I was laid off from my job about six months back and since I have been able to get nothing but temp jobs. You know the less than $10.00/hr type.
Anyway I got an interview in Boise, of all places. But the pay for the job was $34,500.00/year. Now currently I was making $45,000.00
I was talking with the H/R person and they can’t go higher, but she says she’s from San Francisco and the cost of living is so much cheaper and it was a shock for her when she first came.
I guess if the offer comes through, I’ll take it as I have too many bills now and I need something to pay them off, but is $35.5K a livable salary in Boise?
I don’t need much just a studio and the big problem now is I live in Chicago and don’t have a car, so I’d have to get one, and I’m thinking that a car payment is gonna cancel out any cost of living benefit.
Pending Boise folks weighing in, why don’t you look through the Boise newspaper and look at the ads, and see what prices are for things?
Look here, http://www.idahostatesman.com/ and check what apartments are going for?
Also keep in mind that cost of living is relative. I moved from Dallas to NYC and all I heard from anyone was, “The cost of living is so high! How can you afford to move there?” Well, when you factor in the cheap apartment I found and getting rid of my money sucking pit of a car in exchange for $80 per month for the subway my cost of living came just about even. Then I found a job paying $13k a year more than I was earning in Dallas. I came out WAY ahead of the game moving to New York. Even now that my roommate moved and I am paying rent on the 2 bedroom on my own I can still afford it, though granted I am not spending nearly as much on entertainment or eating out all the time but that is a small price to pay to live here and after I find another roommate it will cease to be any kind of problem at all.
Yeah those cost of living indicators don’t tell much. I have lived in Chicago and NYC and both indicate much higher than it really is. I mean certain fixed costs like a car or food are pretty much the same. Home prices make a big difference also taxes.
I have never found a place cheaper than Chicago. No car needed and I can get a nice one bedroom for $600.00. It’s not fancy but it’s in a nice neighborhood and it’s clean. But when you look at Chicago they add in downtown and Lincoln Park and that way skews up those cost of living indictors.
That’s why I was hoping to hear form Idahoians (is that a word?) or ex Idaho-ites( which one is right?) LOL
I know Boise is generally cheaper than where I am in Idaho, but then again practically the entire state is – I’m in the Sun Valley area, though I’m not one of the rich people up here, I work at the resort. In general here it’s pricey (property is astronomical, but I rent) but not quite as bad as I expected.
I know housing there is far more affordable than here, but I don’t know anything more than you do, because I can’t imagine living anywhere but in the mountains if I’m going to live in Idaho. Boise seems like a nice place, though, I just love the mountains.
Hopefully somebody else will chime in. I don’t think we have any Boise Dopers. I’m the only one here that I know of, and I think we’ve got somebody in Idaho Falls, but that’s nowhere near Boise.
I don’t pay a lot of attention to how the cost of living here compares to elsewhere. I have heard a lot of people say that while wages here are generally lower, the cost of living is lower, too. We enjoy relatively low power rates due to the abundance of hydroelectricity, though that’s going to be going up. Seems that even in a good water year Idaho Power will find a reason to hike the power rates (because last year was a low water year, they say). Gas prices have broken the $4.00 barrier here. It seems were usually on the higher end of the gas price scale, but not the highest overall. Maybe if I get time I can Google around for some links to show our current costs of living.
I own my house, so I don’t know what rents go for in most apartments (the Staesman link provided above is a good place to check, or try www.zidaho.com, which is sort of a local version of Craigslist. If you live in Boise you can rely on bus service, but if you are outside of Boise there aren’t a lot of options other than your own vehicle.
This isn’t worth much, but I remember seeing a TV show on HGTV about relative costs of living around the country. It featured similarly sized houses in different areas and showed how each one was valued differently based on where you live.
This show called Boise the best place in the country to live. Part of this was the extremely low cost of living. But it also factored in the well-planned communities, the availability of jobs, and growth potential.
I’ve seen a similar show on that channel, where they take a set amount of money, and show you what it buys in different places around the country. The last time, I think the price was 800K. In the coastal cities, the houses and condos they showed were fairly small. In the Great Lakes Snowbelt, in a medium sized town, the house they showed looked big enough for Victorian era steel magnate. I suppose there you have to figure in the cost of winter heat.