Colorado just went up a few points (Denver, Boulder: insurance, buy)

[MorningGlory]

Originally Posted by Mike78613

Can't remember.... does Colorado charge sales tax on groceries like: meat/produce/can goods?

It didn't used to but now it does, just not as much as non-food items.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by MorningGlory

It didn't used to but now it does, just not as much as non-food items.

Not the state, just the municipality, e.g. City of Louisville, etc.

[MorningGlory]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

Not the state, just the municipality, e.g. City of Louisville, etc.

OK . I know I didn't used to pay tax on milk, now I do. I was close!

[StuckInTexas]

Whether or not you want to live in Colorado really depends on what you want to do for a living and how much weather bothers you.

I disagree with Colorado Springs being a place where everyone works for the government. There are quite a few tech jobs there as well and the economy is fairly diverse really. Almsot all cities over 500,000 people have enough diversity in their economy regardless of the primary fields.

Durango is hard to get a good job in many fields, and has a lack of diversity in the economy. It is primarily real estate, construction, retail, restaurants, and a very tiny bit of manufacturing and technology. The professional services economy of Durango is also not that great (accounting, legal, IT, administrative, etc..), but it is getting better slowly.

The Colorado economy is not so great when you factor in cost-of-living in most places, yes there are cheap places to live, but not many. The best economy to cost-of-living ratio is Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Not sure about Grand Junction, but Durango is too high cost-of-living index when average income is factored in.

I think the best place to live in Colorado is Colorado Springs, if you pick the right part of town. Pueblo is kind of dumpy, because the nice parts of Pueblo are harder to come by. Colorado Springs has it's dumpy areas too, but a lot of the city is very nice. Durango is just outside of a huge "snow dump zone", and it is on what you could call a "weather line". The weather is very different from 5 miles south of Durango to 5 miles North of Durango. It is such a rugged area that the weather depends on which side of the mountains you face, your elevation, and which side of town you live on. However, most of Durango averages over 65" of snow a year, and that's quite a lot of snow. One thing to note is some years it can get well over 100" of snow, but since that area goes through droughts, the average doesn't mean much. It may snow 30" on a really dry year, but it may snow 100+" on a wet year. It's too much snow and too cold in my opinion. If the town were a bit bigger and cost of living lower, then I'd say it's great. If the only thing you care about is scenery, then you can't beat the areas around Durango. I think it is even better than Rcky mtn. national park areas.

[movingmaggie]

We have 8% sales tax in Albany, NY. You guys are much cheaper.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by movingmaggie

We have 8% sales tax in Albany, NY. You guys are much cheaper.

Many Colorado cities have combined local and state sales tax rates in excess of 8% . . .

[steveco.]

Yes some of the cities in the denver metro region are over 8 percent

[wankel7]

Dont forget about the great sales tax on cars...7.7 percent...Gee I wonder if that leads to fraud?

[Katarina Witt]

In Colorado, virtually evey municipality (county, city, town, etc) has their own sales tax. So just b/c 3% sales tax looks good on those financial planning websites, that is not the only sales tax you will pay here. In metro Denver, we pay state, our own county, our own city, baseball stadium, football stadium, RTD (transit) and scientific and cultural facilities district sales taxes. There are also fire distrcits, library districts, recreation districts and the like. I think in some places it's close to 9% total.

[Sters]

In New Jersey we pay 7%, except for food, clothing, shoes, medicines and diapers, so you guys pay a little bit more than we do; on the other hand, our property taxes are over twice what you pay and don't even get me started on car insurance...the highest in the country. Be thankful you don't live here!