The Average Living Expenses for a Family in Long Island

Your family is growing, priorities change and the cost of living is always growing. With more members, your every cost is doubled or tripled. Although New York has its charms, it can be quite expensive. Living expenses for a family in Long Island can be very affordable. In this article, Clean Cut Moving Service NYC will present all the need-to-know information about living expenses, so you can make an informed decision.

The Average Living Expenses for a Family in Long Island

There are a lot of things you need to consider when you are thinking of relocating your family. First things first, if you’re planning a move to Long Island, local movers from NYC can find the best team of movers for an amount of money that won’t put a dent in your budget. Here is a list of other things you need to know about the living expenses of a family in Long Island:

• the average salary for Long Island
• should you rent or buy a house
• driving a car vs using public transportation
• food and necessities
• monthly fee for utilities
• the cost of healthcare and childcare

Is your salary good enough?

The first thing you need to tackle is to find out what is the amount of livable salary for Long Island. The cost of living expenses for a family in Long Island varies depending on where you live on Long Island. If both adults are working, the livable wage is $33.07 per hour for each parent. But the amount of salary also depends on the profession, so if you’re working in Marketing, your annual salary can come up to almost $150,000. Income taxes are very high, up to $24,308 annually.

What is better, renting or buying

One of the biggest living expenses for a family in Long Island is certainly your house. Depending on the size of your family, there are studio apartments and houses. If you decide on rent, there are various options for you. One of the least expensive options is Brentwood, where you can rent a studio apartment from $1,500 up or if you like you can buy a house starting from $500k.

If you have a smaller budget, there are great offers for buying houses at Lake Ronkonkoma. There, you can find cheaper houses to buy where the starting price is $300k. Bear in mind, if you’re looking to become a homeowner, you need to pay the mortgage. The annual mortgage interest rate is about 5.52%.

Car versus bus

If you already own a car, then the expenses you have is gas (1 liter is $0.99), maintenance work, and if you want, insurance. With the cost of gas constantly rising, maybe you need to consider cutting your cost and try using public transportation. There are all kinds of transportation in Long Island: buses, trains, and ferries. The bus fare is $2.75 and train costs vary from $10 to $19. For a round trip, a ferry ride for adults can cost from $18.15 up to $33. For your children, the price of the ferry is a little bit lower, you need to pay $12.00 for a same-day round trip.

Food, clothes, and other necessities

Food is one of the most important things and if you have more mouths to feed, living expenses for a family in Long Island can get much higher. If we’re looking at essential groceries, 1 liter of milk costs $1.36, a loaf of bread $3.42, and dozen of eggs at $2.29. As far as eating out goes, you can always choose between fast food and eating at a fancy restaurant. At McDonald’s, you can get a whole meal for $8.66. But if you would like to eat at a restaurant, prices can range from $22.08 up to $81.84, for two people.

As for the cost of other necessities needed for everyday living, prices of clothes and footwear also vary. If you’re into buying branded jeans then that will cost you a little over $50. Footwear prices vary, depending on if it is sneakers (Nike,$102.25) or shoes ($123.75). You can always opt out and try thrift stores and vintage clothes, which can be very low cost.

If you own a storage unit because of your recent move to Long Island, packing services in NYC recommend relying on professionals who can pack and handle all your belongings.

Utility fees

We’ve already mentioned that a large part of the living expenses for a family in Long Island are the utility fees. When we say utilities, we mainly think about basic ones which are water, gas, electricity bills, and garbage disposal. To add on these bills that are a requisite cost of living expanse, you also need to pay cell phone and internet bills. The combined value of basic utilities comes up to $259.68 a month if you’re living in an apartment, so for a house, it can be much more.

Healthcare and childcare

When you have a family, one of the most important things is access to schools and hospitals. When you’re thinking about where you want to live on Long Island, movers from Smithtown NY recommend Smithtown. It’s known as one of the best school districts in Long Island. If you are looking for a private preschool and school, prices are high. Monthly rates for one preschool child come up to $1,227.78 and for private schools, it is up to $18,642 annually. Of course, if you are looking for public schools, they’re free.

As far as healthcare goes, Long Island has one of the best facilities in the country. Stony Brook University Hospital is one of the top-rated hospitals in the country. The monthly cost of healthcare for a family of four is $1,214.

New York City vs Long Island

If you’re still debating where to live, New York City or Long Island, we will break it down for you. These two can go toe to toe regarding the living expenses for a family, but sometimes you need to decide what your priorities are. NYC is a beautiful city to live in but renting/buying a house is pricey. If you’re looking at studio apartments, and most of them are small, the rent can be $2,568! Also, not to mention, NYC is a big city but there’s not enough fresh air and space for your children to play. On the other hand, Long Island is not a cheap city to live in, you can rent an apartment for almost the same price as in NYC ($2,035), But it is different than NYC where it counts and that’s plenty of open spaces, friendly neighborhood and lots of beautiful landscapes.

Long Island as your new home

So you’ve done your calculations and figured that living expenses for a family in Long Island are up to your liking and your budget. You just need to plan your move and get your kids excited for a new life in Long Island. That won’t be a tough feat since Long Island has a lot to offer to young families, which you’ll certainly enjoy!