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    #31
    Re: Cost of Living?

    After 20 years in my field I'm finally making "more" than what other people around me are making. Of course, a lifetime of mandatory frugality I'm sure has had something to do with that, and the fact that my wife makes a truckload more money than I do...but I'm finally at a point where I'm not living day to day, or week to week, or even month to month...we're up to a quarterly schedule at this point with aspirations of annually and beyond...but that's neither here nor there.

    We moved from a place with few services and high costs to a place with many services and even higher costs...we stayed there for 10 years, and then moved someplace with decent services and low costs. We're spending about 60% of the rent that we were spending in Vegas, and we've realized that we're actually overspending by quite a bit...so looking to save even more money.

    And it's a good thing too, because 30 years ago you could buy a car that would last 10 or 15 years...the pieces of shit that they're selling now (that will cost $20k+, even if you're cheap like me) only last for 5, maybe 10 years...then you're back into damn near mortgage territory. I'm sorry, if I'm spending multiple thousands of dollars on something it better last me long enough to pay it off and then some...so yeah...that's my current cost rant.

    I realize that I'm in a unique position though. My wife and I couldn't be at home with our kid - like, ever - and I'm certain that would have changed how "well" he was raised. Now, we're finding that teenagers and adults are much easier and cheaper than children, so we have "extra" money on top of our not inconsiderable wage increases. Things are good for us, for now...we're scrambling to make that as permanent as possible, as quickly as possible, because when the fit hits the shan I don't want to be caught with my pants down.

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      #32
      Re: Cost of Living?

      People do 50/50 where I live. We have a few low-income housing places, because housing is expensive here, but groceries, utilities, etc are decent, so that helps.
      Blog: http://thestarsafire.tumblr.com

      Kuchi wa wazawai no moto (the mouth is the origin of disasters)

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        #33
        Re: Cost of Living?

        Here in South Australia, it seems (to me, having come from a below-poverty household in the US) incredibly more expensive than where I came from. Fuel here costs about the equivalent of $5.20 per gallon (regular unleaded) for people in the States. It costs around $30 for a takeaway meal for myself and my wife and our electricity bills are shooting up into the outrageous range (the third most expensive in the developed world).

        Our rent (for an old, not-in-good-shape 3 bedroom house) is $1120 per month (still cheaper than rent in Harlem, meh). Luckily, we're on two incomes - we bring home about $5600 per month and live comfortably - but that's really only because we're homebodies and don't have much of a social life.

        We managed to get by fairly well when we were only on one income, but I don't know how well we'd fare now.

        I've noticed that things balance out here, though - our minimum wage is $16.37 per hour in Australia and we don't generally have the same kind of debt problems that folks in the US do (university debt, medical bills, etc.). Mind you, debt exists here and isn't uncommon - but we have access to Medicare and affordable private health insurance as well as pretty affordable higher education. So I suppose that while things seem more expensive here, the income is higher and thus it is not difficult to get by if you are able to find a decent job.

        But finding jobs here can be a struggle. There seems to be more of a requirement here for tertiary qualifications that I didn't really see in the US which can make finding a good job hard for someone who doesn't have a piece of paper saying that they've been trained in Office Administration, etc.

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          #34
          Re: Cost of Living?

          I live in Sydney; real estate prices here have increased about 16% in twelve months, rent has almost reached the point of being on par with mortgage repayments. As a consequence, my partner and I are looking to buy, and over half a mil is pretty normal for a one bedroom apartment.
          About Australia in general, the price hikes on software piss me off the most. For a downloadable from the net product like Adobe, the prices are ridiculously higher than the rest of the world. And it's not like it requires shipping! The old joke (not really a joke) I heard about it was that it was cheaper to send someone on a plane to the US to buy the CDs than to pay for a software suite here. Ditto for clothing and hardware, though I do acknowledge shipping costs etc. But when it's still cheaper to buy from Europe/US and pay a shipping cost that's up to half the product value from overseas..?!?
          :head desk:

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            #35
            Re: Cost of Living?

            Originally posted by Torey View Post
            So I suppose that while things seem more expensive here, the income is higher and thus it is not difficult to get by if you are able to find a decent job.

