What is Digg?63 Comments
- KissTheRing, on 10/12/2007, -3/+58#1 - your parents house
- dexim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27"#1 - your parents house"
Not if you include the psychological toll. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24I am currently living in Costa Rica. My monthly expenses are:
rent + meals: $400us
internet: $30us
ciggies: $10us
I contract for a company in the US, and the cost of living here means I have a retardedly high profit margin. Plus the women here are *stunning*. - xxCBxx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Am I missing the part of the article that talks about the 150 places?
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14$200,000 here is more than middle class. That's for sure.
- diehard2k5, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15This 'list' sucks.
- Electrox3d, on 10/12/2007, -10/+23Yeah, there is no list, why not?
However, most things on the internet are FROM americans FOR americans, 'places to live', 'sallaries', 'best resturants' all that stuff, so just get used to it. - jeylux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7because in wyoming, i can buy a house for $442,000 dollars thats on roughly 150-200 acres, and i don't have to worry about pissing into my neighbors bathroom accidently.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I do programming and web development for a large US company and brought the work with me. I wouldn't come with no work / no money, but you definitely don't need much to get started.
There is an IT industry here that includes web/programming/telcos/etc, as well as plenty of corporations (sony etc) who I'm sure have IT departments around here somewhere. I personally prefer to keep contracting because it means I only have to work half days and I'm a bum by nature. The other reason of course is the rates are undoubtably going to be higher from the US or EU than you would receive locally.
When I was in Pennsylvania (I'm from Australia) I was borrowing some office space off friends of mine who collaberate with a Costa Rican at another company. We went to lunch and then an hour later everything was organised for me heh, so I was pretty lucky.
You don't need a lot of money, a nice house or apartment is ~$500ish a month rent, utilities are a negligible amount. Just rock up one afternoon with a wad of cash and a Spanish/English dictionary. : )
One thing you should definitely do is bring all your computer equipment with you, electronics and omputers are more expansive here than in the US. Make sure it all looks used or they'll slap you with an import tax. - MrStylz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7200K for a *home*? That'd get me a 500sqft studio :)
- millixaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5There are six catagories, each with 25 cities. (25 x 6 = 150)
- 5thfreedom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You see on the left-hand side where it says "150 Cheap Places To Live" and then right under it "Click Here For Full Coverage"?
Aw *****. I'll just save you the trouble of looking.
http://www.forbes.com/2005/10/25/cheap-places-to-live_05life2_land.html
Yeah, click there... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@ Electro : Maybe now, but I suspect web use in Korea, China, Japan is not far behind, and will outstrip it.
- telepathetic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Appleton, WI
City Population: 79,000
Metro Population: 213,000
House Price: $256,000
Ashland, OR
City Population: 22,000
House Price: $320,000
Billings, MT
City Population: 95,200
Metro Population: 144,900
House Price: $262,000
Bismarck, ND
City Population: 56,000
Metro Population: 95,000
House Price: $245,000
Bloomington, IL
City Population: 67,500
Metro Population: 158,000
House Price: $254,000
Bloomington, IN
City Population: 67,500
Metro Population: 178,000
House Price: $241,000
Boise, ID
City Population: 186,000
Metro Population: 432,000
House Price: $274,000
Bowling Green, OH
City Population: 30,000
House Price: $234,000
Cheyenne, WY
City Population: 54,000
Metro Population: 85,300
House Price: $258,000
Columbia, MO
City Population: 85,000
Metro Population: 135,000
House Price: $255,000
Corvallis, OR
City Population: 52,900
Metro Population: 79,400
House Price: $295,000
Des Moines, IA
City Population: 199,000
Metro Population: 456,000
House Price: $286,000
Dubuque, IA
City Population: 62,000
Metro Population: 91,000
House Price: $249,000
Enid, OK
City Population: 46,400
Metro Population: 58,000
House Price: $234,000
Fayetteville, AR
City Population: 58,000
Metro Population: 311,100
House Price: $248,000
Fort Walton Beach, FL
City Population: 170,000
Metro Population: 178,000
House Price: $312,000
Grand Forks, ND
City Population: 46,000
Metro Population: 96,400
House Price: $234,000
Lafayette, IN
City Population: 61,300
Metro Population: 188,900
House Price: $244,000
Lincoln, NE
City Population: 226,000
Metro Population: 250,000
House Price: $266,000
Punta Gorda, FL
City Population: 14,000
House Price: $310,000
Rochester, MN
City Population: 72,700
Metro Population: 128,000
House Price: $274,000
Sioux Falls, SD
City Population: 133,000
Metro Population: 178,000
House Price: $256,000
Spokane, WA
City Population: 196,000
Metro Population: 418,000
House Price: $252,000
St Cloud, MN
City Population: 60,300
Metro Population: 174,000
House Price: $285,000
Yarmouth, MA
City Population: 25,000
Metro Population: 229,000
House Price: $456,000
This is a complete list? Should the title be "25 Cheap places to live"? No digg. - afex, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6its not really 'only of use to americans'. for example, you may look at it and decide 'wow, i DO want to move to Appleton, WI' and thus, the list has served you greatly.
