Before I moved from my very cheap birth country to the entirely-not-cheap area known as Toronto, I thought along these lines and was concerned that my standard

Before I moved from my very cheap birth country to the entirely-not-cheap area known as Toronto, I thought along these lines and was concerned that my standard of living would be the same or lower. However, surprisingly, I found it to go up a lot. - Real Estate did take up a larger % of my budget, but it was nicer - The globalized products are only a small % of the budget but they're relatively much cheaper so I can have more/better/both Of course this doesn't mean expensive cities are perfect or even good. I later moved from Toronto to Alberta and it's night-and-day better. Of course the lifestyle is different and some might not like that. There's a big qualitative angle so you can't really compare these things on a spreadsheet, but more after-tax dollars is almost always better.