Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

For those that are thinking of relocating to other cities or countries this link might be interesting: http://www.finfacts.ie/costofliving.htm

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4u
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Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

Go Buenos Aires for being cheap as dirt. Prague is actually higher up than I thought it would be.

Also, something seems really off with this list. Geneva didn't seem nearly as ridiculously expensive as either Stockholm or Copenhagen when I was visiting it... while more than most US cities, it was cheap to me by Scandinavian standards. Perhaps rent is really ridiculous though.

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

Boston is cheaper than Prague? Really?

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

I found some of those ranks surprising as well. Am moving to Guatemala City in June, which is apparently more expensive than Seattle where I'm leaving from.

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

Hmm interesting, Budapest and Munich are exactly on the same level. Incidentally I just moved back from Budapest to Munich after living there for 6 years. I can positivly tell you that you can expect cost of living to be 10-25% less in Budapest than in Munich, depending on your livestyle.
Here is a link to two other surveys, which I personally find more credible (only in German though).

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

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I found some of those ranks surprising as well. Am moving to Guatemala City in June, which is apparently more expensive than Seattle where I'm leaving from.

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I now officially think that these rankings are bunk after taking a closer look. While Buenos Aires may be among the cheapest cities to live in, there's no way Seattle is that low compared to other cities above it.

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

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Here is a link to two other surveys, which I personally find more credible (only in German though).

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"Nicht überall auf der Welt ist das Leben billiger als in der Schweiz."

lol, if you're one of the billions of non-Swiss it certainly isn't. Could you briefly explain what the column headings are (the EDA, UBS, OECD, and A&S)?

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

A&S appears to be the important column. I have no idea what it means but the lower the number seems to imply a cheaper cost of living.

Edit: I believe Switzerland is a 100 A&S. Implying only Norway is more expensive. This is for countries though which isn't the same as cities.

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

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Could you briefly explain what the column headings are (the EDA, UBS, OECD, and A&S)?

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yes sure, but only briefly [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
EDA is an index that applies to the lifestyle of diplomats, people that need to represent. So it's a pretty high level lifestyle.
USB on the other hand applies to the lifestyle of an average middle class family.
A more detailed description you can find here (again only in German)

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

so is this link pretty much bogus?

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

So how do they define cost of living? Is it based on the cost of necessities relative to the average income, or is it just the total cost that is measured? Say it costs $50,000 a year for cost of living in one city, and the average income for that city is $75,000. Would the cost of living be higher or lower than a city with a cost of living of $49,000, but average income of only $60,000?

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

My guess is this data is at least 1 year old.

From TFA:

“The strengthening of the US dollar against the European and other major currencies is a large contributor to the rise of most US cities in the rankings,” commented Ms Powers.

The dollar gained in 05 but lost a lot of ground against the EUR in 06. Maybe there is an updated version somewhere.

Re: Link to cities cost of living rankings
 

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So how do they define cost of living? Is it based on the cost of necessities relative to the average income

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No, the average income is never considered here, it is based on absolute money values. The way they do it differs a lot it seems, hence the big difference in the results. For example some indexes do not consider the rent.