How much is $100 worth in each state?

julieanne912 · November 2015

Just thought this was interesting. Sadly, the 3 states I've lived in are all in the below $100 mark.... I'm in CO now, have lived in IL and CA. Better off now than I was in the previous states. Also good to see that the states we'd consider moving to, WY, ID and MT, are all above $100. Maybe we should consider it more seriously :-P

http://mentalfloss.com/article/58466/how-much-100-really-worth-each-state

cbee817 · November 2015

NY is always bad with these type of studies.. oh well. I did get an amazing job offer to move to WI- it's looking even better based on this article!

dragonstarjk · November 2015

Interesting and not surprising. Living in WY, we can definitely notice the price difference when we travel. We've taken several trips to CA and WA, and both places always feel really expensive.

kmurphy2131 · November 2015

While that is a little depressing to see - at the same time it makes me feel better. I have to remind myself that COL is very different when I see what people are paying for groceries/housing etc. Huge difference in MA (and we are in the more expensive area of MA ugh) and midwest

julieanne912 · November 2015

kmurphy2131 said:

While that is a little depressing to see - at the same time it makes me feel better. I have to remind myself that COL is very different when I see what people are paying for groceries/housing etc. Huge difference in MA (and we are in the more expensive area of MA ugh) and midwest

Yeah I have to remind myself that we are in a higher COL area (although it wasn't a couple years ago!). Our groceries and gas costs aren't bad, but our house in another midwestern state would probably be at least $200,000 less.

Xstatic3333 · November 2015

Interesting map! COL was a huge factor in why we moved to RI from MA, so the difference between those two states seems about right. The Boston area would likely be even worse without rural western MA averaged in.

abrewer5 · November 2015

It doesn't surprise me at all that MD has one of the worst values. It's freaking expensive here. H and I talk about moving to FL regularly, maybe we should take the plunge

julieanne912 · November 2015

I know I just messaged H and said "Hey maybe we should look more at moving to Boise". His company's headquarters is there and he can live pretty much anywhere. We could afford for me to be a SAHM in a place like that.

formerlyGDaisy09 · November 2015

yup, $100 doesn't get you as far where I live as it would in the south/mid-west, but I already knew that. I had lunch with the director of HR where I work a while ago, he said is biggest challenge right now is that COL here is about equal to boston, but salaries don't match. (yep, knew that one too!) Starting salary for a job like mine (which I've had for 3 years) in boston is about $30K more than I make.

julieanne912 · November 2015

formerlyGDaisy09 said:

yup, $100 doesn't get you as far where I live as it would in the south/mid-west, but I already knew that. I had lunch with the director of HR where I work a while ago, he said is biggest challenge right now is that COL here is about equal to boston, but salaries don't match. (yep, knew that one too!) Starting salary for a job like mine (which I've had for 3 years) in boston is about $30K more than I make.

Same here in Denver metro. Housing prices have skyrocketed, but wages haven't. Like, 4 years ago, a simple apartment downtown would have cost $650, now it costs around $1200. We rented a little townhome while our home was being built after we sold our other one, and paid $1325. 9 months later he re-rented it for $1650. Heck, even our old house, which we sold last April for $260,000 ($10,000 above asking in 12 hours), would probably go for $300,000 now. It's nuts, I don't know how folks with lower incomes even make it work.

Xstatic3333 · November 2015

formerlyGDaisy09 said:
yup, $100 doesn't get you as far where I live as it would in the south/mid-west, but I already knew that. I had lunch with the director of HR where I work a while ago, he said is biggest challenge right now is that COL here is about equal to boston, but salaries don't match. (yep, knew that one too!) Starting salary for a job like mine (which I've had for 3 years) in boston is about $30K more than I make.

That actually really surprises me; I'd always thought of NH as lower COL by New England standards. It must be the association of the discount liquor stores playing tricks on me! It does seem like a nice place to live though. H and I would love to live there but there are rarely jobs in our field.

I do feel like MA is getting ridiculous. I loved growing up there and I loved living in Boston for a few years, but now I can't picture having the life I want there with the careers we picked. My friends' rent on 1 BRs is higher than our whole mortgage payment.

jessica490 · November 2015

kmurphy2131 said:

While that is a little depressing to see - at the same time it makes me feel better. I have to remind myself that COL is very different when I see what people are paying for groceries/housing etc. Huge difference in MA (and we are in the more expensive area of MA ugh) and midwest

I live in CT so we are used to high costs of everything and getting robbed of our hard earned $$. Depending on our parents health, once we hit retirement we are packing it up and moving down south...we can get a sh*tload more for less $ there and live large lol

