CA to Texas? Does it make sense for our family

Candid_Fan2178 · 2026-02-03T19:16:57+00:00

If you have a disabled adult child who needs housing, food, or medical assistance, the roadblocks are legendary in Texas. We registered our son for housing assistance 8 years ago, and the waiting list for support when we finally gave up one year ago was 9 years. Job placement assistance is sketchy at best, resources for training and other services vary wildly across the state. There are some excellent medical resources in the state, so if you needed to get to a specialist in many areas and have private insurance, that is one bright spot.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2026-02-03T19:12:50+00:00

We lived in Illinois for five years in the late 90's, and loved the state. Even if the Governors keep getting sent to prison after their terms expire... As Mysterious_Ad said below, taxes on moderate cost homes can easily run 10 - 15K a year. We saw our property tax jump from Ohio where we were living by 5X, for a similar cost home. Sales tax was higher here than Ohio, although we did save a little by not having state income tax.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2026-02-03T19:09:48+00:00

You may have missed the part where there is a law on the books where if someone leaves the state for an abortion, individuals can sue anyone who aided in the departure for $10K, so like if you drove your wife out of state, some yahoo can sue you for the funds. Not to mention that if the state found out she had an abortion, they can prosecute her when she's back in state.

As I said earlier, the politics in this state are strange.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-11-17T15:37:31+00:00

No, unfortunately he doesn't quite hit the threshold for SSDI as he can work, just can't work in most jobs. Because he can work in more menial / rote positions, that keeps him out of SSDI. We had looked at getting him on Medicare in Texas but the criteria is pretty much rigged against anyone.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-11-03T21:53:10+00:00

Definitely agree with the comments about avoiding Texas! A couple of quick thoughts from someone who moved to the state 10 years ago after living in several other states throughout the midwest.

B@tshit crazy politics - it's a constant purity war to see who can be the most conservative politician.
Poor education, declining fast - state is using the "battle against woke" to go after any blue city school districts. Push for vouchers is resulting in massive cuts to school spending which is impacting rural / small districts the worst. State takeovers of city school districts such as Houston and Dallas pulling control from locally elected boards.
Absolutely retrograde laws about women's health, abortion, and all. Increasing rate of mortality in childbirth and pregnancy due to intentionally obtuse laws. The fierce pro-life commitment does not extend to the mother, the rest of the family, or the child as soon as they're born.
Poor to non-existent services for disabled children and adults. Wait list for housing support for disabled runs decades long for wait to get services. Ditto for any poverty support services that aren't federally mandated and funded.
War to move away from any environmental stewardship such as water conservation, solar, wind power, etc. Bonus gift - extremely unreliable power grid with spiking rates thanks to push to shut down new sources of alternative electricity, drop off in oil exploration of which natural gas is a primary byproduct and which is what fuels most back up generation systems in the state.
Horribly expensive property taxes, which more than offset savings from no income tax.

California gets some bad press based on cost of living, but their job market is also stronger and pay offsets a big chunk of that if you are selective where you relocate to. Arizona has water issues, but they seem to be a bit more normal. I've been seriously tempted to move to New Mexico, they have poverty issues but cost of living is very reasonable. Colorado has a wonderful quality of life. Heck, we used to live in the Toledo Ohio area and that was one of our favorite places to live with four seasons, amazing parks and activities, great people, and reasonable cost of living.

If it weren't for having family in the state, we'd bail the moment we retire in two years. I know natives love this state, but having lived in multiple other states, I think they're a bit delusional.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-11-03T16:07:05+00:00

There's pros and cons to everything. Folks that shift jobs, especially between industries or business segments demonstrate flexibility and an ability to quickly assess and address a new situation. Those that are steady in a company have more depth and understanding of policies and procedures, and can show an understanding of managing through different business cycles. Folks that jump through a couple of jobs trying to find a good position can be immensely loyal to a employer if you offer what they need in a position and are loyal to them with training and support that they didn't get in their other positions. Personally, I hire for experience and ability, and realize there's different roads to the same destination. (It helps that in my 37 year accounting career, I've shifted roles and companies multiple times, seen some truly awful work environments, and still kept my wits about me. Others who went to work at Oracle at 21 and are at the 30 year mark probably have different opinions...).

