A ranking built around your household, not an index
Lists of “most affordable cities” usually rank places by a single price index or by home prices against a typical income. Your situation is different: a single renter, a couple with an infant and a family of five need different homes, pay different taxes and face very different childcare bills. This finder runs a complete after-tax budget for your household in each of the 387 metros we cover and ranks them by what you would have left each month.
Example: a single renter earning $75,000
With the defaults — one adult, $75,000, renting a 1-bedroom at HUD Fair Market Rent, one car, USDA Moderate-Cost food and $1,000 a month of other spending at US-average prices — the metros that leave the most each month are:
| Metro | Left over / mo | Rent | Taxes |
|---|---|---|---|
| McAllen, TX | $2,779 | $806 | $1,117 |
| Grand Forks, ND-MN | $2,752 | $821 | $1,132 |
| Casper, WY | $2,734 | $804 | $1,117 |
| Texarkana, TX-AR | $2,714 | $874 | $1,117 |
| Minot, ND | $2,709 | $864 | $1,132 |
| Brownsville, TX | $2,701 | $884 | $1,117 |
| Kingsport, TN-VA | $2,689 | $845 | $1,117 |
| Amarillo, TX | $2,681 | $904 | $1,117 |
Among metros with at least a million residents, the top five are San Antonio, TX ($2,389), Tulsa, OK ($2,345), Memphis, TN-MS-AR ($2,345), Oklahoma City, OK ($2,312), and Tucson, AZ ($2,281). At the bottom of the full list, Santa Cruz, CA leaves −$338 a month.
How the ranking works
- Taxes. 2026 federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, state income tax, state payroll taxes, and the principal city’s mandatory local income tax for your household.
- Housing. HUD Fair Market Rent for the number of bedrooms your household needs, or, if you choose to own, a mortgage on the metro’s median home value plus property tax at the local effective rate.
- Childcare. County prices for each child’s age band from the Labor Department, in current dollars.
- Food, fuel and other costs. USDA food plans and your other spending scaled by BEA Regional Price Parities, EIA gasoline prices, and state sales tax.
The “left over” figure is take-home pay minus those costs. Use the filters to limit the list to a region (Census Bureau regions), a state or a metro size, and the column headings to re-sort by housing, childcare or taxes. Each metro links to its full cost-of-living profile.
Best fit by region
For the default single renter on $75,000, the metro with the most left over in each Census region, and the regional median:
| Region | Top metro | Left over / mo | Median metro in region |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast | Johnstown, PA | $2,459 | $1,865 |
| Midwest | Grand Forks, ND-MN | $2,752 | $2,334 |
| South | McAllen, TX | $2,779 | $2,317 |
| West | Casper, WY | $2,734 | $1,904 |
Regions follow the Census Bureau’s four-region definition; a metro is placed by the state of its principal city.
Families: childcare changes the map
For two adults earning $110,000 with a toddler in center-based care, 362 of the 366 metros with DOL childcare prices leave money over (21 metros without childcare data are left out). The top of that list — Eagle Pass, TX, Texarkana, TX-AR, McAllen, TX — differs from the single renter’s because childcare prices and 2-bedroom rents vary more between metros than 1-bedroom rents do.
Getting the most from the finder
Start with your real household: the number of adults and earners, each child’s age band and whether you need paid childcare. Then set the spending you control — food plan, cars and miles, and your other monthly spending at US-average prices. Sorting by “Lowest housing cost” or “Lowest taxes” shows which part of the budget drives a metro’s position; opening a metro’s profile shows the full line-by-line budget for three typical households, and the cost of living calculator compares any two metros for your exact inputs, including the salary you would need to keep the same budget.
Caveats
- Wages differ by place. The ranking assumes you keep the same income everywhere — true for remote work, not for most local jobs.
- Health insurance, car ownership costs and debt payments are not modeled. Enter them in “Fixed costs / month” to include them in every place.
- Metro-wide figures hide neighborhood differences; rents and childcare inside a metro vary.