Cost Of Living In Your Area And Upkeep?

[oldgamerz]

I live in a small house, but I don't know for how long. A 2 room studio  apartment (in my area) average cost is $500  per month plus utilities. and higher in my area in virtually every apartment complex. So if I am ever forced to move out I am pretty much screwed as far a collecting goes. unless I am able to afford taxes and upkeep on my current home.

What is your current living situation? Are you lucky enough to have a house or spacious apartment, or are you stuck in a two room studio I don't mean 2 bedroom studio. Cost of living is ever going on the rise in my local area everything has gone up in price

Upkeep on a  house can be in the thousands of our money

[bikingjahuty]

I live in the Denver area and have lived here almost my whole life. I graduated college in 2010, got my first real job shortly after, and found a very nice apartment for $945 a month. Fastforward a few years later, weed gets legalized and then suddenly everyone wants to move to Colorado for the legal weed. This then puts a spotlight on Colorado and everyone realizes how little traffic we have, how "affordable" it is, and how our schools are so great. Before you know it we are getting 50,000 new people moving in a month from 2013 to 2016, and the cost of everything goes through the roof. That same apartment I started renting in 2010 went from $945 a month to nearly $1300 a month just four years later. Needless to say I no longer live there and have to move several times now due to my landlord getting greedy and wanting to jack my rent up several hundred dollars a month at the end of my lease.


I love Colorado, I really do, but it has become incredibly expensive and difficult to live here over this last decade, some of it having nothing to do with the cost of living. One of our biggest attractions is the mountains, but good luck going up there between Friday and Monday; a popular mountain town called Dillon is 75-miles from Denver up I-70 and on a typical Friday afternoon when everyone wants to go up to the mountains, it can take between 3-hours on a good day, and as many as 10-hours depending on weather conditions and if it's ski season. Growing up this was an hour and a half drive consistently. I could go on and on about other things too, but it really does make you question how badly you want to live here. I think the most telling sign of this is how last year there was only a net population increase of about 50k even though nearly 300k new people moved here last year. That's because almost 250k people left. Really makes you wonder how great it really is to live here now...

[jce3000gt]

Like ^ bikingjahuty we are getting a HUGE influx of people from out of state here in TX (and like CO we are getting way too many people from CA), more than we are losing and it is significantly impacting our cost of living here.  Our house value doubled in 7 years and the cost of living in TX is starting to get to the point of ludicrousness for us natives on about everything but petrol.  Our property taxes are pretty high though we don't have a state income tax so at least that evens out...sort of.  Thankfully the wife, child and I will be moving to the northwest (ID) in the country and will enjoy (at least for a while) the cheaper cost of living versus what we have here.  By the time it goes up a significant amount our mortgage will be paid for and we won't care.  

Thank god the wife and I make a very good living...

[SilverBow]

Like ^ bikingjahuty we are getting a HUGE influx of people from out of state here in TX (and like CO we are getting way too many people from CA), more than we are losing and it is significantly impacting our cost of living here.  Our house value doubled in 7 years and the cost of living in TX is starting to get to the point of ludicrousness for us natives on about everything but petrol.  Our property taxes are pretty high though we don't have a state income tax so at least that evens out...sort of.  Thankfully the wife, child and I will be moving to the northwest (ID) in the country and will enjoy (at least for a while) the cheaper cost of living versus what we have here.  By the time it goes up a significant amount our mortgage will be paid for and we won't care.  

Thank god the wife and I make a very good living...

Texans should feel welcome here. We have a saying, “Idaho Is What America Was”. At least that still applies to the central and northern portions of  the state. There are too many ex-Californians in the southern part. Luckily, I was able to escape from the idiotic destruction of California about 25 years ago.

[kypherion]

Lots of Californians are coming to Oregon, which isn't awesome for money, but I'll be leaving in a year in a half to Arizona so that's good.

[bikingjahuty]

Like ^ bikingjahuty we are getting a HUGE influx of people from out of state here in TX (and like CO we are getting way too many people from CA), more than we are losing and it is significantly impacting our cost of living here.  Our house value doubled in 7 years and the cost of living in TX is starting to get to the point of ludicrousness for us natives on about everything but petrol.  Our property taxes are pretty high though we don't have a state income tax so at least that evens out...sort of.  Thankfully the wife, child and I will be moving to the northwest (ID) in the country and will enjoy (at least for a while) the cheaper cost of living versus what we have here.  By the time it goes up a significant amount our mortgage will be paid for and we won't care.  

Thank god the wife and I make a very good living...

