Family with young kids debating moving to STX
My wife and I are debating about moving to STX. We have a 4 yr old and a 12 yr old. I make about $100k per year doing IT work from my home. The company I work for allows me to work from home so we thought why not take advantage of that perk. We've vacationed in ST Thomas and St John. St John is definitely more our style but it's too expensive and not very practical for us. So we are considering St Croix. Our insurance through my company has in network providers on STX. My main concern is school for the children. Based on what I've read so far it sounds like public schools are very subpar. We currently live in southern Wisconsin and have excellent public schools. How much will private schools cost? Are we crazy for considering this move? 🙂 We are thinking of renting/buying a 2/3 br condo with a pool with hopefully a water view or close to the beach. Does this sound doeable? Anything big we aren't considering? I've read all the info under the menu tabs.
Thanks!
STX is not as upscale as STJ so you should for sure do a PMV to see if you like it here first. It's also more economically depressed than STT. It's completely different over here than our sister islands. I'll reiterate A PMV for sure!
Other than that - 100k, two kids, RENT a condo... all lights green. Bring two cars.
Search the forum by using the search feature for facts and figures on your kids school, it's been covered many times.
Also search on living close to the beach there's some downfalls especially if you're in IT and have lots of electronics.
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Private school, non-parochial, $14,000 per year.
Thanks. I'll just need reliable Internet and my laptop.
Have you considered homeschooling? There is a very active homeschooling community in the territory.
Sounds like you have it pretty much have together except for schools for kids.
This link might be helpful.
https://www.vimovingcenter.com/talk/read.php?4,272421
As someone who has a beach house one thing you will need to do is at the end of the day wipe down your laptop before putting it away. The salt air eats everything. We wipe down the TV's counters, floors and table tops on a daily basis. Plus we rinse our cars down about every 3 days. A pain in the ass but worth it. Internet is semi reliable. My wife works from home in IT.
That may be a viable option. Thanks! I look for info about the home school community.
Are there any areas we should avoid when looking for a condo?
AandA2VI,
Both of our cars are only worth a couple of thousand each so I was thinking of buying a jeep wrangler or something similar there. Will that be an issue?
http://ghcds.org/
Supposed to be a very good private school, however I have no personal experience with it. Years ago, one of the perks of being in management at Hovensa, was that your kids got to go here free of charge.
Jeep Wrangers are very popular on all the islands. STX has a Jeep/Chrysler dealer as well as Ford, and a few other major brands. Nothing exotic, or high end German. Keep it simple.
If they're RELIABLE with low miles and only worth a couple K then maybe still worth it. If they are low clearance or high milage maybe not.
Jeeps are great island cars. I have a commander and love it but also had a CRV which my fiancé now drives and I still say the CRV is the best island vehicle. Jeep parts are spendy but jeeps having the suspension they do is a highpoint. Our CRV ALWAYS needs suspension parts but they're fairly cheap on rock auto. Every freaking part for my jeep is $200. Even this little plastic trim I need - its $180!!! For 9 inches of PLASTIC. :-O
You will want two cars IMO. Even if you work from home. I work from home and couldn't imaging having only one car... especially on STX where everything is so spread out. You cant walk here unless you live in Csted which I am sure you wont.
Once you're here get a mechanic, you'll find referrals here and have them do a paid full inspection on whatever you buy (unless new of course) and even then have 1K set aside for repairs. These islands are so rough on cars. I never would buy a new car here... well I would never buy a new car anywhere actually lol. Add $3-$5K to stateside prices when you buy here. Quite a bit more for new cars.
All the VI islands are different and plenty of people enjoy STX and call it home, if only for part of the year. Still a couple of PMVs is certainly warranted. If nothing else it would help with getting your accommodations set up.
Cost of living is going to be higher in the VI than on the mainland but I agree with $100K it should still be manageable without extravagant expectations. Also be aware that the cost of electricity in the VI is about triple mainland cost. This mainly hits hard for running the AC. Which brings me to the next point. If you run the AC consistently you keep out most of that salty air humidity which helps reduce all those sea air related side effects on stuff inside the house. Highly efficient mini-splits or central AC will help keep the costs down.
Keep the AC on in your home office with it's own mini-split and open the doors and windows in the rest of the house during the cooler season. Stuff to look for when shopping for rental units. You should be able to find some nice long term rental condos with pool on or near the beach.
Thanks for all the helpful tips everyone!
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