            But finding jobs here can be a struggle. There seems to be more of a requirement here for tertiary qualifications that I didn't really see in the US which can make finding a good job hard for someone who doesn't have a piece of paper saying that they've been trained in Office Administration, etc.
            Sounds a lot like Germany. They're really big on qualifications and although you don't need a degree, you'd better have an apprenticeship (you can do one in almost anything) if you don't want to work at McDonalds forever.

            Unemployment is really low in Germany, but wages can be bad in some areas. Service jobs that don't require an apprenticeship are especially bad (and often get filled by mini-jobbers). While I agree that skilled work is worth more than unskilled work, I think that wages should at least be enough that someone working full time can get by and afford basics like food and rent.

            There is also still a big, big gap between former East and West Germany. I don't think reunification was carried out as well as a lot of people want to think and a lot of people found their livelihoods destroyed. A lot of factories were bought out and simply closed rather than go through the cost of updating them and providing jobs for local people and farmland was bought out and worked at low costs producing cash crops (farming was done through cooperatives before, which provided a decent living for people doing those kinds of jobs). The result is that there are big pockets of areas in those states with almost nothing to do for a living. People either have to move or commute hours to get work. People sometimes argue that that's life, but I think it's really bad. There is a lot of decay (you can see it if you drive or take the train through certain regions). There are major socioeconomic problems, lots of crime, neo-nazis, etc. Tourism has saved some places, but areas that are less "pretty" or more out of the way suffer. I think it's a shame, too, because some of those towns have historic charm and they're literally crumbling.

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              #36
              Re: Cost of Living?

              I live in Texas and it's amazing how costs have changed just in the past few years. While prices can still be comparably low in the suburbs, my parents' house only 30 minutes north of Dallas proper has actually gone up in value to the point where they could make a pretty profit off of selling it because of the new school district in which they live. (town basically didn't exist 15 years ago, now is responsible for making their county one of the wealthiest in the nation.)

              And as for me and my fiance, we're looking at another apartment, or what options we have for houses, a 1 bedroom house where we are right now sells for the same price as a 4 bedroom house 30 miles north of us.

              Everything is kind of bi-polar job-wise. There are a lot of jobs available because having your company headquarters in Texas (or Delaware) is the smart thing to do tax-wise, but most of the openings are low expertise type stuff/part-time jobs that you definitely can't support yourself on, much less anyone else, or they advertise as entry-level but require 5 years of experience (definitely not entry-level.) I just....

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                #37
                Re: Cost of Living?

                I honestly don't know how it would be possible for me to live on just my income and raise my daughter. A two bedroom apartment would be outside of my budget and I definitely couldn't afford to keep the house (which is actually cheaper than a two bedroom apartment around here). Not to mention the dogs. If anything happened to the hubby I'd be SOL.
                We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now. -Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood

                I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love.
                It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss.
                Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.
                -Jacqueline Carey, Naamah's Curse

                Service to your fellows is the root of peace.

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                  #38
                  Re: Cost of Living?

                  Personally, I don't rent, so I'm sheltered from a lot of the exploding price costs here. But hikes in electricity, food, and such still really affect me. Still, it could be worse...

                  I mentioned in my original post that things were still cheap here but quickly changing. Well, recently I've been doing research in apartment rental and sale costs here vs. a couple of other parts of the country because we might (though this is a big -might- at this point) move because of my boyfriend's work. It turns out that not only are costs going up in Berlin at a much, much faster rate than in the rest of Germany, but also it's not even that "cheap" here anymore. Both rental and apartment sale costs are higher than the national average. Someone from outside Germany might be tempted to say that that's just life in the capital and that it's way cheaper here than London and Paris, but a) wages are far below the national average in Berlin, making it even less "cheap" from a German standpoint, and b) Berlin is NOT London and Paris.....both the UK and France are highly centralized, so most commercial activity is based in their capitals. Germany is highly decentralized, so commercial activity is scattered all over the country and -most- of it actually doesn't happen in Berlin. Even a lot of public sector jobs are scattered throughout the country (though more of those exist here than elsewhere). So, having a higher cost of living here compared to wages doesn't even make any sense. It's all fine and well if you just moved here from London on a company transfer, but if you're from here, it's a rough deal.