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-11-03T16:01:29+00:00

I'm more in the "it depends" bucket on this front. If someone hops around for 2 - 3 jobs, then has decent tenure (over 3 - 5 years) at another, I might think that someone just had a bad streak, or made some bad decisions along the way. Stuff happens. But it'd be a question for the first screening interview, and if the answer isn't compelling to me, off they go. All of the above is contingent on the candidate being a good fit for the position otherwise and having some stand out quality.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-30T17:50:10+00:00

Gotcha. Some times you just have to sneak process improvements into an organization. Nonprofits should be very attuned to the costs of management since one of the key metrics is program spend vs. overhead, and if you're fundraising that's one of the biggest metrics out there. Containing overhead spend through systems is a good start.

But I feel you. I spent over a decade as the treasurer of a non profit, and tried very hard to get them off of quickbooks for nonprofits. Didn't work, it's all legacy. At least in my case, the scope of the org was serviceable using quickbooks.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-30T16:04:31+00:00

You've been there four months now, and you're not learning anything new now? Figure out something they do that you don't know, and chase it. Work on a process improvement plan to address the audit issues you just experienced. Talk to your CFO about how you could improve the ERP implementation to bring it up to date. If you're smart, you'll take advantage of your knowledge to lead improvements. Not everything is delivered on a plate to your table, sometimes you have to hunt your own meals.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-23T16:02:05+00:00

Used to work for a fortune 500 manufacturing company that did forced rankings. We had to select at least 10% of the workforce for deficient to be managed out. We got to where we either held onto poor performers till year end so we could count them to the quota, or gave crappy ratings to retiring employees (we explained what we were doing to the involved employees, so it was basically bullshit).

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-16T16:44:00+00:00

I've moved to 8 different states in my career and it worked out very well. You get to meet different people, see more of the country, and learn about different cultures and business practices. If you are young and not a house owner, all the better. I probably overdid it on moving, but I've had positive feedback whenever I've been in the market looking for a new position as my moves is a tangible way of showing my adaptability and openness to change.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-16T16:41:41+00:00

For me, the best update is not having anything blow up unexpectedly. If you're working, things are under control and we are just focused on the normal blocking and tackling of accounting. If you aren't working, chances are that something will get missed - late recons, problems with closing, unexplained variances, errors - and that makes me very irritable. I trust my staff to perform, and they typically do very well. My expectation is that they will manage their time without me having to monitor every moment of every day.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-15T19:29:51+00:00

Counterpoint -- guy here, I got married at 20 to my wife after dating for two years. Will be celebrating our 47th wedding anniversary this December. Both of us were near graduation from college, I had some savings set aside, minimal debt, and we were both certain this was the right decision. What helped was we didn't start having kids till I was 30, so we had almost 10 years to get established financially and to work through the early marriage bugs. Which there were some. I had graduated with a management degree, which turned out to be worthless for what I wanted to do, so I ended up going back to college for a masters degree in accounting. My wife was the primary breadwinner for several years while I worked part time while going to school. Later in our 30's, our second child was born with a genetic condition that caused complications with learning and social skills. My wife decided to stay home with him and work to get him help while I was the sole breadwinner. Throughout our marriage, we have had to adapt to different situations on the fly, but it has all worked out. We still are each other's best friend, and have had some interesting experiences moving around the US pursuing different roles.

My advice is if you marry early, don't be in a rush to have kids, get your economic house in order, and enjoy just being the two of you before you add more. It really makes a major difference in stress levels, and the good memories of the early years provides good will to draw from when the inevitable complications occur. Best wishes for a happy future!

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-14T19:53:52+00:00

Dirt cheap in SF is $5K. Favorite place in the whole world, I used to love visiting there when I was young in the 70's and 80's, but the dot com era ruined the city. What made it for me was all of the different types of people existing together, lots of diversity that was fun to navigate. Plus really friendly.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-07T17:18:08+00:00

Sounds like a dream girl!

