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I can't even imagine a house for 40K. What's the average wage in those areas? Some people in the States pay over 30K just for property tax. How old are those houses? Are there actual decent jobs in those areas? Lots of crime?
$40k for a house? You can barely get a kitchen redone for that.
Not everyone can move an hour north of Pflugerville Our fixed expenses including medical insurance are what our real estate taxes were in Texas for 500 more sqf and considerable updates in technology.
Are you in Austin ? Yeah, medical insurance premiums at this point is just insane. The coverage is horrible as well.
No I live in the Tyler metro area. East of DFW. Around 225k people.
We were contemplating Tyler. Ive been out to Palestine and Frankston area a few times. Tyler seemed like a wonderful area and the housing was not priced that bad.
I can't even imagine a house for 40K. What's the average wage in those areas? Some people in the States pay over 30K just for property tax. How old are those houses? Are there actual decent jobs in those areas? Lots of crime?
Curious to know where these 40k homes North of Boston are. Maine? VT? I dont know what the going rates in those places are.
I can't say I'm happy about what it costs to live in the Boston area, but it is what it is. It sometimes feels like if you're not living in one of the top rated areas here you're basically poor. Sometimes I wonder what the world is coming to.
I made around $41k a year for 5 consecutive years from 2008 to 2012. Living in a low cost area, that was decent enough money for a single guy. I was paying around $525 a month in rent. Single family housing was pretty cheap then and I probably could have swung a house payment, but honestly wanted something nicer than I could afford so I continued renting, and foolishly bought a car on payments.
Got married in 2012 and in the next 10 years my wife and I tripled our income in nominal terms (2.5X adjusted for inflation). The small city we live in has become very trendy in that time and single family housing is now far out of the range of someone making $40k a year. Most of the cheaper housing stock has been either renovated or torn down and replaced with larger, fancier housing. The apartment situation is better. With quite a bit of open land on the ever expanding edges of town, there has been a boom in apartment building over that time so the apartment stock has greatly increased. The apartment I was living in for $525 is now $675. That's higher than the CPI over that time frame, but still not too bad and in a very desirable location.
Marriage is historically the greatest anti-poverty tool every devised by man. Neither my wife or I would be living the lifestyle we're living today if we had not got married and worked hard to keep it a good one.
Marriage is certainly a way to increase funds...not saying it's a reason to get married at all...but I think it's a big reason people don't get divorced.
Which gives a Minimum Wage worker slightly higher income than what I make from my pension.
My apartments rent for 23% of Minimum Wage.
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... Some people in the States pay over 30K just for property tax.
My 2400 sq ft house on 150 acres of land is taxed around $850 a year.
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... How old are those houses?
Old
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... Are there actual decent jobs in those areas?
There is a big employer located about a half-mile from my apartments they have been hiring continuously for the past four years.
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... Lots of crime?
I don't think so. We keep our vehicle keys in our vehicles. The front door to our house has never been locked [beyond the day I installed the doors, to test the locks], I built our house in 2007.
You literally need a minimum of 100k now a days to just live a descent lifestyle... go out here and there. Drive a honda..etc.. but anything less, you will probably struggle .
I managed to get a house in the Austin area back in 2014 while making 40k a year(I was 25) and FF 7 years later.. We just sold it for a great amount. But I would never ever ever pay 500k for the house I just sold loll.. its insanity.
I believe the next generation will be a class of renters, and unless mom and dad are helping (i had no help), they will be really struggling to get something. Unless they are buying a house in a non-desirable area.
I live in Oklahoma City (hardly a "small town" and I don't live in the ghetto) making about $33k per year. I own a home and have a reliable car (a Toyota, don't need anything fancy) and don't really get help from parents aside from the occasional $20 for holiday cash. I am able to make one or two cross-country road trips per year, a day trip somewhere about once every other month, and indulge in a number of (semi-expensive) hobbies relatively easily. As long as you manage your finances and don't live in an extremely high COL area, living on under $40k can be quite easy and even comfortable. Granted, I have the blessing of not having credit card, student loan, or medical debt to worry about, and I'd be some hot water if something catastrophic were to happen to my home or my car, but there's a lot of decently sized cities across the country where life on $30k to $40k is perfectly possible.
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Our fixed expenses including medical insurance are what our real estate taxes were in Texas for 500 more sqf and considerable updates in technology.
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