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I'm looking for suggestions on affordable places to live for a single parent with 3 children on an income of $60,000 per year. Top priorities are excellent schools and access to great services for autism / mental health care. TIA for your input!
I'm looking for suggestions on affordable places to live for a single parent with 3 children on an income of $60,000 per year. Top priorities are excellent schools and access to great services for autism / mental health care. TIA for your input!
Too open-ended. What field do you work in? In general, unless you are 100% telecommuting and taking an existing job wherever you go, you are going to earn more in high COL areas.
If you want to keep this at a completely general level, there are scads of rankings and statistics out there that compare median earnings with cost of living in different metro areas. Generally places in the midwest like Des Moines, IA and Akron, OH come out on top in those studies.
Well there's plenty of places that would meet that. Detroit metro, Saint Paul MN area, etc would be contenders. We need more factors. Where do you live now? Your field?
Thanks so much for your responses! Sorry it was so general. I will not be working. I'll be living on a retirement of about 60-65k per year, and raising children who are middle school aged. Jobs and commuting are not an issue. Of greater concern are schools and mental health care for children that is not too far away.
If possible, I would love a place where people are active / outdoorsy. And I really, really can't do snow. Call me a wimp, but I've lived in California my whole life and I would rather be in sweltering heat than freezing cold and snow.
I have looked at lots of info online as far as cost of living which has been helpful, but I'm looking here for more personal / anecdotal information. I welcome any additional information. Thanks!
Check out the Jacksonville FL area and in particular the southern suburbs of Ponte Vedra Beach and Julington Creek in St John's County (#1 school district in FL) or the northern suburbs of Fernandina Beach and Yulee (between Jacksonville and the GA state line) in Nassau County (#2 school district in FL). The Jericho School in Jacksonville's Arlington area is a very reputable school that works exclusively with Autistic children at all grade levels. You'll get about three to four weeks of "winter" but otherwise it should be an amenable climate change in a major metro area with plenty to do and a cost of living well below the national average. You'll also have access to top autism/mental health care at the Mayo Clinic-Jacksonville as well as University of Florida Health.
Thanks so much for your responses! Sorry it was so general. I will not be working. I'll be living on a retirement of about 60-65k per year, and raising children who are middle school aged. Jobs and commuting are not an issue. Of greater concern are schools and mental health care for children that is not too far away.
If possible, I would love a place where people are active / outdoorsy. And I really, really can't do snow. Call me a wimp, but I've lived in California my whole life and I would rather be in sweltering heat than freezing cold and snow.
I have looked at lots of info online as far as cost of living which has been helpful, but I'm looking here for more personal / anecdotal information. I welcome any additional information. Thanks!
The weather aspect is unfortunate, because as a person with personal experience with one of the aspects you mentioned in the initial post, NY State has good services in regards to Autism/mental health. With that said, I believe that there are some good services in parts of NC, if I'm not mistaken. Hopefully, more people will chime in with suggestions, besides the very good one above.
Thanks so much for your responses! Sorry it was so general. I will not be working. I'll be living on a retirement of about 60-65k per year, and raising children who are middle school aged. Jobs and commuting are not an issue. Of greater concern are schools and mental health care for children that is not too far away.
If possible, I would love a place where people are active / outdoorsy. And I really, really can't do snow. Call me a wimp, but I've lived in California my whole life and I would rather be in sweltering heat than freezing cold and snow.
I have looked at lots of info online as far as cost of living which has been helpful, but I'm looking here for more personal / anecdotal information. I welcome any additional information. Thanks!
I won't speak to services, per se, but in regards to your income, people may be undervaluing it's real worth.
After all, as retirement you're not going to be paying FICA on it, almost certainly aren't putting any of it into other retirement accounts, and depending on the exact nature of it, parts/all of it may be exempt from state income tax in many states.
Where 60k for a working family might net to a take home of $3500-3700 or so, in your case it's probably more in the range of $4300-4800, no?
That's a pretty substantive swing in terms of what's affordable.
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