however, living in milwaukee i would definitely advise against moving anywhere close to the midwest. - ChuckIT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I too was born and raised in the Fan district of Richmond, VA and would never think of leaving. however it always disappoints me to see these "places to live" articles and never see Richmond,VA mentioned. I emailed the author asking for a reason for not including Richmond,VA
- Phyltre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31. Good Job
2. Broadband Internet
3. Geographic Arbitrage ?!?
4. $75,000! Profit! - admdrew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I live in Madison, WI, and my rent+food is $500 ($350 rent + $150 food), not that much more than you. My internet is the same, and I have other expenses (namely car insurance/gas/etc :/), but all in all not that bad.
I do not smoke but have friends and relatives that do, and I am surprised at the low cost of your cigarettes (considering packs here are $4+). Do you not smoke much, or are they just cheap? - psyanyde, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In traditional Forbes fashoin, the only bit of information you actually want is in disgusting slideshow format. At the bottom of the article you'll see a table of 6 images with witty, if uninformative, categories. Each image will take you to a different slideshow talking about the individual locations.
- subscribtion, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3http://www.forbes.com/2005/10/31/karlgaard-broadband-telecommuting_cz_rk_1101liverich_print.html
Printer friendly==No ad version. I could barely read it how they have it formatted there. - fjvwing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Thing is, they never tell you the weather in these cheap places is just awful, with high humidity in summers or dreadfully cold winters, or both (Hello Ohio!). There's a reason people haven't flocked to certain vast tracts of land inland, and like to stay near the coasts. Or maybe some people don't want to drive two hours to see their friends, or check out nice stuff, or got to a limited-release movie, or get specialized healthcare.
And even if you get the remote gig, be prepared to travel a lot to keep that face-time up and keep your customers comfortable. - dankoleary, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Move to Los Angeles. A 650 sq. ft condo in Long Beach is 350k. Oh, and it's in the hood.
- ohsoserial, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Oh, so telecommuting for a big company to keep your metro salary whilst you move to a small town in the middle of nowhere improves your quality of life? Really?
Doesn't tell me where I should move, or how to get to a place where my job will actually let me do this. Blissfully unhelpful. - mumbat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2bah, the slide-show sucked throughout and my eyes are bleeding because the adds are still stinging like ant bites, i can still see them.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Article uses misleading figures. 275'000 is the median home value?!? I worked in a mortgage sales call center, and the loan applications I filled out never averaged anywhere near that, and we were supposedly a "high end" home mortgage comapny. It's probably including homes so large in Cali and Boston etc that were talking mansions that no one ever had a loan for, it was simply purchased.
- fjvwing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think the Author should be forced to live in North Dakota for a while. See how much he likes his broadband when he is so snowed in nobody can fix the line that went down because of frost.
- admdrew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@kisskissbang
That depends *greatly* where you live and on your credit rating... a less than stellar rating of someone in the middle class will not be able to handle any sort of allowed payment on anything more expensive than $100k in most suburban areas.
OTOH, if you have good credit, payment options exist that would allow you to get a house that's worth 3 to 4 times your gross yearly salary. - jeylux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1a house, for 100k? and you can't get approvied?
Perhaps you don't understand how home morgages work.
if i give you a loan for something you can't aford, and you go bankrupt, i get my house back, and get to keep all the money you might have paid... it works out better that way... - waylandchin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1all these cities only include the USA. If you're looking to cheap places to live, try china or the manila, I'm sure the cia world factbook can help too. I think you can buy a small condo in china for like 30K usd.
- Phyltre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And where do you live? That's what the article talks about...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cheap as hell ... $1.20 a pack or I think it was $8 for a carton (10 packs). That and things are so relaxed here that I've cut down significantly as well.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I did click that, still no list. then i clicked this javascript:popit('http://www.forbes.com/2006/06/21/cz_05life2_150_cheap_places_to_live_slide.html?boxes=custom&thisSpeed=30000',800,600)
i guess thats their list. - gringuitica, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Moving to CR in December for the same reason... slower pace of life, lower cost of living, etc.
Good article, but somehow I think that the people who are tech-oriented enough to be a GeoArb didn't need Forbes to write an article about it. - glafira, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Really good article.
- DrMindHacker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1 My cost of living is very low (despite living in Richmond) from the simple act of not driving: no car payments, no gas costs, no insurance costs, no registrations/fines/government usurpations....
