Sherman- Denison Tx one of the nation’s Ten Cheapest Places to Live last year.

Nate Strauch writing for the Herald Democrat reports that Sherman Denison ranks cheapest in the US.

"Consumer prices in the Sherman-Denison area moved lower in 2013 compared to the national average, catapulting the area into the 10 least expensive places to live in the country."

Strauch reviewed pricing data from part of the year end review conducted by the Council for Community and Economic Research. The Council analyses data quarterly on the cost of living for 308 areas in the U.S. conisdered "Urban" living. Sherman and Denison had the rank of 7th Cheapest place to live in the U.S. in 2013 while it placed 14 overall back in in 2012.

Cost of living in Sherman-Denison dropped to 13.6 % below the U.S. national average in 2013, which amounted to a reduction from 11.2 percent in the previous year, 2012. Economic Development Corp. President Scott Connell from Denison said the lower numbers fit well with an industry wide focus on higher quality workforce. Translation - higher productivity is bringing the costs of goods down in the area.

“One of the things we’re seeing right now — and probably will see for several years — is the focus on employees; both the ability to find the specific talents that they’re looking at, and the ability to attract those people to their facilities,” said Connell. “So a really effective cost of living in our market is going to help us build and grow our workforce. It makes it a lot easier to get people to our market.”

Tony Kaai, president of the Denison Development Alliance agreed, adding that lower consumer prices are not usually the first thing a relocating company looks for, but they do make up a very important part of the process for luring new job creating businesses to Denison.

“We definitely use this data because it's such a positive thing,” said Kaai. “If you and some other community or even two communities are tied with business (in terms of costs), then the secondary level - quality of life, can be the deal-maker. So we’re fortunate to have that here. It is value-added.”

At 120.4 % above the mean, Manhattan has the dubious honour of being America’s most expensive city to live in. As mentioned in our previous post Harlingen defends its title as the Cheapest city to live in the U.S. Harlington is 18.4 percent under the average. Each communities score is listed as a percentage of the the national average.

Other areas on the top ten least expensive (cheapest) list, can be found on our post from a few days ago - Here

The places in the U.S. you may want to avoid if you're looking to save money begin with #2, New York (Brooklyn), Honolulu, San Francisco, New York (Queens), San Jose, Calif., Hilo, Hawaii,  Stamford, Conn.,  Orange County, Calif., and Washington, D.C., 140.1.



See more at: http://heralddemocrat.com

Cheapest Places To Live: Housing

There is a concept or idea that falls under the umbrella of cheapest places to live that we have never before discussed on this blog and that is the idea of creating a space to live in that is both cheap and livable provided a person can let go of some of the preconceived notions that have been cemented into the brains of the American people and in turn the brains of many of the worlds developed countries.
I am referring to housing that is non-conventional with objectives that include keeping costs down. Housing that makes as its priority to be both cheap and responsible. Cheap to make, operate and as well responsible to the environment. There are several methods that over time have been developed that you may find useful and interesting as you begin to pursue ways to live cheap in the world or even to look for the best retirement community, that is if you are looking for a place to retire.
One method is to convert shipping containers into living spaces. There are people that have simply used a shipping container as a shell to define the exterior walls of their home and gone on to make some of the most unexpected interiors that are both fiscally responsible and also amazingly beautiful. Others have combined several containers to make a larger space and mask them in such a way that one would hardly know the skeleton of the structure was once a box for shipping goods around the world.
How well these containers are masked in the construction is often by definition the determining factor in being able to describe them as a cheap place to live. Anything can be transformed if there is no limit on the budget but it is the pioneers who don’t add significantly to the cost as they transform the use of these shipping boxes that were once for moving things that define them as cheap places to live. It will be interesting to see if their use as housing units becomes popular. One factor that will most likely contribute to their acceptance is how well these artists are able to create a space that people want to live in.
Another new cheapest place to live method is being created in the ‘tiny house’ movement that works to remove the limit on how small a livable house can be. Making the space smaller dramatically reduces the cost. Of course there are still some core costs that make the price per foot go up in a tiny house but the overall cost is dramatically reduced. A tiny house definition is open to debate but some are comfortably living in spaces as small as 100 square feet.

Sometimes these homes are rooms in a building, which is basically a tiny studio apartment. Other times these tiny homes are built on trailers to get around building codes as they are often not acceptable as homes by the local code writers. Many of the design elements are taken from what has traditionally been referred to as cabins where utility is maximized and every square inch has been made useful as much as possible. There is a third cheapest place to live method that has gained traction over the last few decades and that is the use of recycled material like tires, can, bottles and even ground up newspaper to build with.
Sometimes these are in combination with other conservation methods like solar, passive heat, underground construction as well as others to maximize cost savings. All these ideas and methods have their believers and evangelists, as well as those that view them as a lunatic fringe of society that will never be acceptable. The good news is whether you adhere to their ways of thinking and living or not, there are some amazing new and now proven building methods and products coming out of the quest for cheapest places to live and being that is more in harmony with our world and our wallets.

Waco - Cheapest place to live in U.S. but...

Browsing the net today I came across a small item on the Channel 25 News site serving Waco, Killen and Temple, Tx. claiming "Waco as one of the Cheapest Places to live in the U.S.A.

The article basically drew on data compiled by the Real Estate research website, HomeFacts.com. Homefacts listed Waco as one of the top ten cheapest places to live in the U.S. based on cost of living data they compiled from the U.S. department of housing. Waco was #7 on the list.

I always find these little snippets interesting - its often what's not reported that is most interesting. If available, the comments people leave can be quite revealing. In this case the comments were pretty negative. Confirming that Waco is in fact one of the least expensive places to live but perhaps for good reason. Posters trashed the place for high taxes and what sounds like a pretty nasty crime and poverty problem.

A comment by one poster may just sum it all up, " Woo Hoo Waco! - Save money, get robbed, shot or maybe raped. Thats the place I want to raise my family..."

As I mentioned its a pretty small piece and what I've written here captures it all but if you still want to check out the original source you can go here - Source: www.kxxv.com

Yes, it's true Waco is the cheapest place to live in the U.S.