Tell me How do you like liveing near the ocean?

[LightingElectricDream]

Sooooo..
I am itching to get out of cold colorado.
And I may be wanting to move the only worry with this is.

What's your liveing costs?
Like standard rent, food, gas, ect..

Do you have any worries like weather?

What do you hate about where you live?

What are the things you love about it?

Would you move?

[BlackCurtains]

I live on the Gulf coast of Florida.

Approximately here.

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Average rent is around $1000 unless you're over 55. If you want to live super close to a beach you're looking at way more than that. Low cost rent runs about 600 but apartments are hard to find.

Weather is humid, unbearable hot, sticky... like breathing through jello. Or it's a downpour and everything floods. We might have two weeks around January where it gets "cold" but it doesn't get much lower than 50. Although a couple years back we had a night or two in the 30s, which was wild.

Hurricanes and tornadoes are a hazard. 

FIRE ANTS. There are fire ants everywhere. I think it's too cold for you to have them in Colorado? THEY ARE THE WORST THING. Seriously. I have been in the water with sharks, no biggie. There are alligators in my yard, who cares? Black and brown widow spiders are super common, so what. FIRE ANTS ARE WAY MORE SCARY AND I HATE THEM. You need to be on top of the ants all the time or they will take over everything you own. Pest control is a must if you live here.

What do I like about it? Uh... um... well. The non-ant wildlife is really nice. There are bobcats and fox and bald eagles in my neighborhood.

A lot of people won't swim in the gulf but I do. It's amazing having wild dolphins come up to you or swim along side a manatee. We have sea turtles that come ashore and lay eggs and you can volunteer as turtle watch to make sure the mothers aren't harassed by tourists. Then later you can help gather the babies who get lost and don't make it to the water - they go to the hatchery until they're older and then get released.

Snorkeling for shark teeth and shells. All of that is pretty awesome.

But I guess if you're not into nature none of that matters

Would I move? That's hard. I've lived here for 10 years and I'm kind of settled professionally. I would be much happier in a different climate. I'm just not sure I want to start over again somewhere new.

[Crowning_Glory13]

I lived in Iowa then moved to the Florida Keys, then Sarasota, Fl, and now landing in Wisconsin.

Living on a boat is cheaper by far. I was spending about $500 a month and having electricity, sometimes Internet, and with 3 cats and a dog. You really have to down size for this and climet control is hardly possible. PM me for details on this if you would like.

I did move into an apartment. It was $800 month. I had to pay water, electric, and pet fees.

Black Curtains is right. There is a lot more options for the 55 and over community.

My husband and I worked two jobs to make ends meet at times. Cost of things are a bit higher. When we did have free time we loved the beaches. During tourist season about Nov to April they can be crowded...but the summers are the busiest.

The weather did not bother me. But I am always cold. It could be 100 degrees and I would still have a hoodie. You do get used to warm ocean water...like nice warm bather water. My husband and I are divers and the keys were amazing. If you look for Island life look at Marathon or Big Pine Key. They are not has high cost as Key Largo or Key West.

As for weather...it can be funny. They can say 100% chance or rain and have no rain or 0% chance and have a down pour. The islands had pop up storms all the time. They were not to bad with the boat. When it came time for tropical storms or bigger you just watch the weather. Most places have either an evacuation policy or procedures when things go in that direction. The north has snow days and the south has storm days.

I only have been there for about 3 years. I did not find many friends there so it was not my enjoyment, but I was also in the service industry and that's a mix of people, and I was normally working. I missed the snow soooooo badly. Crazy I know.

I would be more then happy to answer any questions.

[scarletjul]

I live in Northern CA.  We're about an hour from the beach.  Also an hour from San Francisco. 

I know living costs here are super expensive.  I live at home; I can't afford to live on my own. 
If you want to go live in Santa Cruz (the closest beach,) average rent appears to be about $1500.  Minimum wage in San Jose is $10/hr.  Tax rate is 8.75%

Weather is usually nice.  Lots of sunshine but also lots of smog.  We're in the middle of a very long drought, so rain has been rare.  It stays warm here until October.  CA also had a lot of wildfires over the summer, which totally affected the weather.   

I'm a CA girl at heart, so I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.  I love being somewhat near so many things, from the mountains to the beach to the city.  I appreciate that this area is so diverse.  However, it is also really expensive.  That would be my one complaint.

If I had to move anywhere, it would be to NY - but I don't know if I could handle the weather there.     

 

[Princess Lala]

*storms in busting this thread's doors with a huuuuuge grin*

MMEMEMEMMEMEMEMEMEMEMEEEE MEEEEEEE!

