Yeah here I saw an ad for a house for like $210,000 and it said "great starter home". Yikes.
I wish I could get a house for $210,000. There is nothing in my area for under $250,000...and that's for a 50 year old house that needs work. We have our choice between brand new houses on a postage stamp lot that cost a fortune or older houses on large lots that cost a fortune. We will be renting for ever.
Hmmm I dunno, $210,000 doesn't give you much space here. We have three kids and a fourth on the way and that size house would not fit us (we do not own right now either).
harvesting the oil in alaska wont change the price in gasoline for us in the US because that would make up less than 1% of our crude oil consumption. plus they would have to drill in ANWAR and I am against invaiding national parks for "fuel exploration" 
I just paid $3.47 a gallon. It is so expensive out here, I'm lucky my parents still let me live at home! Rent on a one bedroom apartment is $1500 -$1800/month. One of my friends was looking into buying a house and a "starter" was $550,000! and it needed major repairs.
I just paid $3.47 a gallon. It is so expensive out here, I'm lucky my parents still let me live at home! Rent on a one bedroom apartment is $1500 -$1800/month. One of my friends was looking into buying a house and a "starter" was $550,000! and it needed major repairs.
OMG that is crazy! 
I thought it was bad here...Most houses around here are $200,000+ and we can't afford that at all. We can't even find rentals. There aren't any. It's sad.
I can't believe a starter home goes for that much down there?!!! How is a person supposed to live? What kinds of wages do people earn then? There's got to be higher wages to off-set that...?
Wow! Prices in Cali are worse than here!! I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, we have 2 kids, and we rent. A house that is falling down is all we can afford to buy and between the 2 of us we bring in over 50k a year 
We have come to realize in this area the salaries have not keep up with the housing prices. Oh-and gas is $3.19 gal.
The cost of living is high here in Orange County. But I think California is just expensive all around. I've had friends move to Arizona, Washington, Nevada, and Colorado. They couldn't afford it out here anymore. Wages really depend on what you do, I guess that's everywhere. I work part time and go to school, I make $11.25/hour. Some people think that's decent money, out here I can't afford anything. My friends who just bought a house combined make about $92K a year, I don't know how that compares to wages in other states (that's with both of them having Masters Degrees, working full time with overtime) A $200,000 house would be amazing, that's around how much my parents bought our house for, it is now valued at over 3x what they got it for.
IMO Sydney's doing it a lot tougher than you guys in the states. Cost of petrol here is about US$3.18 a gallon. (If I do my convertions correctly....lets hope so....)
As for houses here, median price is about $43000. If I lived a bit futher to the city it might be something like a mil. I really don't know how I'm going to be able to buy my own house in a few years.
neni, that is exactly why my son didn't stay in Calif when his marine enlistment was up. He went back and forth on whether he was going to stay or come back to Indiana. (See..... there was this GIRL out there...!)
But it was the cost of living that was the deciding factor. He told us that no one can afford to live in Calif. He honestly has no idea how you folks do it. We are SO happy that his girlfriend decided to come to Indiana with him. I know what she gave up .... she's a real California beach girl! We luv her to death and if he doesnt' hurry up and marry this girl, I'm gonna get my Mom-Finger going in his face really fast!
I wish they'd find some way to invent solar cars or something like that. I hate that we're so dependent on oil. Hey, it'd be nice to have like in the Back to the Future sequels where they use garbage for fuel! Kill two birds with one stone
Oh dont get me started.LOL The government wants us to be dependant on oil and they control the prices. The other thing that gets my goat , is out here in Colorado they say the economy is great yet we have the highest forclosure rate in the nation and it is hard to find a good paying job here. I was laid in October I was make $22.00 , I looked for work since October and finally started a new job 2 weeks ago at $14.84 that is a HUGE pay cut but sometimes you have no choice. Where I live out in the boonies, people just pack up an leave because they can't pay the mortgage etc. We bought our place 4 yrs ago for $180,000 it's a 3000 sq ft house sitting on 6 acres and right now I would never be able to sell it even if I wanted to just cover the loan as places around here are going for like $140,000-150,000 right now
Oooooohhh so sorry I will calm down now. LOL
Oh my... I know, we are house hunting right now in FL and OMG, it sooooo expensive, you get a really small home for $250,000 and yeah, we are paying close to $3.15 a gallong of gas, I guess it is not as bad as CA (DH is from Southern CA) so we are thankfull.
Try San Diego. . .
It's one of the most expensive cities in terms of housing in the US. It's more expensive than NYC.
You will not find a house for less than $425,000, be my guest. And a $425K house is no doubtedly going to be a small, 50+ year old one in the inland that needs work.
My family moved last year because of this very problem. We lived in Fredericksburg, VA which is where all the people who work in DC are coming and driving up the housing prices. My husband and I bought a house in 2004 for $150k, we were up to our eyeballs in our mortgage. My mom had a small house on 5 acres and we all wanted to buy something with more land for the horses (and for us too!)...anyways, my hubby and I sold ours in Oct. 2005 for $250k and my mom tripled her house! We bought a big house in southern VA with 60 acres cash and cost of living generally is sooo much cheaper! You can actually buy a house down here for under $100k. Under $50k if you are willing to do some work! The cheapest gas I've seen here lately is $2.85. My aunt sent me this website where you can go and sign a petition to try and have your representative do something about price gouging this summer. It will make it a federal offense to price gouge. Check it out!
http://pol.moveon.org/stoppricegouging/?r_by=-8198879-Ld9oxT&rc=confemail
Does anyone remember Sinclair stations
We still have Sinclair stations. It's the only place around that still has full service.
We do too.
As far as regulating price there are some states where there are rules about chargine less than what the station buys it for and such. North Dakota is one of them, according to my MIL it's from gas wars when they were running people out of buisness. We also have rules on milk, they can't charge less than a set amount, currently we pay about $2.50 for half a gallon of 2%. If you live in Grand Forks you can cross the river to Minnesota and buy your milk for quite a bit less.
Talk about sticker shock, I am in N. California, just filled up for the first time in awhile. $3.36 a gallon for regular unleaded, $43.00 to fill my little car. The only good thing about this is that tank of gas will last me for a month because I get good gas mileage and I seldom go anywhere anymore.
I don't see how families can afford to do anything recreational anymore. $10.00 for a movie ticket, not considering the snacks, a ballgame would be out of the question for a whole family by the time you pay for gas, parking, admission and food. I remember when my kids were little and we would go for a Sunday drive because we couldn't afford much else, we'd get an ice cream cone or maybe take them to the drive in movie on dollar night. Those days are long gone. This has to be the reason so many kids are addicted to television, they can't afford any other type of entertainment.
Who wants to change with me, I pay $1.30 to fill my tank, but I get to live with chaves...
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%