Is The Cost Of Living In Amarillo, Texas Truly Low? Good Question.

When you're getting ready to move to a new city, there are so man factors to take in. When we moved from Austin to Amarillo, we had to look at everything from salary to how far that particular salary would go.

In Texas, certain places are for more expensive than others, and I'm not talking about this neighborhood or that one. Almost every city has a neighborhood that is more expensive than somewhere else in the city.

I'm talking about the overall cost of living. Things such as groceries, gas prices, utility prices, etc. You can see the gas prices significantly change just depending on what part of Amarillo you're in, let alone a drive to Canyon. I swear I've crossed the street before in Amarillo and seen gas prices fall 10 cents per gallon.

Amarillo in general is lower than the state average when it comes to overall cost of living. It's around 15-16% lower than the state average, which is something you love to see. One thing you have to remember though is that salaries will reflect this and also typically be a bit lower than the state average as well.

Sitting at the lower than state average cost of living number though begs the question, are we TRULY a low cost of living city, or do we fall more in the mid cost of living sector?

Well, that has a lot of different factors to it. When you compare it to some of the smaller cities around it such as Happy, Tulia, Hereford, etc., Amarillo can come off as a bit of a higher cost of living place.

Those smaller cities are typically going to cost a bit less to live in because they aren't IN the main city. There are a lot of people who live outside of Amarillo and commute to and from work every day, 30 minutes or more each way, every weekday.

They do that because housing in those cities can be significantly lower, and even with the higher amount of gas they'll use commuting back and forth, it ends up being a bit cheaper to live there.

If you're comparing Amarillo to the bigger cities such as Dallas, Houston, Austin, etc. then yes, it's definitely a low cost of living city. We probably shouldn't be comparing the cost of living in those cities to Amarillo directly without looking at places such as Lubbock.

When it's all said and done, I think Amarillo toes the line of low cost of living and mid cost of living. The best comparison I can give from personal experience is when I lived in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Compared to Fort Collins, Amarillo is actually a bit more affordable. Fort Collins is the home of Colorado State University, and typically cities that are home to a "major" university tend to be a bit on the higher side when it comes to cost of living.

It's one of those things that I suppose is very open to interpretation, but after living here for nearly three years now, I'd say in MY eyes, Amarillo is cheaper than a lot of other places we could be.