Born in MO, but college in IL, and after a stint in Germany (Army) moved back to IL, then OH, then NJ for the past 15 years until I came to the Villages.
So really from all over. I knew NJ had a bad reputation when I moved there, but my old boss took over my company's operations, so I took a flyer because I liked him. My salary did increase, as well as my title. But it needed to. Property taxes so high I had a $30,000 tax free subsidy for my 1st three years. State taxes were oppressive as well. And that got us nothing, we paid for trash, and FD was volunteer and constantly asking for donations. I had a septic system even though I was 1/4 mile from the treatment plant. Not enough capacity, and it was going to all the multifamily apartments the state was requiring my township to build in the name of "equity".
Schools were good, but no better than Ohio for half the property tax. When Covid hit, our state was the trifecta of NY, NJ, and PA that wanted to lock everything down, and, of course, sent infected people into nursing homes, resulting in 1,000s of deaths that shouldn't have happened.
We took advantage of the spike in home prices to sell our place (which never reached the price we paid in 2005) to get out and move into our place here.
So why do I dis NJ? Because it is a poorly run mess.
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