I’m surprised you singled out Atlanta and Nashville. It terms of absolute numbers, Texas, Florida, and Arizona usually show the largest number of former Californians. In terms of percentage of population, nearby states like Arizona, Nevada, Washington, and Idaho are usually highest. In surveys, by far the most commonly cited reasons for leaving is cost of living, particularly housing.
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lol lol lol. No gas stations anywhere near Wall Street! Very few in Manhattan altogether. It’s really foolish to try to drive around there. Great subway service, Citibikes, buses, yellow cabs, Uber, Lyft. And the whole financial district is so small that it’s very walkable with wonderful parks along the harbor.
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Huh, nothing in VA registers on this list of most millionaires and billionaires. DC is close though.
Wealth versus income.
The SF Bay Area is #2 for millionaires and #1 for billionaires. Los Angeles is #3.
| Millionaires | Centi-millionaires | Billionaires | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York City | 349.5K | 744 | 60 |
| Bay Area, Calif. | 305.7K | 675 | 68 |
| Los Angeles | 212.1K | 496 | 43 |
| Chicago | 120.5K | 290 | 24 |
| Houston | 90.9K | 258 | 18 |
| Dallas | 68.6K | 125 | 15 |
| Seattle | 54.2K | 130 | 11 |
| Boston | 42.9K | 107 | 8 |
| Miami | 35.3K | 164 | 15 |
| Austin | 32.7K | 92 | 10 |
| Washington, D.C. | 28.3K | 88 | 12 |
Sounds like the state of California has made its bed regarding gas prices. Government regulations basically forcing adoption of alternatives. Must be what the people want though.
“California has an isolated refinery market. The special fuel blend that is consumed in California is produced by 11 major refineries within the state, according to the California Energy Commission.”
“Part of the reason why prices have been so high is that California has really restricted the ability for refineries to expand and grow,” said De Haan. “California has been rather hostile to refinery expansions or oil industry investments, trying to push them away and transition California to more electric vehicles.”
“The high price of gasoline does encourage more EV adoption,” De Haan said. “Americans getting hit with $5 and $6 [per] gallon prices in California is likely accelerating the shift away.”
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After years of wanting to leave NJ, lately I’ve been pretty happy here and can’t think of anywhere better to go. Reading about the West coast gas prices blows my mind. The person who mentioned Wall Street gas prices - no, not many gas stations in NYC proper but I’m in a Wall Street feeder suburb and gas around here hovers at $3.20ish. Not terrible.
Last year was D23’s senior year, I had a new job and was busy busy busy but realized around March that my grocery costs were completely out of control for a family of 3. I was spending about $1200 a month at our local Foodtown supermarket. Everything we normally bought that had been 3.99 jumped to 5.99, eggs 7.99, corn flakes 9.99.
I switched to shopping at Lidl and stopped buying corn flakes all together. The food quality at Lidl is good enough for me. We eat a lot of vegetables and the price difference there is crazy. At foodtown, a spaghetti squash is $1.99 per lb, at Lidl it’s 1.25 per squash. And you know that foodtown squash will never be exactly one pound so at the register I probably paid $3. Just changing my primary store has saved about $400 per month. And I just stopped eating corn flakes, period!
Which leads me to cutting things out and making do. The last twenty years have felt excessive to me in retrospect. DH and I have a lot. Neither of us feel like buying anything new or replacing anything that breaks at this point. We’re in our miserly era. I don’t feel like doing my bit to contribute to the economy anymore!
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Mainly because I live in Atlanta and husband’s relatives in Nashville. But my family lives in Dallas and Austin…so, yep pretty much everywhere.
Cereal pricing (non sale) has been out of control for well over a decade. Now that all the kids are almost out of the house, we don’t really buy it anymore, but I only ever bought it when the grocery stores would have a 2/$5 or 5/$10 deal. Otherwise, it just didn’t make sense to purchase as the cost per serving was OTT.
Kids’ cereals of choice were Corn Chex, Honey Nut Cheerios and Special K w/strawberries.