PurpleBookmark · November 2015

Not surprised at all, we are NY and it is so expensive. When I was young we went on vacation to Disney with some friends from the Midwest. They kept warning us that the food prices were outrageous, when we got there we realized that they were actually a good deal lower than our local amusement park.

kmurphy2131 · November 2015

Xstatic3333 said:

yup, $100 doesn't get you as far where I live as it would in the south/mid-west, but I already knew that. I had lunch with the director of HR where I work a while ago, he said is biggest challenge right now is that COL here is about equal to boston, but salaries don't match. (yep, knew that one too!) Starting salary for a job like mine (which I've had for 3 years) in boston is about $30K more than I make.
That actually really surprises me; I'd always thought of NH as lower COL by New England standards. It must be the association of the discount liquor stores playing tricks on me! It does seem like a nice place to live though. H and I would love to live there but there are rarely jobs in our field. I do feel like MA is getting ridiculous. I loved growing up there and I loved living in Boston for a few years, but now I can't picture having the life I want there with the careers we picked. My friends' rent on 1 BRs is higher than our whole mortgage payment.

I think that MA and NH probably had the same problem on that map. Western MA probably skewed the MA data (not that western MA is cheap - but I feel like closer to the city is even more skewed). I think that Southern NH (making an assumption that you live south of the lakes region Gdaisy) is pretty similar to the boston area, at least not low enough to make a big difference. North of the lakes region maybe things are cheaper but you have to drive so far for everything that I feel like the cost of transportation goes way up. I use to work in the seacoast area of NH and made 12,000 more a year when I moved my job to the Northshore in MA.

Xstatic3333 · November 2015

That makes sense @kmurphy2131. I wonder if part of the salary difference is meant to account for MA income tax.

dragonstarjk · November 2015

julieanne912 said:

I know I just messaged H and said "Hey maybe we should look more at moving to Boise". His company's headquarters is there and he can live pretty much anywhere. We could afford for me to be a SAHM in a place like that.

Boise seems like it would be a nice place to live! We've visited there a couple of times

formerlyGDaisy09 · November 2015

julieanne912 said:

formerlyGDaisy09 said:

yup, $100 doesn't get you as far where I live as it would in the south/mid-west, but I already knew that. I had lunch with the director of HR where I work a while ago, he said is biggest challenge right now is that COL here is about equal to boston, but salaries don't match. (yep, knew that one too!) Starting salary for a job like mine (which I've had for 3 years) in boston is about $30K more than I make.

Same here in Denver metro. Housing prices have skyrocketed, but wages haven't. Like, 4 years ago, a simple apartment downtown would have cost $650, now it costs around $1200. We rented a little townhome while our home was being built after we sold our other one, and paid $1325. 9 months later he re-rented it for $1650. Heck, even our old house, which we sold last April for $260,000 ($10,000 above asking in 12 hours), would probably go for $300,000 now. It's nuts, I don't know how folks with lower incomes even make it work.

yep, a little one bedroom apartment would cost us $1200+, that's how we decided to buy, houses our size (small/medium 2-3 bedrooms) rent for $1800-$2400 (our mortgage+taxes is $1575).

hoffse · November 2015

Sweet Home Alabama.

Bham was rated the most affordable city in the US last year, I think.

short+sassy · November 2015

I'm actually side-eyeing that study. Not saying the face of it isn't valid, but I couldn't help but notice that the states where $100 is worth the most are largely the same states with the lowest wages and worst poverty levels.

hoffse · November 2015

short+sassy said:

I'm actually side-eyeing that study. Not saying the face of it isn't valid, but I couldn't help but notice that the states where $100 is worth the most are largely the same states with the lowest wages and worst poverty levels.

Well they shouldn't have said that Tennesseans are 10% richer. What they have is 10% more buying power per dollar compared to the national average because prices are lower.

formerlyGDaisy09 · November 2015

kmurphy2131 said:

Xstatic3333 said:

yup, $100 doesn't get you as far where I live as it would in the south/mid-west, but I already knew that. I had lunch with the director of HR where I work a while ago, he said is biggest challenge right now is that COL here is about equal to boston, but salaries don't match. (yep, knew that one too!) Starting salary for a job like mine (which I've had for 3 years) in boston is about $30K more than I make.
That actually really surprises me; I'd always thought of NH as lower COL by New England standards. It must be the association of the discount liquor stores playing tricks on me! It does seem like a nice place to live though. H and I would love to live there but there are rarely jobs in our field. I do feel like MA is getting ridiculous. I loved growing up there and I loved living in Boston for a few years, but now I can't picture having the life I want there with the careers we picked. My friends' rent on 1 BRs is higher than our whole mortgage payment.

