If the city in Metro Vancouver, BC or elsewhere in Canada you currently live in and the lifestyle you lead drain your disposable income at an alarming rate and you feel helpless to reverse the bad fortune in spite of your best efforts, then maybe it’s time for something entirely different – something that you know many people have taken advantage of but you yourself have never had the chance or courage to do. Until now.
Have you ever considered moving to a cheaper place?
A move to a less expensive and maybe smaller city will definitely provide a number of clear advantages to you and your family, but as you might expect, each bonus comes hand in hand with its signature trade-off. Therefore, if you’ve reached the point in your life where you can no longer afford the higher cost of living of your present town or city and need a radical change so that you can keep the financial frustration at bay, then make sure you take into consideration the pros and cons of moving to a cheaper area.
Cost of Living
If you’re really thinking about moving to a more affordable city, then the cost of living of your future place is one of the first things you need to be familiar with. Find out what makes a particular city expensive or inexpensive – housing, food, utilities, transportation, healthcare, education, clothing, entertainment, etc.
However, a lower cost of living will not guarantee that everything else in your would-be city will be less expensive too – you’re going to have to dig deeper and research well its housing costs, salaries, taxes (income taxes and sales taxes) and other daily expenses.
Housing Costs
Interestingly, simply because a city has a lower cost of living doesn’t automatically mean that its housing costs will follow suit. In fact, this is one of the most common mistakes people make when they decide to relocate to an affordable city – they assume that the prices of real estate properties will be cheaper just because the overall expenses of living in that place are much lower than their current ones.
So, make sure you research well the housing costs of the places you have shortlisted, for those costs tend to be the defining factor when determining the overall cost of living of a particular city. And while you’re contemplating purchasing or renting a cheaper house or apartment in your new city, don’t forget to check whether your future residence will be located in an area you can actually afford. Why? At times affordable properties can be found in areas with an uncustomary higher cost of living, which will effectively defeat the purpose of your struggle to find the better quality of life you’d expect when you relocate to a cheaper city.
Unemployment
Of course, it won’t do you any good to move to a lower-cost city if you can’t find a decent job there. Job markets usually vary greatly from city to city, and the demand for jobs in your particular field may be drastically different than the one in your current place of residence. And while looking at general unemployment rates could give you some hints about the job opportunities of your would-be home, you need to look under the hood and get to the figures that represent your particular area of expertise.
Before moving to a lower cost of living area, it’s fundamental that you have a good idea whether you’re likely to experience a pay decrease and if yes, whether it will be in proportion with the expected decrease in your everyday expenditure. Therefore, you’ll need to do an extensive employment research before you pick and move to a community that is much more affordable to live in.
Moving To A Less Expensive Home
If you could kill two birds with one stone, would you do it? Let’s hope not! However, what you can actually do to greatly improve your unpleasant financial situation is to move to an affordable city and move into a smaller house at the same time. Downsizing one’s home has proved to be a modern phenomenon, and a popular trend, for a number of good reasons, such as the fact that smaller homes are generally cheaper to purchase or rent, and their maintenance costs are fairly low too. A less expensive house or apartment in a lower cost of living area in a cheaper city can really turn things around for you and make you much more financially comfortable and significantly happier with less money-induced stress and fewer how-to-make-ends-meet kind of worries on your mind.
Get Professional Relocation Assistance
For problem-free relocation to a cheaper city of your choice, your best bet is to know in advance how much your move will cost you, so that you can set up your moving budget the right way. Needless to say, hiring professional Metro Vancouver movers will further bring down the relocation expenses and will give you a good start in your new place.
Your big decision to relocate to an affordable city should be well informed – make sure you do your homework and research your future town or city thoroughly. Besides the obvious essential factors such as cost of living, housing costs, unemployment rate and taxes, consider other aspects that will influence your lifestyle to a greater or smaller degree – crime rate (cheaper cities have the tendency to have higher crime rates in certain areas and bad neighborhoods), cultural events and historic or state-of-the-art attractions (entertainment options in smaller towns may be somewhat limited in comparison to their larger counterparts), school districts (if you have school-age kids, affordable towns and cities with reputable schools should have a higher priority on your list) and so on.
All in all, simply factor in the good and bad options available to you, and try to determine whether your move to a more affordable area will pay off in the end or not.
Original source: https://www.mymovingreviews.com
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