                  Meanwhile, our state government's answer to this is to sell off public land to the private sector to accommodate more low-end housing on the market (not going to work) and our federal government keeps trying to hammer out exceptions for our new minimum wage, most of which affect people who need minimum wage the most (current exceptions to the new deal, which comes into effect in 2015, include interns, trainees, and hires who were unemployed over the long-term, but they're supposed to start debating more details this summer).

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                    #39
                    Re: Cost of Living?

                    That's why Conservatives in the US resist social programs. Every time you ask the Government to do something for you - whether it's protecting your borders or your sick, it costs. And since there's no oversight, it costs a lot. (not just the US Gubmint in that regard)

                    I like the idea of an actual small community more and more all of the time...something insular...maybe Amish...

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                      #40
                      Re: Cost of Living?

                      I don't agree. There are lots of cases where privatization has made things more expensive. Privately run companies have to make a profit. State run organizations do not.

                      Cuts in social housing have had a strong effect on housing for low income people in many European countries. It's a real problem and in some places (*coughlondoncough*) people are living in garages and sheds.

                      What I find really rich about a lot of conservatives is that they don't support minimum wage, but they also don't support paying more tax and building a social safety net with the money. It's sort of like, ok, so you're against paying people enough so that they can live, but you don't want to help make up the difference either? So what should they do then? Starve so you can eat a cheap burger?

                      One day, I may move to Sweden.

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                        #41
                        Re: Cost of Living?

                        The cost of living is high here you either work your life away or you try for low income housing. I was spoiled by the housing prices from back home. And yes electronics prices keep getting cheaper.... clothes prices are outrageous. Our world keeps getting more greedier. It makes me want to live off the grid but that seems so expensive to statt up.

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                          #42
                          Re: Cost of Living?

                          Here in Las Vegas it's a little weird. If you have a union job & work in a union hotel, you make good money, which means $40,000 to $50,000 a year. We have no state level taxes, so we only pay out Federal Income Tax. If you're in a Tip Compliant position (mostly food service & casino card dealers) then you pay taxes on your projected/estimated tips. The average union hotel/casino worker can probably afford to rent a 2-bedroom apartment ($1000 + a month) or have a car payment and afford full coverage insurance if they're disciplined about their money. If you work in a non-union hotel/casino, or a non-casino job, you're making minimum wage, which is the Federal minimum of $7.25/hr or $15,000 a year. Have fun trying to survive.

                          Almost every other house in my neighborhood has been foreclosed on, and we don't even live in an expensive part of town. If we didn't own our home (by virtue of the in-laws, mind you), we'd be struggling to pay rent. Forget buying a new car - we drive an older vehicle & have minimum liability insurance. If my health insurance wasn't covered by my union dues, there would be no way the Affordable Health Care Act would be affordable (my uinion dues are $40 a month, so $480 a year, with a $1000 dedcuctible - for my husband & I to receive similar coverage thru the AHCA, it's approx. $3500 a year. We rarely meet our deductible, so we're actually only spending about $800 a year for the two of us on health care). If we were trying to buy a home, we would not qualify for a mortgage.

                          Groceries are more expensive than eating out. Since my husband & I stopped eating out at all, our food bill has doubled. It's the price we pay for living in a landlocked state with little or no agriculture. Tomatoes begin around $3 a pound. Hamburger meat is $1.99 a pound. Other cuts of beef, chicken, pork, etc. are far pricier. Farm-raised salmon starts around $7 a pound, tilapia's about the same as tomatoes. And forget farmers' markets here. We do have them, but $8 tomatoes are out of our league. Feeding two people & a dog halfway decent food costs us about $800 a month.

                          Electricity is outrageous, and in most neighborhoods, you might be able to supplement with solar panels if your HOA allows it. We pay, on average, $3000 a year in electricity. The gas bill is about $350/yr, water is $250/yr, sewer service is $200, trash service is $200/yr. Car insurance at minimum liability is $500 a year & we spend about the same for homeowner's insurance.

                          So for basic food, insurance & utilities, our 2-person home spends $14,600 a year. That's minimum wage's gross pay right there. And we don't pay rent, a mortgage or have a new car. Or kids.


                          I did find an interesting little calculator thingie: http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living

                          Berlin's about 20% more expensive than Las Vegas :O
                          The forum member formerly known as perzephone. Or Perze. I've shed a skin.

