Everyone knows how important it is to save money. There is no question that everyone would like to save, but in some US towns, it is simply not so easy. How much people can save is not only dependent on how much income is rolling in, but how much it costs to live.
Debt.com took a look at several parameters to create a list of the easiest (and most difficult) cities in which to save. They took the price of gas from GasBuddy, home prices and rent data from Zillow, and unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The last parameter was income, which was garnered from the Census Bureau. Together they came up with a general idea of how hard saving money is throughout many of the county’s cities.
The web site created an interactive map to illustrate where the best and worst cities are. Not surprisingly, East Coast and West Coast cities are the most expensive places to live, while smaller cities further away from central hubs of commerce and industry are actually easier to save.
The top five cities for saving money are:
1. Anchorage, Alaska
2. Portland, Oregon
3. Boise, Idaho
4. Madison, Wisconsin
5. Lincoln, Nebraska
The worst five are:
1. Los Angeles, California (100 of 100)
2. New York, NY (99 of 100)
3. San Francisco, California (98 of 100)
4. Long Beach, California (97 of 100)
5. Oakland, California (96 of 100)