The ocean is everything to me, I would even go as far as saying its the MOST important thing to me ever.

I am a TRUE Floridean girl who LOVES and misses EVERYTHING about living near the ocean, the Gulf of Mexico IS my home quite literally. I lived on a Key out in the Gulf! My childhood was me living on the luxurious Longboat Key- (an Island made up of coral, shells, and reefs. The water looks like the Bahamas which I have been to) I also lived in Lakeland, FL where the beach was only an hour away. Irritating for me... but at least it was 2 hours max from LBK.

Words CANNOT express HOW much I miss living ON the beach- its literally a paradise come true. To wake up and have miles of beautiful white sand outside your doorstep with new things to discover washed up onshore NEVER gets boring! Even in Lakland it was nice knowing the nicest beaches were so close to home. Its something magical someone who grew up elsewhere not on a beach cant understand. I have zillions of marine animal encounter stories from manatees, dolphins, sharks, and beachcombing. Dawn was breathtakingly beautiful in a way I cant express in words and nightime was windy with lots of crashing waves luring me to sleep. The ONLY thing I didnt like about living near the beach was we had to drive miles across a looooong bridge on the Gulf  just to go to school and grocery shop. I was always afraid our car would fall in the water! xD We were also prone to flooding at sea level but it never happened there even in the most knarly storms we got. Even in Sarasota it was wonderful to play in the Bay, we would take the boat up there and scuba dive for sea sponges, broken pieces of coral, scallops, and megaladon shark teeth. Fall time got a little chilly, but I never felt "autumn" weather until about January. It felt perfectly normal living near the ocean on Xmas even though was no snow, we would go to Disney World and celebrate Xmas there and have a dinner at home then go find seashells- I wouldnt have it any other way.

As far as living cost, we had a normal 3 bedroom house and it was nice and if my dad could afford it, it wasnt too expensive (maybe $200k ish?) I know the apartments are inbetween $600-$800 months rent on LBK because I recently looked into them, its cheap because you have to drive to Sarasota to go shopping. Weather was not bad at all, random rainstorms and thunderstorms daily but nothing no one can handle. Where I lived seldom gets hurricanes. Wildlife is of course hardcore amazing, as exotic variety as you can get in the US in my opinion! Gators and sharks might sound scary but in reality they dont want to mess with you.

So when my dad died I was forced by CPS in my mid teenhood to move up the the north states my relatives in Indiana and Minnesota and then got married and moved to Texas with my husband when I graduated high school. I hated both MN and IN soooo bad, I hate forests and I hate freshwater with a hard firey fashion because its NOT the ocean and does not make up for it. I cannot tell you HOW homesick I am of the beach, I HATE not living near the ocean, and I do not simply understand why or how someone can live so far away from it!!! I cant stand all these feilds and forests, its BORING and its driving me so FREAKIN insane! I love all the fancy shopping centers and high class resturants in north of Dallas, but honestly I hate it because no decent clean beach for 8 hours.

Hubby and I are almost desperate to move back somewhere inbetween where we grew up because we need the ocean. Since I am currently residing in Texas, its almost mandatory for us to drive to the beach at MOST every 3 months (South Padre or Mustang Island if in Texas) because I get THAT homesick from the ocean it causes me such severe stress. I just cant seperate myself from the ocean. In fact, im going to South Padre Island in just TWO days and leaving for a week! To be honest, my husband and I have been pricing out houses in the safer mainland of Florida even though we live in NE Texas. My husband lived and grew up on Key West, so he is an ocean baby too and gets pretty homesick- especially in spring. If the companies we work for branch out to FL or the coast of Texas we are moving there in a heartbeat no joke! I just do NOT see the point of hubbykins and I getting a house here in DFW since we are trying to move out of the State. We want to our future child have the luxury of living near the beach as we both did, not here in the temperate climate of Texas. So living near the ocean? I highly recondmend it from personal true experience.

Post Merge: September 16, 2016, 02:43:27 AM

FIRE ANTS. There are fire ants everywhere. I think it's too cold for you to have them in Colorado? THEY ARE THE WORST THING. Seriously. I have been in the water with sharks, no biggie. There are alligators in my yard, who cares? Black and brown widow spiders are super common, so what. FIRE ANTS ARE WAY MORE SCARY AND I HATE THEM. You need to be on top of the ants all the time or they will take over everything you own. Pest control is a must if you live here.

Oooooo seconding this!!! Even on LBK we had fire ants near the grassy areas and by the trees, sometimes on the sandy beach areas the water never touched. We had a mound of them in our back yard and they are terrifying x( In Lakeland we would literally get ATTACKED by them at school as we stood outside with our friends before the bell rang! We would be slapping our legs silly if we stood in one spot too long! xD

Funny thing is we didnt have any other pest problem! No cockroaches, no palmetto bugs, no " bull ants" we called em, no misquiteers, no mice, just stinkin fire ants everywhere! 