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                            #43
                            Re: Cost of Living?

                            Yeah Berlin is more expensive than that on most levels. I thought food (in Germany...prices for food are pretty standard between cities because it's not exactly a massive country, size-wise) was pretty cheap here, and it -is- for Europe, but those prices you described are pretty normal for cheaper supermarkets here (You'd pay about 2.50 Euros for 500 grams of mixed beef/pork hamburger meat, give or take).

                            I recently read a report that big cities in Germany (including Berlin) face higher rates of poverty than rural areas or small towns. Berlin isn't really -that- much cheaper than a lot of places anymore; it's still cheaper than Cologne, Munich, or Hamburg, but it's more expensive than Leipzig, Dresden, and most mid-sized cities. BUT people here still get paid less, because everyone has it stuck in their heads that Berlin is "cheap". It's a real problem.

                            I don't even pay rent (through the grace of my parents) and I live paycheck to paycheck. I almost -never- go out...the regular costs of living suck up my budget.

                            The one thing that calculator doesn't have is wages, which affects things a lot. Like, apparently living in Cologne is about the same as living in Berlin, except people in that part of the country usually earn more than people do here. And although Berlin is 20% more expensive than Vegas, I think people here earn more than they do there (based on what you described). Even considering what people earn for low wage jobs - even without the 8.50 Euro minimum wage that comes into effect in January, my boyfriend made over 7 Euros (so, probably over $10) at McDonalds, and that was the minimum amount of money he could make at that job (the restaurant industry has a minimum wage based on union negotiations, which negotiate wages for everyone, not just union members). Wages are low in Germany, but they're definitely better than they are in the US.
                            Last edited by DanieMarie; 27 Aug 2014, 01:00.

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                              #44
                              Re: Cost of Living?

                              My uncle had a union job in vegas they did fairly well there. It is so much cheaper to go out to eat. I wish the starting pay at mc donalds was starting pay at 10 thats the starting pay for nurses aides here. In kansas intill 2009 the minimum wage was under 3 dollars an hour.

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                                #45
                                Re: Cost of Living?

                                Some of things are cheaper here where I live (except real estate/housing and farmer's market produce) than when we lived in the midwest because 1) we are a major port on the East Coast and 2) there's a lot of competition for stores because of the pressure from the military exchanges and commissaries (no taxes) and 3) every state does sales tax differently.

                                Hubby and I make about $3500 a month to support the 4 of us (this probably about 60% of our income), after taxes, health insurance, and retirement and pension come out. This is pretty good money in the US--we just barely break the top quarter of incomes. This year will also be the first time we've ever made that much money--when I got the new job last summer, our family income almost doubled.

                                About 1/2 of that goes to rent (we live in a 2 bedroom one bathroom apartment) and transportation (including payments, gas, tolls, and insurance), about 1/4 of it pays the electricity, cell phone, renters insurance, my school loan (which is thankfully almost paid off), internet, Netflix and and XBox live subscriptions (since that is how we watch TV), day care for the kids, paying down debts we incurred during unemployment and underemployment, some odds and ends medical bills from co-pays and things, and the kids gymnastics. The rest of it pays for groceries, toiletries, clothing when its needed (and we shop at thrift stores), books, other odds and ends, and the occasional date night. And we maybe go out to eat once a week, somewhere cheap and local.

                                Housing around here is expensive (or you can plant on an hour or two commute and tolls...well, there are tolls no matter what now, thanks to our last governor and the teapublicans in the state governement). Our $900/month apartment is comparable to the $550 townhome we lived in in Illinois. My mom's 175,000 house (4 bedrooms, a loft, a fireplace, den, dining room and eat-in kitchen, decent backyard, 3 bathrooms) would easily (in a similar neighborhood) cost twice that here. But paying more for the housing is worth it because here, the state government leans heavily red (most of the state is rural) and is too cheap to pay taxes or do anything about transportation, so the roads suck which causes more wear and tear on vehicles, and more time spent in traffic jams, and shit-tons of tolls.


                                ETA: I merged this with another, similar thread
                                Last edited by thalassa; 27 Aug 2014, 07:04.
                                Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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