Funny enough it's mostly Texans moving here, followed closely by Californians. Regardless though, they've made it impossible to purchase a home unless you're rich, stupid, or have a family member who is willing to drop a significant sum on a house for you. My mom's neighborhood which is also where I grew up was a lower-middle class neighborhood all the way up until the earlier part of this decade. Now she has a Lawyer that lives across the street from her, a chemical engineer at the end of her street, and behind her a trust fund couple who the wife's dad owns some giant oil company somewhere. Regardless my ability to afford a house in the state have vanished, even in the ghettos in north Denver where houses now cost double what they did just 5-years ago. I rent part of a house from a family member and have assurance that my rent will not raise beyond my means to afford. If I didn't have this you can be certain I wouldn't be able to live in Colorado anymore. Leaving here is still something I think about, but as shitty as this sounds, i'm hoping for another major housing market crash like we saw in 2008. The gains in home values make little sense when factoring in things like the median household income in many metro areas, the lack of savings and that most americans live paycheck to paycheck, and the stagnation of wages while the cost of virtually everything has gone up significantly. If anything, housing should be cheaper than ever, but there fact that it's the exact opposite tells me something far more nefarious is going on and we won't find out what that is until it's too late. 

[oldgamerz]

Crime organizations were also spreading in my area since about 13 years ago, now my town has been red lined, I can recall an old Third Reich brand sign on a wall about 2 blocks from my home, but I think it has been there for at least 10 years or more. Not sure if they are still in my neighborhood

[baileykun]

I live in a Podunk town with little in it. I rent a small house (600 square ft) for $500 a month.  Sometimes you can hear gun shots in the distance. My issue isn't rent though, all the nicer, more expensive apartments are hidden away. I need to be able to walk places or at least bike. Luckily, I intend to move later this year to a more bike friendly city.

On the Denver thing though, yeah, it sounds insane there. My husband's parents moved there no longer than a couple months, but they were able to flip the house for a profit. People are desperate to get houses out there. They only left because his mom couldn't handle the cold.

[rayne315]

Iowa there are LOTS of areas in Iowa that are INCREADIBLY cheap to live. I live in one of the larger cities and my rent is only $570 a month for a 2 bed, 1.5 bath, 1200 sq ft apartment. the only thing im missing is laundry in my place (its communal in the building and pay per use) and a garage to store my car (I had a carport installed in my parking spot though). the only thing that is not cheap in Iowa is land.

[aliensstudios]

I live in the Denver area and have lived here almost my whole life. I graduated college in 2010, got my first real job shortly after, and found a very nice apartment for $945 a month. Fastforward a few years later, weed gets legalized and then suddenly everyone wants to move to Colorado for the legal weed. This then puts a spotlight on Colorado and everyone realizes how little traffic we have, how "affordable" it is, and how our schools are so great. Before you know it we are getting 50,000 new people moving in a month from 2013 to 2016, and the cost of everything goes through the roof. That same apartment I started renting in 2010 went from $945 a month to nearly $1300 a month just four years later. Needless to say I no longer live there and have to move several times now due to my landlord getting greedy and wanting to jack my rent up several hundred dollars a month at the end of my lease.


I love Colorado, I really do, but it has become incredibly expensive and difficult to live here over this last decade, some of it having nothing to do with the cost of living. One of our biggest attractions is the mountains, but good luck going up there between Friday and Monday; a popular mountain town called Dillon is 75-miles from Denver up I-70 and on a typical Friday afternoon when everyone wants to go up to the mountains, it can take between 3-hours on a good day, and as many as 10-hours depending on weather conditions and if it's ski season. Growing up this was an hour and a half drive consistently. I could go on and on about other things too, but it really does make you question how badly you want to live here. I think the most telling sign of this is how last year there was only a net population increase of about 50k even though nearly 300k new people moved here last year. That's because almost 250k people left. Really makes you wonder how great it really is to live here now...

I live in Colorado too and the price of an apartment is crazy, like 1200-2000 a month! I've got a very good amount saved atm but the housing market is discouraging. Overpriced, fixer upper houses for 400 to 500k! I've grown pretty sick of Colorado since finishing High School in 2012 and have looked at property in Virginia, where a lot of our family is for have the price for a comparable house. In Colorado, it's like something goes up for sale and two days later its sold.

[dharmajones93]

I lived in Boston for a few years when I was starting my collection. Was really in to handhelds and PC stuff cause frankly it was all I could fit. But yeah, a 350 square foot studio was around $1300. Which of course is nothing compared to NYC.

I live near Cincinnati now and things are much more reasonable. Looking at houses now, but things vary depending on how far from the city you are and which neighborhoods. My apartment is around $800 a month, but just across the river I can see Peter Frampton's house... Seriously...

