The Cost of Car Ownership

Hey I've got a question.

In states with a low cost-of-living -- Alabama say -- the cost of a house is similarly low. When the median income is, like $30,000/yr houses go for $150,000.

Whereas in California -- median income $240,000 (guessing) -- a 900 sf house goes for a million dollars.

What about cars?

They have the same list price coast-to-coast, don't they? So a Kia Sportage costs a year's wages in Alabama and a month's in California?

Yeah, basically.
Other nationally based pricing is the same too. Flood insurance for a certain zone, security monitoring, stuff like that. Locally priced things like houses and groceries are lower but the percentages don't always match, our discount doesn't equal our pay loss.

This seems odd to me. The basic necessities of life -- food, clothing & shelter -- are necessities of life no matter where you live. But in poor regions, "low cost-of-living" areas, those necessities take up a proportionally huge chunk of a person's income. In richer areas, sure you pay more for houses and maybe insurance, but food? Transportation? Clothing? All essentially the same cost as in Alabama.

That translates to more expendable income, I'll bet. All things being equal, things aren't equal.

NoCoPilot wrote:

but food?  Transportation?  Clothing?  All essentially the same cost as in Alabama.

Really? I thought ya'lls stuff was more?
Let's compare:
Movie ticket 10.50
loaf of bread 2.51
ground beef 4.99 lb for chuck 6.99 lb for sirloin
gas 3.03 gal

Do you pay about the same? I know some other things are different, like we have to put up deposits on utilities and apparently some states don't. Also our car tags and water are disproportionately expensive.

Nope, your "cost of living" is about the same as mine. But I'll bet it's a much larger percent of your income!

Movie tickets: 10.50 - 12.00
Loaf of Bread 4.00
Gallon of gas: 4:00 +/- (which is lower than it has been for several years)

Have you thought about the price of services? Do you have to pay a plumber $120 per hour? Got a problem with your washer or dryer? Service call is $140 (does not include major repairs - just a trip to your house). These are typical service costs where I live. Don't even ask what the Mercedes dealer charges for service.

And I've recently discovered that veterinarians can be incredibly expensive.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Whereas in California -- median income $240,000 (guessing) -- a 900 sf house goes for a million dollars.

The median income in California was $58,328 in 2013. And you can still buy a pretty decent house for a million bucks. A 900 sq house can be had for a few hundred thousand or less.

Jenni wrote:

like we have to put up deposits on utilities and apparently some states don't.

Never heard of that.

Jenni wrote:

Also our car tags and water are disproportionately expensive.

Car Tags = $75-100/yr
Prop taxes = $5000/yr ($9000 on my dad's place!)
Water = $50/mo
Electricity = $1-200/mo
Nat Gas = $30/mo (summertime) to $150/mo (wintertime)
Garbage = $80/mo

I feel so ripped off now!

Yes, deposits can eat up a lot of the cost of moving. 85 plus a non-refundable 15 dollar fee on water, I think gas deposit is about 150, and Entergy can basically be as high as they want it to be because they base it on the house's usage not your payment history. Luckily the cable people no longer require one for me. Good credit.

Yes, cost of living is 130% of our income. When we had bills that we couldn't actually afford I finigled and put things on credit cards and rode it out until tax time when I could pay them off and start it all over again.

Vet cost here is very dependent on place and vet. The one we use is both cheap and he's been in business forever, we're lucky Ben now works for them so we get all services at half off and office visits are free. But it can be bad- 85$ office visits over in Madison.

Car tags- 400$ for mine and it's rather cheap being a little Kia and all. We do have 1000$ tags for cars like a Benz or a Cadillac. They slowly get cheaper as the car ages and at 25 years you can get an antique tag (we have one on the Olds) and you never have to by one again.
Prop taxes- 2-3000 in my area (not the most expensive area)
Water- 100 a month
Electricity- 279 a month pretty regularly
Gas- 20 summer 249 winter
Garbage 40 a month 2x a week pickup

Services vary. When the tree fell and we needed an electrician a competent one was a 150 dollar fee to come out and the fixtures he replaced were extra.

Our median income is somewhere closer to 30k, I wanna say 36 to be exact. I've never made that much in my life. It was always closer to 18k no matter how hard we tried. Houses depend greatly on location. Mine is valued at 128k in a nice neighborhood in Jackson proper. Go down the road to Eastover and the price jumps to 500k and 800k. But then hit Pearl and it's back down to maybe 89K. Go further to Madison and it jumps back up to Eastover prices without the age and character. But then pass Madison to Canton and it drops way down to 40K. Basically around here white= expensive and exclusive and black or Rankin county = cheap and rednecky or shotgun. It's very racially divided. The schools are equally radically divided with schools with an Eastover tax base winning awards and schools in downtown falling apart with bad plumbing and no ac or heat. In my school we couldn't have French class when it was really cold because the tower wasn't heated. It's still like that today. They take classes down to the library or the cafeteria because everything will get frozen up there.

On the upside rumor is we might get a Trader Joes and a Costco. Downside is they are taking down a museum to put in the Costco. Le sigh.