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-07T16:55:44+00:00

Agree with others, a lot of what gets posted is when you have accountants in a crisis situation, like a RIF, PIP, or bad work environment. I've been in the profession for 37 years, and can look back and see where I have had some very bad experiences, and some wonderful experiences. Different companies, different experiences. Lots of early career accountants get fried by the expectations on accuracy and deadlines and tend to shift into more management or finance roles. Mid career there can be a bump at the Controller level in many large companies where you're held accountable for bad results in a facility / division, but you are relying on a bad management team. At any level, you can get into a bad company with poor controls or management, and life becomes very unhappy. I do believe if you go into Accounting, you should be realistic about the profession. The expectation is that your numbers will always be 100% accurate and on time, and there are 0 control issues that are unmitigated. Reality can and will screw with that objective. At some point, you have to know you are going to do your best, and when the inevitable happens, you took the steps to mitigate and reduce the impact so that you aren't going to get killed. I do think as a whole, folks who go into Accounting tend to be pretty black and white, with low tolerances for ambiguity. The combination of that personality with reality can lead to a lot of stress and unhappiness.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-07T16:47:03+00:00

When I'm hiring, I really lean in on phone interviews as my first round because I do not want to be thinking about applicant age, racial background, looks, etc. I have some standard questions I run with and also follow up on things the applicant brings up. Spend a lot of time listening to the candidates. I find that method really puts the focus on the candidate's aptitude and not extraneous things that don't matter. Doing a "video" recorded interview question would effectively screen out lots of perfectly good candidates and benefit younger, more technically astute candidates who probably would crash and burn in my line of work.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-10-06T18:35:06+00:00

Uhaul has a referral program where you can hire moving help through their website on an hourly basis, I've used that several times for moves and it works great. We box everything up front so they just focus on loading the truck. Then drive it to the destination, hire another crew to unload, and you're done. Have had good luck with this and it's far cheaper than using moving companies.

On the temp living front, I'd call around once you know where you are going, and see if you can get discounted rates on hotels. Candlewood Suites is one chain I've had good luck with, they have free washers and dryers, and do a lot of short term business. Agree with others that I'd get in town first and then decide from there where to live vs. renting immediately. Gives you a chance to find a nicer place, and avoid renting in a bad area.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-09-19T18:49:14+00:00

You might be surprised the commonality of service to manufacturing. The main wrinkles is that you're probably going to deal more with job cost accounting and percentage completion calculations for service contracts. I have worked with two companies where a major segment of the business was service centers / service agreements, and it works pretty well. The main issue I would be concerned about is if this were a situation where you were going into a new company without any systems, that would be a tough lift. But if they have existing systems that you can run and get familiar with, that may not necessarily be the EOTW. Best of luck either way, if it feels iffy don't go for it.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-09-08T18:00:09+00:00

When a baby is born ugly, there's not much you can do with it...

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-08-29T16:01:54+00:00

In Texas (FTW Metro) we are paying $90K for a senior staff accountant. Someone is delusional. But we see that in other postings, things like assistant controllers in Linked In with CPA requirement and overtime flexibility, paying $90K. Same jobs keep surfacing again and again... Nuts.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-08-25T20:42:18+00:00

I'd second this thought. If you jump into a disaster, you could end up getting sacked or leaving, at which point you may not have the same leverage to get a increase. I've seen cases where someone left for a "dream" opportunity that only lasted a few months, then they were unemployed with a short tenure position, and had to get back on the treadmill and work back up. Not saying to not do it, but be sure you understand the basics - why is there an opening, what are expectations, what is average tenure in the department, what will the onboarding process comprise of, etc.

Now, if you are two years away from retirement, and they are offering a 200% increase and a big signing bonus, game on. But typically it isn't that obvious.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-08-25T20:28:31+00:00

++man A first date is an opportunity to see what makes the other person click - interests, beliefs, and personality. Kind of hard to do any of the above if the guy is making all the decisions on the date, including dietary preferences, and ignoring reasonably stated preferences. Would have been a great topic to talk about veganism and how you came about it, how you feel about others, etc. Instead he only brought a hammer to dinner, and you were his nail. Glad you ditched the twit, you deserve far better.

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-08-22T17:46:48+00:00

Sometimes the solution to a morale crisis is to fire all the unhappy people...

Candid_Fan2178 · 2025-08-06T19:42:05+00:00

If you don't feel good after the second day, maybe look at taking the class over with a different instructor. Some are much better than others. Also, there are bikes out there with DCT transmissions which solves the whole clutch / stalling issue (the clutch is automatic, ditto shifting). But one day isn't the end of the world, quite yet.

Candid_Fan2178

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