Hump Day

short+sassy

CharmedPam said:

short+sassy 

*While Chicago is not on our radar at all for a number of reasons, I am always amazed at how affordable it is for such a big city.  I totally understand why people recommend it.  Lots of opportunity and good paying jobs, yet it's still a MCOL place.

Back in the day, you could say that about Chicago and Chicagoland, but it’s becoming more and more expensive lately. My utily bills, property tax, gas etc is getting up there.
Cold doesn’t bother me but the snow does.  It definitely slows you down/throws a wrench in your plans. 

I was referring to more what I see for rental rates/housing prices.  And that is "comparatively speaking".

I was expecting it to be closer to NYC prices when it's actually pretty similar to NOLA.

But I hear ya that COL isn't just housing.  It's one of the other reasons I want to leave here.  We pay some of the nation's highest rates for property insurance, car insurance, water/sewerage, and sales tax (9.5%).  I figured out that I pay about an extra $600/month for just the overages on those things.  And that's only including the higher property insurance for my own house, not for my rentals.

And the city sales tax, which is 5% of that 9.5%, is applied to EVERYTHING.  Including basic grocery food and even prescription medication.  For that alone, I pay an extra $35-$40/month in sales tax on things that most other places don't charge tax on.

But we do have lower property taxes here than average.  That's about it.

Wherever I move and once I get used to my "new" bill amounts, I think this is one category that is going to really hit me as a good "Wow!! I can't believe how much cheaper I'm living.".  Because it's one thing to roughly figure out that's how much more I'm paying right now.  But quite another to call Progressive, give them my new address, and they drop my car insurance from $400/month to $150/month.  

banana468

Ugh.  My little Chiquita has a fever.  I'm concerned we're dealing with pneumonia or RSV.  :-(

CharmedPam

Oh yeah, I don’t know much about the housing market but it’s not comparable to NY or CA, yeah.  And the further (South) you get away from the city, the more bang for your buck.
But, you like, live in a cornfield. 

@short+sassy .  My boss moved from Jersey a few years ago and was like “I can’t beileve how low the electric and gas is here!” But since then, we’ve caught up to the more expensive states.  Yay. 

poor Chiquita @banana468.  They talked about RSV in the news yesterday and it’s the first I heard of it. Is mainly in children? 

kerbohl

@CharmedPam That's ominous about the water park closures.  Have you heard back?  That would suck if most of it is closed.

ILoveBeachMusic

@banana468 one of my grandsons has the flu, another has pneumonia and the other had a double ear infection. It is a petri dish out there. The one with the flu never ran a fever but the other two had fevers for several days.

banana468

ILoveBeachMusic said:

@banana468 one of my grandsons has the flu, another has pneumonia and the other had a double ear infection. It is a petri dish out there. The one with the flu never ran a fever but the other two had fevers for several days.

at least 3 of the 19 girls in Chiquita's GS troop have it.  I think it's at least 4.  This one is just rough.