Straight forward, how much household income per year would you say it costs a family of 4 to live comfortable where you live? In that I mean afford the average housing (house or apartment) afford transportation (car or public) while leaving enough to have some fun, travel, or hobbies. Please add more if one needs to pay for private schools.
And please show it in American dollars (calculator - LINK)
In my area of Kansas City that would be around $100,000 a year.
I think you are on the high since the linked calculator puts $100K for household income in the top 23% for KCMO. (I don’t recall what side you are on.) It all depends on what you consider comfortable. Even your OP is broad, big difference between owning a house and car versus renting a apartment and riding the bus.
I’m in Topeka and would say $50K for basic and comfortable. Average house is $136K which get you a decent house in a older neighborhood.
The median household income in Missouri is $44,306, with Platte County (just north of Kansas City) coming in highest at $67,791.
Just how “comfortable” are we talking here?
Depending on how you define the above, you could make it in Pittsburgh for say $20k. Some of the city schools aren’t bad, especially under the High School level and there is the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship fund for college. Housing in the depressed areas is cheap and public transit fairly good. That won’t get you into the sections that have made this America’s Most Liveable City now and then but its not bad either.
I live in Johnson county and its a bit more than Topeka.
Too goddamn much. Housing costs are insane and I’ve got to figure out how to buy a condo before prices inflate beyond reason again.
My monetary needs are higher, though, because of medical expenses. I’ve paid $1500 out of pocket for my migraine meds this year alone as I argue with the insurance company yet again.
My son lives in KC. $100,000 is not living comfortable that is living large in KC.
I can live comfortable on $100,000 a year in San Jose.
I think the median home price in the bay area is over $600K. The average home price in Topeka appears to be about the same as a downpayment. Suffice to say $100K with a family is not sufficient. 3 years out of college I’d expect people to make $100K.
Where I live in Western MD, a family of four could live easily on less than $50,000.
However, you’d have to define comfortably. What my son and I call living comfortably, a number of my friends would call spartan.
I live in MD near the DC border; $50,000 is poverty living. A “cheap” apartment is around $20,000 a year in rent. And the MD taxes, they’re horrible. Transportation easily can run $200 a month if you work in DC; this is just for public transportation.
I was thinking of moving further away, so I’m glad to hear that there are some more affordable places in MD.
Here in central Illinois you can live very nicely on $50K. That gets you a solid 70s ranch house to live in, reliable used cars to drive, and plenty of money to attend local fairs and occasionally take the train up to Chicago. If you’re clever with your pennies you can even do a Caribbean vacation every year or two.
San Francisco. And I have three kids all under 6. Assuming that I only had 2, to make a family of 4, that would be about 3200 per month in daycare costs total. Plus, renting a place where the commute for both my wife and I is under one hour (limits us to either San Francisco proper or Oakland proper) each way for both of us means, we are spending about 4000-5500 per month in rent. Forget about buying.
So, we’re in for 8-9K per month before we’ve eaten anything or driven anywhere or worn any clothes.
I just found a link that said the number is 84,000, which is impossible. When I dug into their numbers, I found they are using 1795 per month in rent. I doubt there are many one bedroom apartments in this city for that. So, that number is nonsense. The average rent for a one bedroom is 2700. Assuming you don’t want two kid sleeping in the same room with you, you need a minimum of a two bedroom at about 4000 per month.
I’m going to say, a family of four needs a minimum of 200,000 per year combined income to live “comfortably” and that’s not going to be lavish at all.
I’m in Washington County (Hagerstown) which is pretty far out.
However, the real estate out here is still reasonable.
Have you looked in Frederick?
In Northern NJ / Five Boroughs of NYC / Nassau county of NY you’ll need 2k for rent or a mortgage. Then you’ve got $200 for a car or public transport. Then you’ll need $800 to 1k for food. So 3k minimum each month for housing, transport and food. That’s 36k a year after taxes and you aren’t even addressing any other kinds of costs. So about 5k a month just for other things like clothing, home repairs, and may be a bit of fun like a vacation. I say 80k in combined household income here minimum. People usually manage on lower income by getting subsidized housing and other forms of assistance.
I’ve heard San Jose can be quite expensive even for a single person and even higher for families. BUT, its probably one of the most beautiful places in California to live I hear.
True, a person can live decently in KC on less that $100k but I’m just giving a ballpark figure from just looking at my bills. I pay $1200 a month for a 5 bedroom-3 bath home (that includes taxes and insurance) . Public schools here are great and nearly free, my average utility bills run about $600 a month, and we probably spend around $400 a month for transportation (that’s gas and expenses for 2 used cars).
Depends. I live in a fairly reasonable area, but I still think 80k is about the minimum to have a truly comfortable life (emergency fund, retirement savings, college savings, luxury money, vacation money, health care money) based on housing costs in my area. When you factor in that health insurance and health care costs can easily top 20k for a family of 4, and taxes on that 80k mean it is really closer to 60k then the figures start to seem stretchy. If all health care costs are covered, and this family is ok with a 2 bedroom apartment or condo, I’m guessing a family can probably get by on 50-60k.
FWIW, I make a lot less than 80k and I live comfortably. However I do not have a spouse or kids to support.
Your definition of comfortable is not the same as mine. My number would be a lot less than that.
Reno, Nevada: I would guess about $45,000/yr
Prague, Czech Republic: Around $35,000/yr
I’m not sure, but we are at around $134k and we aren’t particularly comfortable yet in DC-- unless you consider living paycheck-to-paycheck and squeezing a family of three into a one-bedroom apartment “comfortable.”
Right now. we are looking at houses, and out of “location/schools/commute”, “condition/size” and “affordability”, we basically get to pick one. Maybe 30k more, and I think we’d get to pick two.
Average household income in the Cayman Islands is about US$57,300.
That said, the “living comfortably” example of a family of four provided by a relocation information provider quotes about US$146,300 as needed, but that include full time in-home child care. Take that out and the total drops to US$124,400.
I would have put the number closer to the former rather than the latter. Maybe around US$75,000. But, hey, I’m cheap.
(1 KYD = 0.82 USD)
Frederick is really affordable, it is something we might consider. We’ve also looked at W VA, but that is a stretch to commute to DC.