Cities Where You Need to Make the Most to Live Comfortably
Living comfortably is what most of us want. It’s nice to be able to pay the bills, have money left for savings and still have a night on the town every once in a while. How much income you need to do this depends on where you live. Using the 50-30-20 personal finance budgeting rule, GOBankingRates.com has figured out how much money you need to make to live in the most and least expensive U.S. cities. What is the 50-30-20 budgeting rule? It calls for 50 percent of your income to go to necessities, 30 percent for discretionary spending and 20 percent for savings. You don’t have to be fabulously wealthy to do this, but you do need to make a certain amount of money to pull it off. And if you don’t make enough money to follow the 50-30-20 rule, then you are living above your means, which could be because the cost of living in your city is too high for your income — not because you’re a spendthrift.
The most income is needed to live comfortably here:
- San Francisco, California: $110,357
- New York, New York: $86,446
- San Jose, California: $87,154
- Oakland, California: $80,438
- Washington, DC: $80,273
The least income is needed to live comfortably here:
- El Paso, Texas: $40,393
- Detroit, Michigan: $42,161
- Albuquerque, New Mexico: $42,445
- Wichita, Kansas: $43,644
- Fresno, California: $44,648