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With skyrocketing housing prices and cost of living expenses, finding an affordable place to call home can seem like an impossible feat. But fear not, Kiplinger ranked the cheapest cities to live in the United States. Here's how they did it:
We compiled our rankings of America's 25 cheapest places to live based on the Council for Community and Economic Research's (C2ER) calculations of living expenses in 265 urban areas. We then limited ourselves to metro areas with at least 50,000 inhabitants.
The cheapest city in the U.S. to live in is Harlingen, where the cost of living is 22.9% below the U.S. average. "However, just about everything, from groceries to gasoline, costs less in Harlingen. Locals save about 22% on a good cut of steak compared to the national average (this is Texas, after all). The average home price in Harlingen is a striking $178,000 less than the U.S. average. The average apartment rents for $757 per month – or 45% lower than the national average of $1,369," the report states.
McAllen comes in at No. 3 on the list and Amarillo is ranked No. 13.