Interesting study on COL and places to live

[Ramen]

This is more about working years than retirement. Perhaps interesting to Young Dreamers? Includes short lists of places to live based on cost of living and education level.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/12/14/1063703904

From the article:

There's obviously much more to the value of living in a place than simply the size of your paycheck minus the cost of stuff you buy. Like the cultural scene, the opportunities for your kids, the crime rate, the quality of schools and bars, the proximity to hiking trails or surfing spots, and so on. So it's worth stressing that when we refer to "standard of living," we're only talking about average income minus taxes and expenses. This cold calculation misses a lot of the intangible and priceless stuff that can make a place cool. Also, this data is from 2014, and a lot might have changed since then, especially with the pandemic.

 

[Gumby]

As I have commented several times before, there are many places in this country where the young wife and I could live cheaper than we do now, but nowhere we could live better.

 

[COcheesehead]

You get what you pay for and you pay for what you get.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

One factor not in the article is Social Security wages. If you live in a place where you can max out your future Social Security benefits later in life, that helps fund your retirement, especially if you decide to move to a lower cost of living area post-retirement.


Also not included in the article are community / government benefits, and which states have expanded Medicaid. Those can make a big difference in quality of life for lower income households. Lower income locations aren't going to have a generous tax base to fund benefit or community programs, like extensive library services, public parks and senior services.

 

[rodi]

The article specifically says it doesn't look at anything other than salaries and cost of living... no culture, no weather, etc... What was more interesting is this is the first time I've seen it broken into education levels. (College, HS diploma, and No HS Diploma.)

As some one who is a native San Diegan it was interesting to see we made 2 of the 3 lists of worst places, financially. (For HS diploma and no HS diploma.) A few of my sons' friends have opted out of college... and are living independent of their parents, here in San Diego... so it can be done. They did it by being waitstaff at a very pricey restaurant. Kind of an eggs all in one basket thing because if the jobs go away, so does their semi-comfortable lifestyle.

 

[J277]

I've always told people to look around the big cities. I may have an hour commute to my work in Chicago but by living an hour away and in a different state I save a ton on property taxes, groceries, insurance and housing costs. My 200k home would be 400k in the suburbs of Chicago. But it also helps that I enjoy living around corn fields and do not enjoy the busy city life. If it were the other way around cost wise I would probably still end up living where I do now.

 

[MC Rider]

One factor not in the article is Social Security wages. If you live in a place where you can max out your future Social Security benefits later in life, that helps fund your retirement, especially if you decide to move to a lower cost of living area post-retirement....

Good point. Usually in a HCOL area you can make more than a LCOL area. LCOL tends to mean low opportunities. Otoh, if you are retired and need no work, that's just fine.

 

[ModestNestEgg]

As alluded to in the article, it is an important consideration is if you pick a place solely for low cost of living, are you going to be content being there much of the time? Aside from the importance of being happy with where you live, travel costs need to be considered if going to cultural/recreational/medical care, etc. all involve travel, not to mention visiting family and friends who may not live in the same area.

This isn't to say lower cost of living areas couldn't be in a place that someone loves, but it's important consideration if getting to where one wants and needs to be comes with the hassle of traveling and the expenses that go along with that. If that gets too out of hand, it completely defeats the purpose of living somewhere inexpensive.

 

[Badger]

I spent 5 years before retirement looking for a better place to live. I had a long list of parameters and used a number of different sites multiple times over the years like that one. They were fun to use but not too productive. After all that time it turned out I was already here. The only thing that I couldn't find was a place with all those parameters that would have mountains next to our beach. :grin:


Cheers!

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Having lived all my life in VHCOL places on the Eastern Seaboard, I think about this a lot. Part of me thinks that, after almost 2 years of pandemic living, as long as we have a good internet connection, we'd be OK in some (relatively) small, remote town, as we would have a lot more money available to travel or to host friends, and in between, having the internet and having things shipped to us would keep me from experiencing culture shock. Heck, the far north midwestern town near my spouse's family cabin is a decent sized college town, and they have a small airport and a nice microbrewery! I wonder if we lived there, would we be happy spending the majority (or even plurality) of our time there, and could we then afford, say, 3 or 4 week-long trips staying in nice midtown Manhattan hotels or more than one really nice international trip a year based on the LCOL?