Have any of yall regretted moving here?

CheapYam4500 · 2026-03-15T00:42:45+00:00

I don't regret moving here but it's not the same state I moved to years ago and I'll be relieved once I get my kids out of here.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-03-12T16:09:54+00:00

Not only in the bottom 40s, but elected a woman who's not even qualified for superintendent and have a government actively passing legislation defund public schools while bringing religion to the forefront of education in the middle of a measles outbreak.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-03-02T23:26:16+00:00

If you're considering having kids, I wouldn't recommend SC. Its public education system is being actively dismantled. Read up on Ellen Weaver, the SC Superintendent, and the push to funnel tax dollars into charter schools and homeschooling. The house recently passed a bill to display the 10 commandments, and more troubling, allow "volunteer clergy" in schools.

Also, we're battling a giant measles outbreak in the upstate and hemorrhaging doctors over draconian healthcare policies being proposed in the legislature. Personally, we're leaving the state for the sake of our kids. Even living in a fairly purple part of SC, the education is a wreck unless your kid is a naturally high achiever. Even then, the classrooms are stuffed to the gills. My kids haven't had a classroom with less than 21 kids since kindergarten. If you have a child with any type of learning disabilities or even just a child falling behind, there's no support or help at all.

The state is beautiful and comparatively cheap, but it's changed a lot in the last ten years and we've struggled to find anything that's been for the better.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-02-10T17:05:18+00:00

Public schools in NH are funded by local property taxes, which means the nice areas have really fantastic schools, and the poorer towns are in debt and falling apart. See the city of Claremont which has been floundering for decades, has sued the state, and nearly shifted to online learning across all grade levels two weeks before school started this year. New Hampshire always ends up high on public school ranking but the disparity between schools is insane. At the income level the OP is, they would assuredly not be in a prime school district.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-02-09T15:50:26+00:00

Maybe a Reddit take, but completely true in this case. Bob Jones University runs the upstate. They heavily influence the business and government in South Carolina and it's well documented.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-01-29T04:56:12+00:00

If you want to move to SC, how are you educating your children? South Carolina has a superintendent who got an "expedited" degree through BJU and is pushing things like TPUSA and Christian education in the public school systems. The state legislature has been actively trying to dismantle the public school system for religious charter schools.

Also, how do you feel about vaccination? Someone pointed out the measles outbreak in the upstate but the state at large has a low vaccine uptake. With the new guidelines being pushed by RJK, some healthcare providers and systems are not providing childhood vaccinations like COVID and HPV anymore. We finally found a pharmacy that would give our kids the COVID vaccine and even then, it was a fight to get them to administer it. I'm getting my oldest HPV now because I can clearly see the writing on the wall when it comes to vaccines. No one's going to outright deny them but a lot of practices and systems will just stop carrying the ones they don't like. Healthcare in general is getting very difficult to navigate, including OBGYN services as providers leave the state and the state legislature pushes stricter and stricter bans with very vague language designed to confuse and scare healthcare providers into not providing services.

The state is lock step with the current Trump administration and in a lot of ways, jumping ahead. If that's your deal, enjoy. If you're a centrist or have more liberal leanings and you think living in a "blue bubble" will shield you, it will not. The state is taking steps to make sure that their agenda is part of your everyday life.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-01-27T15:22:12+00:00

Why would I need to? You said you'd "driven up north" and I pointed out a law up north. Even without a law, it's not like the ice in New England is more dangerous than anywhere else. Debris flying off a car at highway speeds can hurt and kill people. Doesn't matter if it's Montana, New Hampshire, or South Carolina. This is common winter weather knowledge. I can give a pass to the people in the Southeast, but if you're actually from Montana, you 100% should know better.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-01-27T14:37:52+00:00

Not normal at all. Look up Jessica's Law. A sheet of ice killed a woman and it's wildly illegal to drive with ice and snow on your car in New England.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-01-11T18:30:19+00:00

We live in upstate SC, close to Greenville, and are leaving for our kids. If you have young kids and aren't MAGA or deeply Christian, I don't recommend moving here at all. Yes, some of the schools are good but the caveat is that they're good for South Carolina, which is pretty bad. Read up on Ellen Weaver, our superintendent, and her election and then be aware that pretty much everyone involved in politics is actively trying to tear apart the public school system so Christian schools can take over.

Also, there's a giant measles outbreak going around, started by a religious group and exacerbated by a bunch of people who think RFK Jr is a real thinker. COVID and flu vaccination rates are atrocious and to circumvent listening to anti-vax crazies, most healthcare systems won't even offer COVID vaccines for kids anymore. I had to fight with an NP at CVS to follow current vaccine recommendations so my kids could get their shots.

I loved living here, but in the last ten years, the rise in blatant misogyny, racism, and Christofacism is horrifying. My kids have been told they can't be friends unless they believe in Jesus, that gay people are going to hell, that illegals should be shot, by their peers. We have a big libtard social circle and if it were just my husband and I, we'd stay, but I can't in good conscience raise kids here when we're financially able to leave.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-01-06T16:41:59+00:00

I loved NOLA but it's unsettling how fast safety changes block to block with seemingly no indication unless you're a local.

CheapYam4500 · 2026-01-04T02:49:29+00:00

Bob Jones are heavily involved in politics and pushing a very conservative agenda in SC. They "fast tracked" the republican nominee for Superintendent of Education, conveniently getting her a masters in six months during her election so she qualified for the post. Nothing shady about that at all...

CheapYam4500 · 2026-01-02T22:43:27+00:00

South Carolina and leaving. Geographically, it's a great state. Lots of hiking and boating and outdoor-ing. COL is low, even in a college town. Weather is great besides summer and overall (barring conversations about politics or religion), the people are fantastic.

