Cost of Living
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Basics
- This page goes over various cost of living calculations
- Think indeed or something did this, will go digging
- Also link to/embed a Our World in Data page perhaps?
- For international adjusting for gdp, average income, purchased goods vs what they get informally/do themselves, tax in vs services out, average vs other measures (median etc), and all that sats stuff can get messy
- OWID may fix that? Needs looking into
- Also "the economist" does stuff on this (yearly i think?)
- "The Big Mac Index" is the cost of a mcdonald's "Big Mac" in each country
- Forget what else they do, but may be a good info source
Data
Average Daily Cost
USA
- X USD/Day (As of 2020)
- $20,194 per person per year according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (value given divided by 2.5 average household size ('consumer unit') - [1]
- Of this, housing ($6844), cars ($3442), and food ($2577) totals $12863 per person - about 64% of the cost of living.
State by state
- ?
County by County
- ?
EU
Amount of Money Spent On Food
USA
- X USD/Day (As of 2020)
- Bureau of Labor Statistics - $2577/person/year - [2]
- Almost half of this is eating out
- $150/week/2.6 household = $230 per month
- $2700/year according to [3]
- $300/month for moderate - [4]
Average Amount of Money Spent on Housing
USA
- X USD/Day (As of 2020)
- $6844/person/year - includes utilities and furnishings - [5]
- $541 of this is electricity, and 451 is phone
- $1500 of this is mortgage payments, or about 1/4 of all housing costs
Average Amount of Money Spent on Transportation
USA
- X USD/Day (As of 2020)
- $3442 per person per year - BLS - [6]
- Of this, $1086 is for fuel and oil, and $205 is public transportation
Average Debt
USA
- X USD/Day (As of 2020)
- The above statistics don't tell much about debt levels.
- $8500 is the average debt per person in America in 2008 - [7]
Other Data on the Average Highest Cost Sources for the Average Person
USA
- X USD/Day (As of 2020)
From [8]:
- Pensions,personal insurance, social security- $2242/person/year
- Healthcare - $1190/person/year
- Entertainment - $1134
Cost over a lifetime
- X USD/Day (As of 2020)
Say a person lives 78 years [9], and you take the average cost of living from BLS.
Over 78 years, one spends an average of about $1.6 million dollars just to survive.
Of this, one spends about $1M on housing, food, and cars ($12683 per year * 78)
More specifically:
One spends an average of $530,000 to put a roof over their head over their life.
One spends an average of $270,000 on their wheels.
One spends an average of $201,000 on grub.
This certainly makes a case for buying out at the bottom.
See Also
Useful Links