Costs of Living in the Midwest

I am looking for informaion on the cost of living for a family of 5 in the Midwest...

A bit of background: I am American, my husband is a Brit/S African Dual citizen.  We currently have 2 children and are expecting #3 in April, a year after #2 .  I have been discontent with Britain for awhile and feel its time to move back to be near my family.

However, as my children are so young, I don't think I will be able to work initially.  I have plenty of family support to see us through for awhile, but we will be reliant on DH finding work in the US. The problem is that he works in the arts as a director of an arts charity and initial looking around the internet shows that similar posts earn even less in the US (if that is possible!!).  I worry about his ability to support us, but Ihave no idea what to base cost of living analysis on.

Where can I get realistic estimates on housing, health insurance, etc and what a reasonable income to support a family of 5 would be?  My family isn't terribly helpful in these matters...

Marlespo might be a good source of info for you, if she can ever get time to post!  She's busy with a new baby right now.  They just moved over here from the Midwest, I believe.

You know you'd lose the council tax payment, but also you'd lose Child Benefit & Tax Credits income.  I'd imagine things like car payments, car insurance, petrol, miles driven, etc - things like that would increase.  Minus public transport costs.  Health insurance is a biggie - if employer-provided, then that's better but often extra premium is taken from salary to cover the family whereas health insurance for the employee-only could be provided completely by the employer, but not always.

I haven't lived in the Midwest since 1997, so no idea on current costs, unfortunately!  The one thing that strikes me since I've moved over here (from 2004) is that the price of food has gone up phenomenally in the US since I left.  Like I'm shocked at how much food costs there now - probably due to the price of oil, transport costs, etc?

You might want to look into tax favourable areas as well - like what taxes do you pay living where.  For instance, when I lived in Florida (not Midwest), it was just federal tax & some sales tax (but not sales tax for some things).  However, when I lived in Kansas City, Kansas metro area & worked on Kansas City, MO side - I paid federal tax, Kansas state tax, a bit of Missouri state tax, city tax, and sales tax!  It was crazy!    (though probably nothing like taxes here, but at least we have NHS etc here)

If you are looking to live in the Midwest (and I'd encourage that, because it does tend to have the best combo of low living cost and high living standards.  Not that I'm biased.), then I'd strongly recommend looking at southern Wisconsin.  The Madison & Milwaukee areas (and, increasingly, the Fox Valley) have a very strong arts community, with lots of organizations, so I would think your husband's chances of finding work in (or at least close to) his field would be better than in some other places.  And, particularly if you're willing to live in a smaller town or rural area and commute, the cost of living can be very reasonable. 

I'd recommend taking a look at the Craigslist rental section, as this can also be a good way to compare housing costs in different areas.  Though, again, keep in mind that costs can be lower in small town/rural areas, and there might not be a lot of online listings for property in those areas (though that doesn't mean there aren't properties available).

Good advice above. Milwaukee is awesome! Lots of great arts organizations. And yes, food costs are way up. I'm living in Florida and even down here it's a lot more expensive than London. Might pay to shop around. But going to the Midwest sounds like a good idea. You can get a lot of space for not so much money. Good luck in the glorious USA.

With regards to food costs, that's one more point in favor of the midwest.  From what I've seen (travelling often to Florida, and having lived on the east coast), our food costs tend to be a bit lower, as well.  I suppose it's because things don't have to be transported so far.

This might be useful:
http://www.findyourspot.com/

thanks, all.  I don't know if my Iowan roots will let me live in Wisconsin   I do like Milwaukee though...

I am really quite conflicted about moving back and don't know what to do...why can't all of this be easy?

I saw your post earlier and was interested to see the replies-as another Iowan in the UK, after the birth of my first child and a 5 week visit this summer, we are seriously considering returning to the USA. 

