It’s important to think about and calculate the cost of living in a place that you want to move in. What is your current income, is it enough to cover all living expenses in that place? How much does it cost to rent apartments near Wilmington or even buy one?
In this blog, I’m going to walk you through important stuff that you should consider and calculate before moving to a new place.
Housing Cost
Housing is very important, especially when we are thinking of moving to a new place. After all, we all need a roof over our heads. It is better not to spend more than 30% or at most 40 % of your income on housing if you are to cover the rest of your living expenses.
So make sure that the place you want to move to does not require a higher cost of living than your current place, and if it does, then you must have sufficient income. If you don’t have sufficient income to cover all the living expenses in that place, city, or whatever, then you need to choose a place with a lower cost of living.
Living Costs
The cost of living is on the rise and in some places, it is even higher than in others. There are some expenses that you can reduce. You could, for example, research the best auto insurance companies of 2022 to see if there is a way you could get cheaper insurance while still retaining the level of cover you currently have. However, there are many vital things such as food, the cost of your child’s education if you have any, the costs of transportation and medical, and so on that you must consider and figure out where, if anywhere, you are willing to make compromises.
If you have sufficient income, then you can move to your dream city. However, if your income doesn’t seem to be enough, then calculate all these costs ahead and see if you are able to live in that city.
Taxes
We all need to pay taxes, some of us more, some of us less, but we need to pay them anyway. Taxes should be included in our calculations since they are also a part of our cost of living.Some cities are the most tax-friendly places, however, some of them are the least tax-friendly ones.
You can consider different cities with local and property taxes and see which one has a higher rate, and which one has a lower rate or even zero.
In some sites when you buy a vehicle you have to pay its tax, however, in some cities, you don’t have to. There are some illegal ways that you can do in order not to pay your vehicle tax, but because they are not the subject of this article and aren’t legal either then I’m not going to talk about them.
Food Cost
We should also calculate food cost since it plays an important part in our overall cost of living. We can get the same food with the same quality at a different rate in different places. So the question that we need to ask ourselves is if we have enough budget to live in places where the food costs are high?
There are tips we can follow to cut down on the expensive food that we might eat, but we need food anyway. As funny as it may seem, we need to think about all the foods that we eat and their prices in our calculation.
Cost of your child’s education
You may not have any children yet, but if you have any, you need to pay for their education. So we should consider this in our calculation. You may have a grown-up daughter or son and want to send them to college. Sending them to some colleges will cost you a lot of money. So based on your income and perhaps your savings as well, send them to a college that you can pay for without going broke.
Healthcare Costs
Healthcare costs are rising more and more every day. Different hospitals in different places will ask you for various amounts of money to pay for the same medical operation.
If you have your private medical insurance, they will pay some or even all of your medical bills. However, if you are not supported by any private medical insurance companies then you have to cover all the healthcare costs by yourself.
It is a good idea to register in a health insurance company that you can afford. They will help you a lot with your healthcare costs. After all, you want to be able to attend an urgent care near me facility when necessary without having to worry about the cost of the appointment and treatment!
Extra Costs
There are some extra costs that are unexpected, for example, something may go wrong with your home door, your pool, your garden, and so on. However, there are some other extras that are obvious like paying for your clothes, I don’t know your towels, your cellphone, laptops, and stuff like that. So we need to calculate this kind of stuff as well.
Transportation Costs
Last but not least is transportation costs. It is obvious that American people spend much on transportation. This includes repairing a car, paying gas, paying for a car park, and many more.
We can cut down the amount of money we pay for a car, for example by getting a less expensive car and using it whenever necessary. We don’t need to go everywhere in our car. Instead, we can use public transportation if we can get to work faster and that is also less expensive.
Conclusion
The cost of living is on the rise these days. To make a wise decision we need to calculate important costs in our life especially if we want to move to a city. In this blog, I have provided some of the most important stuff that cost us money that I hope you’ve found useful.
