Frugal living can be a great way to manage and grow your money. No matter what stage of life you’re in, it’s helpful to have a budget and stick to it each month. Some cities are better suited than others for keeping your spending in check. The Zebra looked at the 50 most-populated U.S. cities to find out where it’s easiest to live on a budget.
We looked at four separate data points to analyze the budget-friendliness of each city.
- Median home price: With housing prices skyrocketing across the country, we looked at which cities had the lowest median sales price. Data was from Realtor.com’s third quarter of 2022. For reference, the national median sales price for this period was $398,500, according to the National Association of Realtors[1].
- Average annual cost of car insurance: The cost of car insurance also varies dramatically by city. The Zebra’s data reveals the average annual price by city[2].
- Average healthcare expenditures per capita by state: Data compiled from the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals how much private and public funding is spent on residents each year. The country’s healthcare spending is among the highest in the world, making affordable programs extremely important[3].
- Online “free stuff” group membership: Social media marketplaces are a convenient place to buy, sell and trade just about anything. There are also plenty of “free stuff” and “buy nothing” groups to avoid heavy spending when you don’t want to. We ranked each city by the membership size of their largest Facebook group.
Why these four data points? We focused on some of the largest line items in most budgets: housing, insurance and healthcare costs while also taking into account “free stuff” that can lower personal spending.