We only buy cereal at Costco. A great deal usually.
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I would get so excited when Honey Nut Cheerios went on sale for $3.99 for the massive size two packs at Costco.
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Best deal ever!
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A long time ago. Not new news.
And that may be one reason why we’re adopting EV and e-bikes in greater numbers. 
Personally, I bike more than ever before.
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Maybe some of those regulations is why the air quality in many parts of the state are improved. Growing up in the Los Angeles area not far from multiple refineries we had terrible smog. The refineries are still there but the sky is blue.
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I grew up in the Inland Empire. The smog was hideous. When I would fly home from college, you could smell it as the plane descended into Ontario Airport. “Smog alert” days were not uncommon and we couldn’t have PE or recess. It was so much better when we moved to the area again when my kids were in middle/high school. And we could see across the valley all the time, instead of having it be a treat.
California made laws and regulations to try to improve the air for its residents. It really is like living in a different country compared to the Midwest or East Coast (having lived in all 3) in terms of the values driving decision-making. For better and worse. Not saying it’s perfect at all. And it is so expensive to live there now. It was hit really hard by the real estate collapse in 2008 and construction never caught up making for a horrid shortage of housing. Which sort of underlies all the problems.
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Yes! Our air quality has improved significantly. Although a PITA, I really appreciate our biannual smog checks, which have has made a huge difference in air quality here in Northern California.
The CA specific fuel formulation gets credit as well.
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In terms of price per calorie, cereal is likely among the lowest priced foods that you purchase If you are trying to save money on food, don’t cut out the cereal. My experience is the best deals are usually not at Costco. They are instead either on generic brands or special grocery sales. Cereal stores for long periods, so I stock up when there is an especially good sale. Regarding specific cereals:
Cheerios – I find that I prefer the generic Walmart brand (Toasty O’s) to Cheerios. Toasty O’s has a firmer texture, with larger O’s. Toasty O’s are $1.70 per 12oz box = 14 cents per ounce. In contrast, Costco sells Cheerios for $7 for 40.7 oz = 17 cents per ounce. Walmart has what I consider to be a superior product at a less expensive price, that does not require buying in bulk. Once in awhile my local supermarket has an especially good sale with Cheerios for $1 per 8.9oz box = 11 cents per ounce , which is the lowest price of all.
Shredded Wheat – Shredded Wheat is not sold at my Costco. At least once a month, my supermarket gives me a personalized offer of ~$2.70 for 16.4 oz = 17 cents per ounce, which is better than Walmart. However, I usually instead buy when I have 50% off type grocery delivery service coupon. Such coupons work well on items that don’t often have steep sales, like Shredded Wheat. The lowest price I’ve ever seen was $1 for 16.4 oz, which was a unique sale at my supermarket last year. I doubt that I’ll ever see such a sale again.
Oatmeal – Unlike the cereals, above I buy oatmeal at Costco (or Amazon). In my opinion, the Quaker brand name tastes better than generic supermarkets. And the bulk pricing for oatmeal seems to offer a greater discount than occurs with bulk purchases of the flake cereals above. Usual Costco price is $12 for 160 oz = 7.5 cents per ounce. This is one of the lowest cost per calorie foods that I eat – less expensive than all other foods I eat except brown rice.
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Agree with you re: oatmeal. We always have oatmeal, I don’t even consider that cereal (even tho it obviously is) more like a staple. Same way i consider corn meal a staple, even tho you can create a cereal from it.
We moved primarily to dried beans/lentils during the pandemic. We had the time, lol. Cheap, easy to use in so many recipes, healthy and delicious.
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If you deflate it to the money in Texas, those New York millionaires would be middle class.
Great post
At the grocery store on Saturday I was trying to decide whether to buy cereal for myself or not. Also I was looking at the high protein ones. Those were crazy expensive. Saw they had Post Honey Bunches of Oats 12 oz boxes $1.99 if you bought 4. That will last me plenty of time.