The good, the bad, and the hippos
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7/6/2022
I have lived here for 2 years. There is no grocery store in this city of 26,000 people. You have to drive 15 min and cross a toll road to get to HEB or drive to Round Rock or Taylor to get to Walmart. It's dumb. HEB is considered to be the Hutto HEB but they must have done some kind of deal with the city because they are not even on the same side of the toll road than 99% of the city residents. The food choices are Fast food, fast food and more fast food...so expect to gain weight after living here because there is nothing to do besides go to work, eat and sleep. The good thing about it is the affordability and it is within driving distance to Austin. Also, you are closer to the 1 liberal city in Texas. So less crazy conservatives, and more diversity than the rest of Texas, which is refreshing. I feel stranded with the lack of food choices, grocery stores, etc. Its also really hot and everything is dry and dead in the summer.
But if you need home supplies they literally have a Lowes and Home Depot right next to each other in the center of town...yet no grocery store. I guess they expect us to live off of lumber and faucets. The HOA is nice though, and its cheap. We have a community pool so that makes it worth it. And it's neat there are Hippos everywhere.
The schools aren't great. They are hit or miss depending on the teacher and they seem to have more kids than they can handle. I feel like my daughter got lost in the shuffle at times. But the district has more diversity and a Spanish language program so that is nice. I do not regret moving here, I think it was a good decision financially and geographically compared to the rest of Texas. But I don't plan on living here forever.
Lastly, it is sort of worrisome the lack of services that were available during the winter storm of 2021. We had no electricity for 3 days. No one came to clear the snow out of the street or provide food or anything. It was each man for himself. That being said, our neighbors are wonderful people. Traffic can be bad sometimes because the town is growing exponentially. Overall I feel it's not a really convenient place to live. Everything I want to do is too far away - the grocery store, restaurants, Austin, etc. You have to pretty much plan to leave your house once a day - or once on the weekend - because everything is so far. That being said I would chose this town over Waco, Tx any day.
courtney | Hutto, TX