However, it's the thought of returning and not intially having a job and/or me getting one then applying for a visa from the USA and being apart from my husband (and he from us) that would be terrible.  I also worry that we don't have enough funds to support ourselves....health insurance, etc.   After living in the UK for 8 years, I want to return but seem reluctant to take the first steps.....

My maternity leave ends in three weeks and I have to return for at least 3 months to my employer.  With massive cuts in the public sector and an un-employed recent PhD grad, we decided to wait and see what happens and then hopefully (!) begin the process in the new year, unless some university decides to employ my husband for longer than 6 months!

As far as finances, my mom seemed to think that at a minimum, someone (or combined) would need to be bringing in at least $40,000/year.  It's worth remembering that just because your employer covers insurance, the co-payments or monthly costs to you can still be high.  This is for Iowa City, however, which I know is inexpensive relative to other places in the USA but for Iowa, is a fairly expensive place to live.

You all really think food costs more in the US? I haven't found that to be the case at all. Maybe I'm lucky in my location (Maryland) as there is a lot of good local food. But for an island nation, the UK imports a lot of it's food and I always found that reflected in the price. Gas is also a lot cheaper and I don't have a ridiculous commute (yet) so that's been better for me here than in the UK.

Kat, to get back to your original post though. Arts jobs are HARD to come by now. You and your DH are going to really have to do your homework about that.

Good luck!

thanks, all.  I don't know if my Iowan roots will let me live in Wisconsin   I do like Milwaukee though...

Oh, dear.  I didn't realize you were from...Iowa.  You might need to take some kind of test before we let you in. ;p

You all really think food costs more in the US?

I don't know that it costs more, just that the US price of food has seemingly skyrocketed since I moved away from there.  I don't find UK food to be that costly, however as (at our house) we cook most things from scratch using local ingredients (meat, poultry, fish, veg, milk, eggs), I don't think we are buying that much imported stuff, except fruit - but English plums & apples are in season again now.

I'm not from the midwest but at least from a housing perspective isn't it absurdly cheap to live in many parts of the midwest?  I appreciate places like Chicago are probably expensive (and probably one of the top places for Arts jobs or any sort of job just because of sheer city size).  I've seen surveys in the past where you can get an average house for like $100K to $125K in the midwest whereas you'd struggle to get a decent sized place for less than $200K to $250K in Maryland where I'm from (or $300K to $400K in DC suburbs!).

I hear Detroit's very cheap place to live these days

my sister lives in Kansas, in a small town 1 hr from Kansas City.  she visited London in the summer, and was appalled at the grocery prices here.   we shopped in Kent while she was here and the prices were the same as London.

my sister lives in Kansas, in a small town 1 hr from Kansas City.  she visited London in the summer, and was appalled at the grocery prices here.   we shopped in Kent while she was here and the prices were the same as London. 

And I'm equally appalled at just how boring it is to live in Kansas - lol!  I can say that because I'm from Kansas & thought I would never get out! 

It all depends on where you are in the Midwest, and where you're coming from in the U.K. Just like prices here, prices in the Midwest can be all over the place. There are some things that are cheaper in the Midwest, like owning a home (but honestly rent here in Norwich vs. any other college town we've lived in is about wash...) but others that are pretty similar.

I honestly haven't had the sticker shock reaction to food prices at all here in the U.K. Granted, my perspective is based on having spent the better part of the last 10 years living in cheap parts of the U.S. (Texas and Cleveland Ohio), and now living in a pretty cheap (I think) part of the U.K.

But compared to where we were living prior to that (Chicago), this part of the U.K. isn't that bad at all. I had completely expected to be in the poor house by now, but even after some rather spendy set up costs---new furniture, stocking the pantry, rental deposits and whatnot--we're still managing to put some money away in savings.

By comparison, even with both of us working in the States and making twice as much as we'd ever make here in the U.k., we weren't able to save any more than we are right now----only because of those pesky American "necessities" we had no other choice but to pay for---like 2 cars b/c there was no public trans, state/city/county income taxes, health insurance, and student loan debt.