Hey r2d7 - can you tell me how you went about getting to Costa Rica? I have been looking into it for all the reasons you mentioned but found it very difficult - either investing an exhorbitant amount of money or having a set income from an external company. What kind of work do you do? Are there any IT jobs there? - Cryptacool, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yes, if you have broadband you can work from anywhere and even talk to your intarweb friends from nowhere, OR. but what if you have real friends that live near where you do? or your city has culture and museums and other great facilities. Where I choose to live (NYC) has nothing to do with my job (i telecommute) and everything to do with the location. I suspect its the same for a lot of people.
- ragboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I am living this. Used to live in L.A. suburb, moved to northern california, in the mountains. Just at the edge of the reach of comcast 8mbps cable. Sold my house for $500k, and bought a house, with .5 acre, in the woods, on a golf course, for $239k. Best thing I have ever done. I used to have to drive 5 hours to go use my boat with my family, 2 hours to go ATV riding. Now, the Lake (4th largest in CA) is just 9 miles from my driveway, and I can ATV almost anywhere, in the most beautiful public lands and forests. I truly feel like I am living the dream. I am a software developer, and my clients are not local, all over the globe. If you can do it, I recommend, its very scary at first, but the BEST thing I ever did.
- nilobject, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Because you're too blind to look at the sidebar where they have links to categorized lists with tons of cities with pictures and summaries?
- WolfwoodX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1HaHa, Oxford MS. If your up for 14,000 aspiring *****, and 2hours away from any form of civilization, that is a great place.
- afty8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@r2d7
What kinda Internet speed do you get for $30/month? - millixaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Click "Full Coverage"
- andreo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hmm, the "list" was a bit disappointing. But normally living outside of big cities will cut down on your cost almost everywhere. I lived 40 miles outside of Chicago in Portage, Indiana. I had a 2200 sq ft home, with fire place, in ground pool (16X10 7 or 8 ft deep), absolute wonderful neighborhood (safe, quiet, no crime, could leave (and often did) your house unlocked without worry), great shopping just minutes away, wonderful (to the point of being spoiled) public service, and decent taxes. The cost: $112k.
I seriously thought about quiting my job when I was given a choice of going to Boston or Iowa. Since nobody would give a straight answer about the cost of living in Boston (and when I asked my potential new boss about it, she instead answered with "I'm prepared to offer you a 10% raise", I chose Iowa. Heck, I even asked a couple of people that were already there how much their mortgage was or what other people working there was paying for rent (yeah, kinda personal but I need to know what I'm getting into) they simply would not answer.
At least here in Iowa when I go out looking for a house in the next 6 months. I know that I will be able to buy something decent for under 150k (damn housing bubble). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ afty8 - I pay a share of the cable modem bill. I think it's $60 in total.
@ sirpoksalot - in Australia they're $8/$9/$10ish a packet due to excises and whatnot.
@ gringuitica - drop me an email some time if you have questions, I'll know or find the answers. fkr [at] moddedup.com - RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I entered all the qualities I'd like to see in a city into Forbes' website and it generated a list of good places to live.
My hometown was on the list. I found it funny because I couldn't wait to get the hell outta there. - joe0891, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1$200,000 in Buffalo would get you a huge, old, elegant mansion in the city. Or about 50+ slum houses, if that's what you prefer.
- rodan32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can agree with that. Not everyone wants to pull up roots from somewhere that's "home", and lots of folks love being connected to the city. It's not all about saving money, after all.
- thegreenman66, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The Author should be forced to live on retail wages and then he wouldn't be such a winey assed punk. 100 k isn't enough to live on boo hoo. Screw him, that's more money than 80% of all Americans make a year.
- rosswil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Thanks, there seems to be more ads/external links than content on the original page.
- drdidg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I just bought a house 11 miles outside of Boston in Burlington. 2200 sq. feet and .45 acre lot. Only $442,000. Yeah reading that was funny for those listed in the big city area's. But who wants measly cable modems, when I just got pimped out with FiOS web and TV. Best signal I have ever seen, and web speeds to die for.
129MB Spiderman 3 trailer in HD downloaded in 52 seconds. :-) - vanchuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0For those of you who are really not afraid to "get out of the loop" like the article mentions, do something really silly like me...
I have quit my nice comfy job and moved to China, where I am living and training at a kung fu school. Cost of living here is so cheap, it means that I get all my instruction, food, a private room with A/C and high speed internet for about $350/month. When not training, I am working web development stuff that I had started from before I came, which as others have described, nets you a very high net income percentage. My investment account is happy.
On the downside, I just got out of the hospital yesterday for food poisoning, and haven't eaten for 3 days, one of the obvious hazards of living so cheaply. But it's all worth it, even just to have a better story to tell the grandkids than "working in an office for 35 years..." -
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