Black Curtian, I also never understood why so many people tend to perfer the Altalntic beaches over the Gulf ones! The Gulf is soooo much prettier and has always given me cooler marine souvenirs! 

[Vertefae]

I was stationed in Biloxi for seven months. The beach was a ten minute walk from my room. I cannot tell you HOW much I loved it. And how homesick I am for the Gulf. The ocean creeps into your soul and owns you. It was hot, but always with a nice ocean breeze over the top. I'm from north Ga so humidity is nothing at the beach for me. Rent for a small house is about $700-$800. A bit more if you want walking distance to the water. It stayed warm until January (we went to the beach at Christmas). Cold for a few weeks and then it would start warming up again. Hurricanes are a concern but you have plenty of advance warning to evacuate if needed. Honestly Ga tornadoes scare me more.

If I could find a research job there, we'd move in a heartbeat. I grew up with lots of visits to the coast, Biloxi just solidified my hearts content.

[Princess Lala]

I was stationed in Biloxi for seven months. The beach was a ten minute walk from my room. I cannot tell you HOW much I loved it. And how homesick I am for the Gulf. The ocean creeps into your soul and owns you. It was hot, but always with a nice ocean breeze over the top. I'm from north Ga so humidity is nothing at the beach for me. Rent for a small house is about $700-$800. A bit more if you want walking distance to the water. It stayed warm until January (we went to the beach at Christmas). Cold for a few weeks and then it would start warming up again. Hurricanes are a concern but you have plenty of advance warning to evacuate if needed. Honestly Ga tornadoes scare me more.

If I could find a research job there, we'd move in a heartbeat. I grew up with lots of visits to the coast, Biloxi just solidified my hearts content.

OMG eeeeek Biloxi as in Biloxi Mississippi, yes!?  I travel through the area when we drive from Texas to Florida, and honestly it surprised me that such a beautiful beach exists in MS! Im always like, "Babe can we stop here instead to take a break!?" on the car ride! Never would I expect MS to have such a pretty place with beautiful white sand and greenish-blue water! I always assumed the runoff from the Mississippi River made the water muddy but not there!

[shelvesofwhimsy]

I live in San Francisco, about 30 blocks from the beach and I LOVE IT!
Yes rent is super high, living costs may be a bit higher, but overall I love this city and seeing the ocean so often is wonderful. Its great knowing I can walk to the beach and the sunsets...so perfect!
The weather is pretty mild here. Its cooler nights and warm to coolish days. Hot weather in September and October, and no SNOW.
What I don't like is the homeless people. But otherwise its pretty great

I also used to live in Rhode Island and also loved being close to the beach there. Its much more quiet.

[melodys_angel]

I live 5 minutes away from a major lake.

With a large body of water, weather will be a factor.  Wet humidity in summer is brutal.  Its a few degrees warmer because of the water temperature difference.  And Lake effect snow can happen.

[Vertefae]

I was stationed in Biloxi for seven months. The beach was a ten minute walk from my room. I cannot tell you HOW much I loved it. And how homesick I am for the Gulf. The ocean creeps into your soul and owns you. It was hot, but always with a nice ocean breeze over the top. I'm from north Ga so humidity is nothing at the beach for me. Rent for a small house is about $700-$800. A bit more if you want walking distance to the water. It stayed warm until January (we went to the beach at Christmas). Cold for a few weeks and then it would start warming up again. Hurricanes are a concern but you have plenty of advance warning to evacuate if needed. Honestly Ga tornadoes scare me more.

If I could find a research job there, we'd move in a heartbeat. I grew up with lots of visits to the coast, Biloxi just solidified my hearts content.

OMG eeeeek Biloxi as in Biloxi Mississippi, yes!?  I travel through the area when we drive from Texas to Florida, and honestly it surprised me that such a beautiful beach exists in MS! Im always like, "Babe can we stop here instead to take a break!?" on the car ride! Never would I expect MS to have such a pretty place with beautiful white sand and greenish-blue water! I always assumed the runoff from the Mississippi River made the water muddy but not there!

Yes!!!

After hurricane Katrina they trucked in white sand from Florida. Mississippi has the prettiest beaches on the gulf. Plus the food is Devine! A mixture of seafood and creole.

[goddessofpeep]

I live in Southern California.

