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And the cost of living can have a big impact on how far your hard earned salary stretches for you and your family. So if you have a choice in where you can live for your job, the cost of living can play a big part.
That’s where Zippia comes in; to show you the places in Minnesota that would eat up a big part of your paycheck on expenses — the San Franciscos of the world if you will. Where housing is expensive and day care will put you back a pretty penny.
These are the cities in Minnesota where the cost of living is actually higher than the national average because, for the most part, Minnesota isn’t all that expensive.
After we crunched all the numbers, we were left with this set of the most expensive places to raise a family in the North Star State:
- Orono
- Shorewood
- Edina
- Minnetrista
- Victoria
- Chanhassen
- Mendota Heights
- Lake Elmo
- Eden Prairie
- Corcoran
Read on to see how we determined the places that try to keep up with the Joneses a little too much.
How we determined the least affordable places to live in the North Star State
There are basic necessities that you have to buy no matter where in the country you live. Those things include:
- Housing
- Food
- Gas
- Health Insurance
- Utilities
- Transportation
You can then compare the cost of these things in each of the places in Minnesota to figure out which is the most expensive.
What you are left with is a “Cost of Living Index” that normalizes to 100 for an average place in the United States. And lucky for us, AreaVibes has such an index for us.
So we used that cost of living index in order to rank the largest 130 places in Minnesota.
And just so you can better understand how the cost of living index works, 100 is the average cost of a place in the United States. A score of 90 means that the place cost 10% less than average. A score of 120 means it’s 20% more expensive.
San Francisco has a score of 243 meaning it’s almost 2.5 times as expensive as the average place in the country.
1. Orono
Population: 7,494
Housing: 277
2. Shorewood
Population: 7,350
Housing: 195
3. Edina
Population: 48,155
Housing: 189
4. Minnetrista
Population: 6,367
Housing: 186
5. Victoria
Population: 7,407
Housing: 175
6. Chanhassen
Population: 23,229
Housing: 168
7. Mendota Heights
Population: 11,140
Housing: 171
8. Lake Elmo
Population: 8,013
Housing: 171
9. Eden Prairie
Population: 60,843
Housing: 158
10. Corcoran
Population: 5,407
Housing: 154
Author
Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.