Overall cost of living is just about right though. I can over-pay for my bills, and keep a sizeable monthly game budget.

[jce3000gt]

Like ^ bikingjahuty we are getting a HUGE influx of people from out of state here in TX (and like CO we are getting way too many people from CA), more than we are losing and it is significantly impacting our cost of living here.  Our house value doubled in 7 years and the cost of living in TX is starting to get to the point of ludicrousness for us natives on about everything but petrol.  Our property taxes are pretty high though we don't have a state income tax so at least that evens out...sort of.  Thankfully the wife, child and I will be moving to the northwest (ID) in the country and will enjoy (at least for a while) the cheaper cost of living versus what we have here.  By the time it goes up a significant amount our mortgage will be paid for and we won't care.  

Thank god the wife and I make a very good living...

Texans should feel welcome here. We have a saying, “Idaho Is What America Was”.

Thank you.  So far every native Idahoan (Idahoan?) has been super nice and welcoming...you know...like Texas USED to be.  Both my wife and I are libertarians and hugely pro-constitution so we'll add to the right kind of voting pool to keep ID as free as possible.  The two areas we're looking at were Idaho City and Island Park.  Though Idaho City may be the winner due to a few factors.  But that's for another discussion. 

[ferraroso]

If you guys remember well, until late 2017 I used to live in an one room 18m² apartment. It was small, but it was located in an amazing neighboorhood (the president of the Toyota Motor Company lives in a huge mansion just 300m away from that apartment) and the price was unbelievably cheap for Nagoya standards: ¥25,000 (less than US$230.00) with water and internet included.

Since then, I got married and moved to an 84m² apartment with 3 rooms (of which one 12m² room is dedicated solely to the game collection), very spacious living and dining rooms and a huge veranda. It is around 4 times more expensive (¥89,000 - US$815.00) than the old apartment (with nothing else included) and farther from downtown (which, for someone raised in the countryside like me, is actually an advantage), but it is only a 3 minutes walk from the nearest subway station and I now have a roofed place to park my motorcycle.
I'd say that the move was worth in both terms of money spent and the better quality of life I'm getting now when comparing with my old place (which still has a soft spot in my heart).

[bikingjahuty]

I live in the Denver area and have lived here almost my whole life. I graduated college in 2010, got my first real job shortly after, and found a very nice apartment for $945 a month. Fastforward a few years later, weed gets legalized and then suddenly everyone wants to move to Colorado for the legal weed. This then puts a spotlight on Colorado and everyone realizes how little traffic we have, how "affordable" it is, and how our schools are so great. Before you know it we are getting 50,000 new people moving in a month from 2013 to 2016, and the cost of everything goes through the roof. That same apartment I started renting in 2010 went from $945 a month to nearly $1300 a month just four years later. Needless to say I no longer live there and have to move several times now due to my landlord getting greedy and wanting to jack my rent up several hundred dollars a month at the end of my lease.


I love Colorado, I really do, but it has become incredibly expensive and difficult to live here over this last decade, some of it having nothing to do with the cost of living. One of our biggest attractions is the mountains, but good luck going up there between Friday and Monday; a popular mountain town called Dillon is 75-miles from Denver up I-70 and on a typical Friday afternoon when everyone wants to go up to the mountains, it can take between 3-hours on a good day, and as many as 10-hours depending on weather conditions and if it's ski season. Growing up this was an hour and a half drive consistently. I could go on and on about other things too, but it really does make you question how badly you want to live here. I think the most telling sign of this is how last year there was only a net population increase of about 50k even though nearly 300k new people moved here last year. That's because almost 250k people left. Really makes you wonder how great it really is to live here now...

I live in Colorado too and the price of an apartment is crazy, like 1200-2000 a month! I've got a very good amount saved atm but the housing market is discouraging. Overpriced, fixer upper houses for 400 to 500k! I've grown pretty sick of Colorado since finishing High School in 2012 and have looked at property in Virginia, where a lot of our family is for have the price for a comparable house. In Colorado, it's like something goes up for sale and two days later its sold.

It's very discouraging, and I'm not counting on ever owning property in this state unless my mom has me on the inheritance for her house, which I doubt. The two things that keep me here are familiarity, I've lived here almost my entire life, and I have a well paying job that I really like. Despite my job, I still can't afford rent at most apartments, unless of course I settle for a dump, and I certainly cannot afford a house, even in places that used to be dirt cheap like Commerce City or Greeley. My only real hope is waiting for a major downturn in the market, which the market is slowing down, but it is far being at the point where I could jump into a mortgage.

[kashell]

I live in Nashville, and it's situation sounds eerily similar to Denver's. @.@