City Vs City - cost of living in, comparing cities
Patent pending

A cost of living calculator like no other

Start discovering what your lifestyle costs in a different city

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Purpose of This Powerful Cost of Living Calculator

Enabling you to see how much your unique spending habits would cost in a different city -- without changing your standard of living.

Whether you’re contemplating a move to a new city, or just curious how expensive your current home is relative to other parts of the country, this app is the first and only cost of living calculator that can compare cost of living in one city versus another that accounts for how expensive your neighborhood is relative to others in your city, and calculates of ALL the major taxes you pay.

How It Works

You’ll enter where you live and how you spend and save your disposable (after tax) income, and this calculator precisely estimates what those amounts will be in a new city of your choosing.

Comparing after-tax spending and saving isn’t enough though. For every extra dollar you need to spend or save after taxes, you have to make more than a dollar -- which is why this app estimates your tax bills in both cities.

You’ll see how much your Gross Income needs to be in your new city to make the move worth your while.

Current City
30,000
20,000
10,000
35,000
105,000
New City
25,0000
15,000
10,000
20,000
75,000
1 Housing

Customized calculation ensures that the most comparable home is used to estimate your housing cost in the new city

2 Other expenses

Compare the cost of Groceries, Healthcare, Utilities, Clothing, and other categories in the new city

3 Savings

Find out how much more you can save if you can keep your income steady despite moving to a cheaper city.

4 Taxes

All forms of taxes are estimated (including income taxes) based on the amount of spending and saving.

5 Gross Income!

Customized to Your Lifestyle

The first step to accomplishing this higher degree of personalization is entering some basic info about yourself

ZIP-code level

Instead of basing your cost of living off of a wide metropolitan area, City Vs City obtains ZIP-code level data wherever possible. This also enables the app to rank neighborhoods by housing costs, so that only a similarly ranked neighborhood is what gets compared in the new city.

Marital Status

Income taxes differ based on marital status, so this selection sets which tax brackets will be used for federal and state income tax calculations.

Bedrooms

Setting the number of bedrooms enables the app to compare your current home against equivalently sized homes in a new city.

Rent/Own

The other critical component of an individual\'s lifestyle is whether they own or rent their home. The selection on this screen will determine whether your housing comparisons are median monthly rents or median prices of homes in an equivalent ZIP code.

Extremely Accurate Estimations

Housing: Setting your standard of living

Your home and neighborhood are likely the greatest determinants of your standard of living, and your mortgage is probably the biggest expense you have. Shouldn\'t they be properly accounted for when comparing one city versus another? This app locates the median price of homes in your current ZIP code (with the same number of bedrooms as yours), and determines how that median price ranks relative to other ZIPs in your current city. It then compares median prices in your ZIP to a comparable ZIP code in a different city.

Housing Costs for Renters

The app locates the median rent for homes in your current neighborhood with the same number of bedrooms you entered, and determines how that median rent ranks relative to other ZIPs in your current city. With that info, a similarly ranked ZIP is chosen in the new city of your choice -- ensuring that the neighborhood in the new city is of a similar quality, which properly accounts for your standard of living and precisely estimates what you can expect to pay to maintain that standard somewhere else.

Transportation Costs

Transportation expenses can vary widely from city to city, so we\'ve broken out the key variables such as insurance and gas bills. We also account for the variation in gas taxes from state to state, and roll those taxes into your total tax estimate so that a true picture of each location\'s taxes is painted.

Monthly Living Expenses

By estimating just a few more categories of your major monthly expenses, the comparison between cities will be much more accurate, and it allows the app to calculate sales taxes (by ZIP code) on the categories that incur those taxes. For instance, most places don\'t charge sales taxes on Groceries, so we want to separate that spending from what you spend on other retail (like Clothing).

Gross Income that accounts for all forms of taxes!

These calculations are simply more accurate estimates than the ones available elsewhere that only give you one piece of the puzzle, or only provide aggregate level differences that require you to abstractly "understand" that your home is more or less expensive than somewhere else instead of personalized precise comparisons.

See it in action!

Contact us

Please reach out with any questions or feedback by shooting us an email at athena@cityversus.com.