I think that MA and NH probably had the same problem on that map. Western MA probably skewed the MA data (not that western MA is cheap - but I feel like closer to the city is even more skewed). I think that Southern NH (making an assumption that you live south of the lakes region Gdaisy) is pretty similar to the boston area, at least not low enough to make a big difference. North of the lakes region maybe things are cheaper but you have to drive so far for everything that I feel like the cost of transportation goes way up. I use to work in the seacoast area of NH and made 12,000 more a year when I moved my job to the Northshore in MA.

hopefully I'm not getting too internet-stranger-danger scary, we live in the Dartmouth region, definitely more expensive than the northern parts of the state. even here, transportation is a major cost factor (the HR director was actually factoring in the fact that most emplloyees here have to 1. own cars 2. drive further 3. perform more winter maintanence on said cars than their boston counterparts would, when he was looking at salareis/COL). And we live 45+ minutes from most major brick and mortar stores, seriously H and I are currently trying to figure out if it is worth the 90 minute (one way) drive to the brick and mortar store where our baby registry is to use the in-store completion discount on things we'll need right off or if we should just give-up the discount to save ourselves an entire day + gas.

simplyelise · November 2015

short+sassy said:

I'm actually side-eyeing that study. Not saying the face of it isn't valid, but I couldn't help but notice that the states where $100 is worth the most are largely the same states with the lowest wages and worst poverty levels.

Same. The data is from the Tax Foundation, a source that I personally don't use data from because of it's bias.

Yeah, stuff is cheaper here in Missouri than on the coasts, but the wages are also lower and I would expect that our rates of underemployment are higher. DH works for the state government which consistently ranks 50th in terms of state employee compensation.

julieanne912 · November 2015

dragonstarjk said:

julieanne912 said:

I know I just messaged H and said "Hey maybe we should look more at moving to Boise". His company's headquarters is there and he can live pretty much anywhere. We could afford for me to be a SAHM in a place like that.

Boise seems like it would be a nice place to live! We've visited there a couple of times

Yeah H goes there a few times a year for work, we had a good friend move there and he's got some family there. I haven't gone yet but from what I can see I think I'd like it. A lot of people say it's like Denver was 10 years ago before the growth went nuts here.

julieanne912 · November 2015

formerlyGDaisy09 said:

julieanne912 said:

formerlyGDaisy09 said:

yup, $100 doesn't get you as far where I live as it would in the south/mid-west, but I already knew that. I had lunch with the director of HR where I work a while ago, he said is biggest challenge right now is that COL here is about equal to boston, but salaries don't match. (yep, knew that one too!) Starting salary for a job like mine (which I've had for 3 years) in boston is about $30K more than I make.

Same here in Denver metro. Housing prices have skyrocketed, but wages haven't. Like, 4 years ago, a simple apartment downtown would have cost $650, now it costs around $1200. We rented a little townhome while our home was being built after we sold our other one, and paid $1325. 9 months later he re-rented it for $1650. Heck, even our old house, which we sold last April for $260,000 ($10,000 above asking in 12 hours), would probably go for $300,000 now. It's nuts, I don't know how folks with lower incomes even make it work.

yep, a little one bedroom apartment would cost us $1200+, that's how we decided to buy, houses our size (small/medium 2-3 bedrooms) rent for $1800-$2400 (our mortgage+taxes is $1575).

Yup, our old house had a mortgage of $1400 all in... we could have rented it out for $2000-2200. Only reason we didn't was because we needed the equity from it for the new house, and builder required a huge deposit to start construction.

als1982 · November 2015

Yay Kansas!

H grew up here, went to school in FL, then moved to San Franciso after grad school. He worked there for two years and then decided to come home. Upon his return, his salary stayed the same, but housing was less than half the price.

Though I will say that our suburban KC home valued at $185,000 would cost about $50,000 in my rural hometown.

Xstatic3333 · November 2015

simplyelise said:

short+sassy said:

I'm actually side-eyeing that study. Not saying the face of it isn't valid, but I couldn't help but notice that the states where $100 is worth the most are largely the same states with the lowest wages and worst poverty levels.

Same. The data is from the Tax Foundation, a source that I personally don't use data from because of it's bias.

Yeah, stuff is cheaper here in Missouri than on the coasts, but the wages are also lower and I would expect that our rates of underemployment are higher. DH works for the state government which consistently ranks 50th in terms of state employee compensation.

RI was a "more than 100" state too and our economy is absolutely worse than surrounding states. Although we were glad to move here for the low COL, we wouldn't have been able to if we didn't have jobs lined up first. It was much easier to find work in MA despite the higher COL. I wish I took some economics in college because the way these things work is interesting to me.

How much is $100 worth in each state?

Re: How much is $100 worth in each state?

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