Compare Your Cost of Living

[allibally]

www.expatistan.com

So how does you cost compare between the two places you picked?

I did Zurich and Chicago. And Zurich is 70% more expensive.

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To add the breakdown of the 70% average:

Food is 91% more expensive in Zurich
Housing is 91% more expensive
Clothing is 122% more expensive. Most shocking was the Levi Jeans $48 in US but equivalent in Zurich would be $141!
Transport is 25% more expensive
Entertainment is 50% more expensive
Personal Care is 107% expensive

The few things that are cheaper in Zurich:

Milk 26% less
Beer 21% less
4 rolls of toliet paper 3% less
1 min on prepaid cellphone 21% less
1 package of Marlboro cigarettes 8% (Surprising! But Chicago taxes high on this)
iPod nano 8GB (6th generation) 8% less

[dorothyinAus]

Overall, New Orleans is 32% cheaper than Melbourne. I was very surprised the overall total was not higher. But I might not be converting at the current exchange rate, which may make a big difference.

Individual category breakdowns are:
Food 29% lower in NOLA
(BIG surprise! I was sure Australia was 40-50% more expensive)

Housing 29% lower in NOLA
(I would have thought NOLA was more expensive)

Clothes 53% lower in NOLA
(No surprise at all -- after I paid $30 for 1 pair of socks for DH at Christmas)

Transportation 42% lower in NOLA
(I really don't know about this, I don't drive. In the US I paid my parents a flat rate for rent/transportation each month; here DH handles this part of the budget.)

Personal Care 21% lower in NOLA
(I find prices to be roughly for what I use)

Entertainment 28% lower in NOLA
(Movie and theater tickets are about twice what I paid in the US, so I would say this is much lower than I thought ti would be.)

[mrsbini]

AD is 14% cheaper than Boston. It says housing there is only 9% more expensive...IME it was a lot more than that.

Addis Ababa is 53% cheaper than Boston.

[aMrsin09]

Overall, Nice France was 16% cheaper than DC and Brisbane is only 1% more expensive.

ETA: I don't really believe that Brisbane is only 1% more than DC. I bought my 2 br 2 bth condo in the DC area when I was only making 40k a year. No way in hell can I buy my own place in OZ making 40k a year.

[allibally]

Very interesting so far!

I want to add that while Zurich was way more expensive compared to Chicago. We actually were saving money way better there because of the higher salary. I would say we were more financially comfortable in Zurich.

[travelingturtle]

Orlando is, according to the site, 3% cheaper than where I am now. But, some of the things that are much more expensive here (clothes) doesn't count because I usually get clothes from the states. Housing was more expensive in Orlando, but it was even more for us than what it's showing on the site. We had a house and a yard and now we have a small apartment.

I think we're able to save so much more money here than we were ever able to in Orlando. Part of it is salary, part of it is that it's easier to do the things I really like to do living here and another part is that Orlando doesn't have much to offer in terms of fun without spending money. I always ended up at a shopping area there, and here I only go to the shopping areas if I need to. There's so much other stuff to do.

[lolo]

As we're exploring a move to the Bay area, I did London vs. San Francisco. Apparently SF is 21% cheaper than London. However, personal care is a lot more expensive--which surprised me a bit.

Columbus, OH (my hometown) is 49% cheaper than London--but it does have a disclaimer that it's relying on inconsistent data.

[lolo]

p.s. Thank you for sharing this site!

[frlcb]

May 14, 2012 6:13:32 GMT -5 lolo said:

As we're exploring a move to the Bay area, I did London vs. San Francisco. Apparently SF is 21% cheaper than London. However, personal care is a lot more expensive--which surprised me a bit.

Columbus, OH (my hometown) is 49% cheaper than London--but it does have a disclaimer that it's relying on inconsistent data.

This is interesting, it says Atlanta is 71% cheaper than London and I would bet Atlanta has a higher cost of living than Columbus, so I am skeptical of this site!

Edit: Yep, it says Columbus is 12% cheaper than Atlanta, yet Columbus is only 49% cheaper than London and Atlanta is 71% cheaper? It isn't adding up.

