Easy to say...unless you and your wife have really good jobs and family in the state. I would be in Texas, Arizona, or the Keys if I was independently wealthy. But can't retire for 7 or 10 years.
All I'm saying is, if you can, consider leaving that $hit hole.
I lived in Illinois for most of my life. A few years back, I lost my job for the second time in four years and I was having a hard time finding another. I didn't have much money in the bank and I was heavily in debt. My wife was a stay at home mom. In the mean time, I was being taxed up the wazoo and high cost of living was killing us. My wife and I decided to put our house up for sale, pull up stakes, move to another state (where we knew no one), and start a business.
We used the equity from our home to buy a larger house for far less in a much nicer place. No pollution, noise, or traffic. My neighbor's house isn't right next to mine. The taxes were a very small fraction of what we paid in Illinois. We used the left over money to live off of while we started everything up.
We eventually paid down our debt and now we're doing far better than we ever did in the Land of Taxes, er, I mean Land of Lincoln. Very risky and not exactly easy for my family, but it turned out to be the best decision we made. There's also the added benefit of being able to concealed carry a pistol without being charged with a felony for doing so.
