Are you tempted by Bright Lights… Big City? Whilst it’s true that the most varied pool of well-paid and progressive jobs can be found in the metropolis, moving there for work is not always great for the pocket. Here, you can discover the Cost Of Living in a city before you move.
Packing up and moving to a new city for work is an adventure. For sure. I’ve moved around the US and UK, and I found the journey a riot, but what I didn’t factor in was the cost of living. And to my expense, I learned the hard way. Wouldn’t it be great to discover how our pockets will be impacted by that next great job opportunity?
If you’re like me, then you’ll want to know before you go to the trouble of moving to find out.
Nowadays, there are some great tools for the upwardly mobile to do just that. And here I reveal one such tool – the PayScale Cost of Living Calculator. I’ve included it right here:
Notes on Using the Cost of Living Calculator
I’ve tried this tool over a dozen times and compared it to job advertisements, and it seems to work well. What I recommend is to try a few variant job titles to see how they compare. There is a slight variance – overall the results appear to meet my expectations if a few job smilar job titles are compared.
Also, the report is just a guide! How accurate the results are (in terms of your required target earnings) depends heavily on how much you live to your means. If you’re frugal and like to save, then you can reduce your required target income. But if you borrow and take on debt then you might also need to scale up your required target income!
What if you need to be more frugal?
Then try this book: Frugal Living for Dummies – full of great tips for living on a lower salary without feeling the pain in the pocket.
