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Cost of living calculators are useless. For entertainment purposes only. In the last 6 years I've lived in Ohio, Sarasota, FL, and now San Francisco. Two cross
by encoderer 14y ago
Cost of living calculators are useless. For entertainment purposes only.
In the last 6 years I've lived in Ohio, Sarasota, FL, and now San Francisco. Two cross-country moves, in neither case was a cost of living calculator remotely relevant.
- dionidium 14y agoHow did reality differ from prediction?
- encoderer 14y agoWhile I've never studied the calcualtors, I'd reason that they work by comparing median and mean prices from, perhaps, the consumer price index. The trouble is that I don't buy Median $PRODUCT or live in median $HOUSING. And it doesn't cover the fact that at higher incomes I don't spend nearly all of what I make. And many of the things I do buy are consumer products that are the same everywhere: A MacBook or a Mercedes costs the same whether you make $60k as a programmer in Kansas or $120k in California. And for housing, if I spend 50% above the median in Florida, that in no way suggests I'll spend 50% above the median in California. Maybe I'll rent a median flat in California that, due to a more expensive housing market, has many of the amenities I had to pay more for in Florida. Or I choose to accept a smaller house in California. And for savings, while I now save a lower percentage of my California income than I was able to save of my Florida income, the absolute dollar amount is much higher now. And for retirement savings, I don't expect to retire in the highly-taxed California anyway. The one area these calculators can get right is to set the appropriate expectation of tax differences.