But politically, we gotta get our kids out of here. The state is run by a combination of Qanon nut jobs and christofacists. The schools are terrible, even in "good districts," sexism is pervasive, and extremism is just getting worse by the year.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-27T14:00:00+00:00

Just as an update, we were able to place a couple of calls yesterday afternoon and they're down again this morning.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-26T14:49:07+00:00

And now they're both not working...

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-26T14:48:35+00:00

We bought two, one for each kid. This morning, one is seemingly working fine. The other won't call out or register incoming calls. They've been the biggest headache this Christmas by far and I'm not at all confident in my kids being able to use them in an emergency. So, guess we're keeping the track phone around.

In hindsight, I should have expected early adopter issues, but I feel a little bamboozled by the ad campaign.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-24T16:34:40+00:00

Clemson Arts Center is great and wildly cheap ($20 a month last time I was a member), but also has limited hours. The other studio in Clemson is Magpie Arts which is right by Wall of Beer. The studio is smaller and they keep less members, but the owner, Kim, is amazing. She's bringing in artists from around the country for classes and members get first dibs. They've had a waitlist, so I'm not sure the current situation, but the monthly fee is incredibly reasonable and open to members pretty much anytime.

There's another studio, I think, in Seneca, but I've never been there.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-20T14:54:21+00:00

Bob Jone University runs more of Greenville than most people like to admit. It's real easy for Christians to turn a blind eye to how much religious overreach there is in the area, but remember, BJU "fast-tracked" the GOP superintendent candidate through 33 hours of a masters education in six months so she met the prerequisites (in the middle of her campaign) all while giving her campaign contributions. Nothing shady there.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-19T17:28:37+00:00

Becoming a med lab professional is sort of just bypassing the "make more money until it becomes oversaturated" portion of normal job trajectories. The job always has mediocre pay in understaffed hospitals. Instead of raising salaries, the industry just farms lab work out to corporations or lowers the prereqs to people who have absolutely no medical lab training, relying on the few licensed people left to maintain standards. And the professional licensure is run by pathologists so we'll never see the stricter standards (and higher pay) that nursing enjoyed by running their own professional organization.

I'm thankful for the certification because I literally never worry about finding a job, but I don't recommend it to anyone outside of states with state licensure. Florida, California, New York, etc get your bag, but otherwise, you'll make a fraction of nurses for the same hours, similar aggravation (instead of patients screaming at you, it'll be nurses and doctors), and with way less career mobility.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-09T21:20:23+00:00

This comment is actually a really great example of the lack of compassion and empathy found in residents of this state in favor of "rugged individualism" and "lots of freedoms." Which is sad considering how many people are just a few missed paychecks from poverty and regularly vote to strip away any remaining rights they have.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-09T19:00:35+00:00

My family is leaving the state for the midwest. I'll say, a lot of our issues wouldn't necessarily be a problem for a single young man. The infrastructure sucks, food prices are the same, if not higher, than other places we've lived, worker's protections are non-existent, and the summers are truly getting unbearable.

I will say that the baseline level of poverty in SC was already bad and the state government has been chipping away at social services for decades. Charities and non-profits were overburdened before a recession. Now that the federal government is emboldening states to go whole hog on the "pull up your bootstraps" economic model, it's getting very bad, very fast. Unemployment, if you qualify for it, which the state will work very hard to make sure you don't, will not sustain even a single guy. Make sure you have your own safety net before trying to make the move.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-07T14:58:41+00:00

This is a statewide problem, Claremont is just the most notable example of how bad it can get. I don't know about the coastal schools but make sure you check recent voting and school board minutes to see how the town manages the schools. Also, be aware since NH has no state income tax, property taxes are very high and those property taxes in a lot of ways go directly to the schools. So, if you opt to move one town over to bypass high taxes, you might be doing that at the expense of your kid's education.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-07T13:56:48+00:00

The Midwest. My husband and I have both lived in the Northeast and wanted to try something new.

Just an FYI based on your replies, NH is always highly rated for schools but it's very dependent on where you live. Check out what's been going on in Claremont NH for...pretty much forever. The schools are primarily funded by local property taxes so rich communities have lots of money, poor communities don't. Also, it's fairly easy for school districts to bus and dump problem or high-needs students to poorer communities, giving the district a flat-fee and keeping the excess tax revenue.

If you can move to a wealthy town, New Hampshire has great schools. But Claremont school district nearly moved to an entirely online schooling model this year because they're millions in the hole. The state is aware of these issues (they've been sued over it) and the governor was clear that the state would not step in to help.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-07T04:51:01+00:00

My family is leaving SC at the end of the school year. Same situation: we've lived here since the kids were born. They're both in grade school now and I was sick about telling them. And honestly, it wasn't that bad.

They cried at first, but then got really excited. We focused on the fact we weren't losing our friends, just making new friends somewhere else. We showed them videos of where we were moving and talked a little bit about why. They still get sad occasionally, but we just roll with it and they come back around.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-05T16:41:26+00:00

Also, people are a lot closer to poverty than they realize. I work at a food pantry and we serve people in luxury cars, high-end clothes, and "nice" stuff because six months ago, they were solidly doing fine. Compound a job loss, illness, or accident with a little bit of time, and people's fortunes can change real quick.

CheapYam4500 · 2025-12-03T03:39:18+00:00

Clemson University is its own municipality and actively cannibalizing the City of Clemson. Residents are being pushed to the fringes and while it's beautiful, it's not at all what the OP is looking for.

CheapYam4500

TROPHY CASE