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COL is 74.9 here in my little slice of heaven. Plus the wages are pretty decent, so it is much easier here than where I spent almost 20 years in Rural Northern Maine where the COL is higher and the wages much lower.
"the wages are pretty decent"
Uh, Mason County median household income is substantially lower than average for Michigan according to the quickfacts data.
Uh, Mason County median household income is substantially lower than average for Michigan according to the quickfacts data.
Um, it all depends on your job skills. For my DW and myself, we are making close to double what we did on the East Coast. She is an RN and I'm an Electrician. Yes we could make more money in another part of the state, but then the COL is a bit higher and it all comes out in the end. Pretty decent is also in comparison to what we were getting in Maine (like I indicated).
Typical COL is in the mid-upper 80s. To put this in numbers, an apartment so crappy it ended up on the local news was $345/mo for a one-bedroom, while a one-bedroom in a decent suburb started at $800/mo.
Cost of living in the 55810 zip code is...76.9! We have one of the lowest costs of living in the country, judging from the posts so far here!
And indeed you can live cheaply here. $200,000 will buy you 5+ acres and a nice house in the country, 20 minutes from town - what would probably cost at least $1-2MM in some parts of the country. The problem lies with jobs and the weather. The jobs available in Duluth are not particularly high-paying, or plentiful (unless you count service jobs, which barely pay minimum wage). This isn't necessarily a consequence of the low COL, but of the fact that my city has a reputation of being unfriendly to business, and hence there are few high-paying office jobs that are abundant in some other regions of the country (even ones with otherwise low costs of living). The weather also presents a major discouragement. Although the 2-3 months of summer are beautiful, you have to contend with one of the shortest frost-free seasons in the country, extremely cold winter temperatures, and blizzard conditions at least twice every winter.
The Duluth area is good if you like cold weather and outdoor activities. The biggest negative is that it has the worst economy in Minnesota.
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