[crimsonandclover]

It kind of surprises me that it says the cost of living in a pretty small city not too far from where I am in the States is only 8% cheaper than in Stuttgart. But food and entertainment are more expensive here in the States - that doesn't surprise me at all.

I guess housing isn't listed there, though. That would make a HUGE difference. For a the price of a normal house (let's say about 150 sqm) around where I live in Germany, we could have a mansion with live-in help around where my parents live.

[lolo]

May 14, 2012 6:34:26 GMT -5 frlcb said:

May 14, 2012 6:13:32 GMT -5 lolo said:

As we're exploring a move to the Bay area, I did London vs. San Francisco. Apparently SF is 21% cheaper than London. However, personal care is a lot more expensive--which surprised me a bit.

Columbus, OH (my hometown) is 49% cheaper than London--but it does have a disclaimer that it's relying on inconsistent data.

This is interesting, it says Atlanta is 71% cheaper than London and I would bet Atlanta has a higher cost of living than Columbus, so I am skeptical of this site!

Edit: Yep, it says Columbus is 12% cheaper than Atlanta, yet Columbus is only 49% cheaper than London and Atlanta is 71% cheaper? It isn't adding up.

It's probably the inconsistent data thing, which came up with Columbus but not other cities.

For the record, with what I pay in rent here, I could afford 2.6x the monthly rent for a well-located two bedroom townhouse with attached single car garage. And my flat here is a 1 BR.

[karmaroma]

Between Rome and NYC it says that food in Rome is 4% less expensive although my feeling is that the difference is a little bigger, I'd say 10-15% less expensive.
Housing and transportation are 33 and 30% less expensive which sounds about right and clothing is 37% more expensive, which is definitely true.

[oneslybookworm]

Amsterdam is 56% more expensive than where we lived in the states. I can totally believe it.

[elenetxu]

Food in Bilbao (Spain) is 21% cheaper than in Boston (United States)
Housing in Bilbao (Spain) is 23% cheaper than in Boston (United States) (Wooooah.)
Clothes in Bilbao (Spain) are 74% more expensive than in Boston (United States)
Transportation in Bilbao (Spain) is 4% more expensive than in Boston (United States)
Personal Care in Bilbao (Spain) is 19% cheaper than in Boston (United States)
Entertainment in Bilbao (Spain) is 16% cheaper than in Boston (United States)


Considering Bilbao is darn expensive, I thought this was going to come out completely differently! Way to go, Bilbao!

[pittpurple]

Apparently Pittsburgh, PA is only 4% cheaper than Edinburgh. That's such a lie! Food is so, so much cheaper in Pgh and we could never afford to buy a house here and definitely could in Pgh. Am going to look at prices of groceries back 'home' next time we're there though, am curious if I missed a huge spike.

[clickerish]

Apparently, my current town (Midwest, college town) is MORE expensive in every category except clothing than Lisbon or Madrid. I don't buy this. Rent here is absurdly high for its location, I'll grant you and maybe we're on par with Lisbon since it's fairly cheap there. But you can't tell me we're beating out Madrid. Not possible.

[Deleted]

72% more expensive if I go back home to Oz. Booo!

[bugabean]

Cost of living in Minneapolis (United States) is 27% cheaper than in Copenhagen (Denmark)

I wanted to put in my hometown, but it doesn't seem to know ANY cities anywhere close to it. I suspect it's a lot more than 27% cheaper. And actually, I had put in St. Paul instead of Minneapolis, but it thought I meant somewhere in Haiti with a completely different name. It doesn't do very good at guessing.

[americaninoz]

Minneapolis 37% cheaper than living in Sydney - I believe that !

[wise_rita]

Brisbane is 24% cheaper than Oslo.

And Brisbane is expensive, yo.

[pseudoagain]

My nearest city was Southend on Sea in the UK. Only 7% more expensive than Boston. Who knew?!

[GilliC]

Rio de Janeiro is 43% cheaper than Oslo.
Maybe it's time to move.