What's your living costs?
Like standard rent, food, gas, ect..
Rent is crazy expensive.  Houses are crazy expensive.  Most locations that are actually nice are really pricey.  I haven't rented in a while, but I'd estimate that it'll be over $2000 for any apartment that's of decent size and state(ie not on fire or infested with some lifeform that hasn't been identified yet) in a moderate neighborhood.  Houses in the "cheap" part of town start at around $350,000 and go up from there.  You can find cheaper the farther out you go, but then you get into the 3 hour each way commute, and living in the middle of nowhere in the desert.

Gas is always the highest in the nation, especially in summer when the "summer blend" gas hits(it's got extra something in it - no idea what - that raises the price a lot over the summer).  Food is expensive, though some of the Mexican super markets can have things for more reasonable prices.  They're not always the best quality food, but it can be more in line with what the rest of the country pays.  Utilities are expensive.  Water is expensive, and has been going up since the drought hit.  Electricity is ridiculously expensive.  Pretty much nothing's cheap.  They have cost of living calculators online - you can see how bad it is.

Oh, and if you have any medical issues, good luck with that.  Medical care and prescription drugs aren't cheap here either.  Insurance is INSANE, and most of the major insurance companies get sued regularly for neglecting to provide the care that people are paying for.  I personally got denied when the bill came due for a test that I had been PRE-APPROVED to get.  They claimed that an MRI was an "experimental procedure" so they wouldn't pay.  It happens all the time here.  They actually  have people whose sole purpose is to figure out ways to deny legitimate claims.

Do you have any worries like weather? 
Well, we have less weather woes than most people, but we've got a lot of other problems to compensate.  Summer is wildfire season, followed by mudslide season in the winter when it rains.  Earthquakes are a constant threat too.  I personally hate the weather.  I don't tan in the sun, I burn.  I don't deal well with the heat either, and many of the cheaper areas to live in are inland and away from the cooling influence of the ocean.  They can be hot.  Really hot.  This summer we had one day over here where it got to be 122 degrees outside, and we're not even in the high desert!  There aren't really seasons to speak of, so if you're used to snow around Christmas, or anything other than constant(incredibly harsh) sun, then you're going to be in for a rude awakening.  Though the flipside to that is if you hate winter slush misery, you'll never have to deal with that here.  No scraping off your car in the morning.  No frost bitten toes.  If you want to see snow, you have to drive to one of the mountains to the ski resorts.  The drought is also a serious issue, so if you move here be prepared for everything that is involved with that(watering limits, fines for using too much water, etc).

What do you hate about where you live?
Well, I hate the weather most of the time, but that's not the worst thing here.  It's the traffic.  When giving directions, nobody ever uses how many miles it is from one point to another - they give a time.  Distance means nothing here unless it's to give an indication of how much misery you're going to have to sit through on the streets.  I've personally taken 45 minutes to go one block in Friday rush hour before.  My husband got heat stroke on the freeway one day because he was sitting there, not moving, for THAT long.  He now keeps a hat and some sunblock in the car - just in case.  There are just SO many people here.  It's almost impossible to get away from it all.  There's always lines wherever you go. It's incredibly hard to find a place where you're not surrounded by tons of people.  I spend most of my time trying to find the right time and circumstances for me to be able to run my errands with the minimum of sitting in traffic or waiting in line.  And everybody goes completely crazy behind the wheel too.  I don't know if it's the shared misery of all that traffic, or if people here are just nuts, but driving here is terrifying. 

What are the things you love about it?
There are a few benefits to living here.  #1 is that a lot of stuff happens here, so I have easy access to a lot of things that most people have to travel to experience.  I have a pass to Disneyland, so I can go pretty much whenever I want.  SDCC is just a two hour drive away(or a 6 hour drive if you don't leave at 5am...).  There are a lot of major conventions, most touring things stop here, and there are a significant number of big ticket tourist attractions within a few hours of this place.  And central California is really fun too.  It's a very doable weekend trip.  Vegas is just 5 hours away(3 if you hit the right traffic and don't care about your driving record if you get caught doing 100+) if that's your thing. 
#2 is with all the different people living here, you have access to a lot of stuff that most people don't.  There are grocery stores for pretty much every ethnicity you can think of.  Decide on a whim that you want to learn to cook Japanese food?  No problem, there's a chain of Japanese super markets!  Want to try Nigerian food?  No problem!  There's more than one place that serves that!  I'm always sending out interesting candies, toys, and other things from places all over the world to my friends for presents.  I've been to British stores, Japanese stores, Chinese stores, German stores, Russian stores, Mexican stores,  and a host of other stores.  There's an area that has a lot of Hawaiian people living here - complete with a market and several restaurants to match. 

Would you move?
Yup. Tomorrow if that was possible.