip to go to a grocery store I like (Wegman’s). We also save some money because I won’t have access to the Wegman’s convenience foods that add to the bottom line – not to mention the waistline! Walking the quarter of a mile to Publix works for me in terms of price and health.

We also no longer will be paying for pest control service (included) or home security system until we get into our new home, so those bills are gone (at around $100/month, so it adds up).

Fuel is about 10-15 cents per gallon cheaper, and the distances we will be driving are less. We will be doing some travel on toll roads every now and then, but the tolls are a lot less than up here. My husband also won’t need to pay for parking, so that’s close to $150 a month going back into our pockets. Less driving also means less wear and tear on the cars.

That being said, in all likelihood, my husband’s salary will decrease a bit when he settles in a full-time local job. My work will remain the same, so my income will not change, however. It still would take a huge cut in pay for my husband in order to eat away all of the money we’re saving on our day-to-day bills.

2. Tax Benefit/Florida Resident Benefits

Coupled with the financial benefit is that there’s no state income tax in Florida. It also means I don’t have to pay someone to do my state income tax! Sales tax is 0.5% higher in our county in FL (or 1% higher the next county over), but as we don’t go shopping like we used to, it isn’t going to be a major impact.

There’s a decent number of places in Florida that offer Florida resident discounts, especially in the tourist zones. From hotel reservations to cruise bookings, these discounts will help us save quite a bit on things we pay higher prices for right now.

3. Weather and Air Quality

In the summer, weather is a toss-up in terms of temperature between here and there: it is equally as hot in the DC area as it is in Florida, just without the benefit of the 4 PM thunderstorm that blasts out the heat and humidity. In the winter, no question…Florida beats DC for more livable temperatures. No leaves to rake. No snow to shovel.

For severe weather, in Maryland I’ve had to go through hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, earthquakes, a derecho, and all sorts of other problematic bits of weather. Those types of things come into play in Florida as well—except the earthquakes.

But where the real difference comes into play is air quality, especially in the summer. Baltimore has the highest rate of premature death due to air quality in the country – more than NYC, LA, and so on. What kind of price can you put on 10 years of life that are sucked out of you with every breath you take? Across the board, air quality is better in Florida at present. (Historically there was higher lead particles in Florida than up here, but when a smelter was closed down a few years ago, that number dropped below the number up here.)

In the summer months, we cringe whenever Lily goes to the playground and see her come home coughing. We have certain days and certain times of day when even going out to get the mail from the mailbox is a no-no because we come inside wheezing and coughing. We have an air scrubber in her room for half of the year, but it isn’t an ideal way of life for her to live. The rest of us aren’t keen on it either.

The only hiccup in it all is that Florida can have wildfire outbreaks that puts smoke into the air. Then again, last year there were far more fires up here at the local peat factory down the road, so again, I think it is a wash.

4. Fitness

This almost could be 3B, because it is so closely tied to the air quality. I’m not an athletic person – never have been. The only forms of exercise that I have done well with were dance (when I was younger), swimming, and walk-running. I don’t think dance is something I’ll be getting into, but certainly up here swimming isn’t a very viable option the way it is in Florida. For the walk-running, around 9 months out of the year, it is dangerous for me to be outside trying to walk or run. From October through March, it is simply too cold for me to comfortably and safely be outside, which also is problematic for my breathing. From June through August, the air quality is too bad for me to spend time outside doing physical activity.

In addition, because of where our house is located, sidewalks aren’t always an option, and running along the shoulder of busy streets isn’t ideal. Because my husband spends so much time in the rat race commute, he isn’t able to get a run in before he leaves for work, and by the time he gets home, it is dark (so no safe running on those roads without sidewalks). That means when we are training for a race, every weekend is pretty much tied up with training runs. The only way we’ve managed to get it all in was having a treadmill in the house. Having more options means a greater chance of success in our fitness plans.

There are also a lot more really cool 5K, 10K, and half marathon races in Florida than there are up here. Being able to wake up and do a fun run on a Saturday morning is a wonderful motivator to keep in shape. There’s also a lot more encouragement to either walk to get to places or walking around places as fun things to do. Getting up and moving is half the battle in any fitness goals!

At some point, the area where we’re looking to build a house will have a “health and fitness complex”. Not sure on the details yet, but looking at the amount of land it takes up, it probably will have everything from medical and alternative medicine practitioners to spas and health resort treatments to actual fitness facilities. I can’t wait to see how that works out!

5. Schools

We’re very lucky that there’s a good preschool in Maryland that Lily is doing well at. Even though we’re shelling out almost the price of our two car payments combined per month, it has been a great benefit for her. After our move, we have found a comparable school for her to finish up preschool. The area where we are planning to live has amazingly good public elementary schools, so we won’t have to keep paying for private school. That is a HUGE savings long-term.

On the off chance that a brick-and-mortar school doesn’t work for her as she gets older, Florida does a lot more with having good options for virtual education and online programs than is available up here at present.

And looking very long term, should Lily decide to go to college, Florida has a greater number of really good in-state tuition options than Maryland, just because of the size of the state. If college is not where she wants to go, there are many more good options for trade schools in a variety of disciplines. There’s also good options for continuing education options for Erwin and I. (And not just at Disney Institute, although….)

Since this is getting long, let me put up these first five right now and get the other five up tomorrow. For those who are curious, the other five are: Access to Healthy Food, Better Socialization Options, Overall Quality of Life, Better Home and Career Options, and Disney/Beaches/Cruises/Vacations/Other Florida Things.