Reply to What do people mean when they say that DC is a “high cost of living“ area?

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "What do people mean when they say that DC is a “high cost of living“ area?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’ll bite. I moved from NOVA to a LCOL area.

We ended up spending about the same amount on our house, but for a house that is twice as big. However, our property taxes are one quarter what they were in NOVA.

The private school my DC attends is 1/3 the cost.

Those two things alone reduce our COL by more than $40,000 a year.

Some things are not appreciably cheaper — nice restaurants, for example. Dry cleaning is about the same. Stuff you buy at places like Target or things like appliances. Air travel can be slightly more expensive since we don’t live near an airport hub.

Pretty much everything else is cheaper. Food, kid’s activities, summer camps, the slip fees where we dock our boat, etc. If a country club or yacht club would have a high five figure or six figure initiation fee in DC, it will be low five figures or even four figures here.

Anything service related is definitely cheaper — hair cuts, house cleaning, appliance repair, lawn service, car maintenance, etc.

And little things — I never pay to park, for example.

Part of the calculation involves what kind of lifestyle you lead in DC. If you have a less expensive house & lower taxes, use public schools, don’t have a house cleaner, keep your own yard, etc., — in other words, you don’t spend as much to begin with —  you might not notice the change quite as much. It would still be there, though. [/quote]

You capture it perfectly. I don't understand people like OP - are you really that dumb?[/quote]

I agree---some people appear to be fairly clueless.  I live in another VHCOL area.  Just moved DC into first apartment post college in Madison WI area (in a suburb).  DC is in a 800 sq ft,  5 yo 1 bedroom/1Bath apartment with LVP floors everywhere except bedroom, granite counters, W/D in unit, tons of amenities in the apartment complex.  Basically a newer "luxury" apartment with an included underground heated Assigned parking space.  Rent is $1300.  Where we live a similar apartment is currently going for $2600/month.

Then consider Auto insurance.  Difference between being on OUR plan and DC (age 22, male, single) on his own plan: $2K per year.  So one of the highest age groups to insure (single male under 25) is over $2K/year cheaper for similar coverage on his own.

So housing and auto insurance alone is $~18K per year difference.

Really not that difficult to understand that everything is cheaper in a LCOL area.  That is why the middle income/lower income really struggle in H/VHCOL areas.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics