The Cost of Living: How Much Does is Really Change From City to City

Everybody is always talking about the cost of living, and how its going up. Heck, there is even a country song called “The Cost of Livin.” People are also talking about how the cost of living is different among different areas. When you think about, its kind of obvious to think that you are going to get need to make a whole lot more if you are living in New York City versus if you are living in rural Wyoming. So then you start to think how much is it different in the same state.

In order to see if there is a difference there, you need to take 2 cities that have like economies. Living and doing research in Colorado throughout college, two metropolitan areas that are truly comparable are the Denver Metro and the Colorado Springs Metro. While the population of Denver is larger, they have similar industries driving their economies such as manufacturing and service-based. Once you go ahead and use a Cost of Living Comparison Calculator, you find out some interesting information. One of the first interesting comparisons is home prices. In the Springs the average price is $261,466.00. You then go and take a 45 minute drive north on I-25, you find the home price jump up to $328,601.33. That is a difference of $67,135.33. That’s a pretty big difference. Everything else is pretty similar in expense with Denver being slightly more expensive it just about every category that ranged from a cup of coffee to a hair cut to the cost of rent. Even though all of the differences were just slight increases, the results of the overall cost of living was a little off of what I imagined. If you were moving from Colorado Springs and you were making $50,000 a year, your new job is going to need to pay you $55590.81. That’s a difference of $5,590.81. That doesn’t appear to be a huge difference, but its a 11.18% difference in income. Once you start expanding that into the upper income brackets, the difference starts becoming more extensive. So the answer to the question of is the cost of living in the same state but different cities is YES.