cost of living from Montana to Anchorage (Butte, Eagle: rentals, insurance)

[cbmmom5]

Hello,

I have just been offered my dream job in Anchorage. My family of 6 plus my mom are considering moving to Eagle River in June. What I really need to know is how much more I need to make in Alaska to maintain my lifestyle from Montana. Three different web sites have said $20,000, $30,000 and $40,000 more so you can see that that is a huge spread. Does anyone have any thoughts about this. I need to make a decision in about 10 days.

Thanks
Connie

[okieplumber]

for myself i came up with about 20% more to maintain my current level

[doug1980]

We make about 40% more and have a similar lifestyle as we had in Indiana. A tad better actually. It is very expensive here. We pay about 2 times more for housing here, 50% more for auto insurance here, groceries are 20%-30% more here, fuel is about a dollar more per gallon here, but ulilities are a little cheaper here.

[FloridaKash]

Originally Posted by cbmmom5

Hello,

I have just been offered my dream job in Anchorage. My family of 6 plus my mom are considering moving to Eagle River in June. What I really need to know is how much more I need to make in Alaska to maintain my lifestyle from Montana. Three different web sites have said $20,000, $30,000 and $40,000 more so you can see that that is a huge spread. Does anyone have any thoughts about this. I need to make a decision in about 10 days.

Thanks
Connie

Best advice I have for you is too figure out what your monthly budget would be to live here. Look on craigslist for rentals, that will give you idea what rent would run on a home you are willing to live in. Go Safeway's website and use an Eagle River Zip code (I don't know their zip code, google it) which will show you hor much food is. Gas, right now is about a $3.40/gal. Find out how far eagle river is from the job using mapquest and that will assist you with establishing a gas/month estimate.

So that covers Housing, Food and Gas.

With that many people, figure your Natural Gas bill for heat being somewhere around $250 during the winter and Electric around $150. Auto insurance should be about the same. If you smoke, cigarettes are roughly $8/pack. I think that would just about cover it and give you a real sense on what the cost of living here is compared to where you are now. If you have a 'eat out' budget you need to increase it by 50% to be realistic for Alaska restaurant/fast food prices.

[cbmmom5]

Thanks to all of you for the information. We have a lot to figure out in a very short amount of time. I will take your advise and figure out a monthly budget and go from there.

Thanks again,
Connie

[starlite9]

Well for what it is worth, your cost of living will be depending on what and where you buy/rent your place of residence.

Not knowing what you make there, isn't going to help anyone here tell if you will need more than you are making now or the same.

Regardless, if you have a "Dream Job", then go after it and figure out the details as you go, cut back where you need to and spend where you have to.

The adventure is what makes it great, the details of the unknown is what makes it scary.

Buck up and do what your dreams call on you for, if you don't try, you will regret it for the rest of your life.

[roadfamily6now]

Which part of MT are you from?
I grew up in Bozeman and have moved back there from AK a few times (love it there) but find that the average income in that area is NOT nearly enough to pay for the high cost of living.

Here my DH can work and make plenty of money for our whole family on one income. The cost of living is virtually the same except we get the added bonus of having military benefits so we can utilize the commissary which saves us $$ on groceries and such. But the housing prices are very close to the same as in Bozeman and so is most other things like Utilities etc..

In Bozeman the wages are so low we would NEED to have at least 2 jobs to do the same as we do here.

[NomadicBear]

It'd be hard to find a state where it is more difficult to make ends meet than Montana. Wages are incredibly poor, yet places like Bozeman have astronomical house prices regardless of that fact.

[cbmmom5]

We live in Anaconda which is between Butte and Missoula and both my husband and I work for the state of Montana. Together we make about $100,000. We will make about $140,000 in Alaska. We like to fish, camp, ride atv's and hunt and we would want to keep doing that of course in Alaska.

Thanks for any insight.
Connie