How Cheap Is Amarillo To Live In? Check This Out, It’ll Surprise You.

No matter what city you live in, it has pros and cons. Whether it's quality of life, finances, restaurant scene, etc., there is bound to be good and bad.

When my family moved to Amarillo from Austin, we knew one of the pros was going to be the cost of living. Austin isn't cheap, I don't think that's a secret to anyone. However, we didn't realize just how much lower Amarillo was actually going to be.

Well, thanks to a recent survey done by Doxo.com, we now know just where Amarillo ranks as far as the cost of living in the entire country, and I gotta tell ya it's pretty darn good. Let's break this down.

Amarillo checked in as the 2,871st cheapest place to live in America and the 148th cheapest place in Texas. The average cost of all bills put together is $1,742 per month. That includes just about everything you can think of. Rent/mortgage, utilities, auto, insurance, cable, etc.

MORTGAGE

The national average of a monthly mortgage is $1,368 per month. Amarillo checks in at $1,228 per month. That's $140 less per month than the average. I'll take that.

RENT

If you go the rental route, you find it's significantly cheaper than the national average of $1,129 per month. Amarillo comes in at an incredible number of just $852 per month. That includes apartments and houses, so keep that in mind.

UTILITIES

Here's another spot where Amarillo definitely gets a win. The national average for utilities in the country is a staggering $328 per month. Amarillo residents are only averaging $180 per month on utilities, another $140+ per month in savings.

HEALTH/LIFE INSURANCE

Even the health and life insurance costs in Amarillo are a fair amount cheaper than the national average. For health insurance, the national average is $123 per month, while Amarillo is sitting at $97 per month. That clearly isn't for a family.

Life insurance is already a relatively cheap expense but compared to the national average of $82 a month, Amarillo is again winning. You're looking at an average of just $64 per month in the 806.

AUTO

This is where you start to see things level out a bit. The cost to build a car is still the same no matter where you live, right? So that doesn't have a whole lot of flex room. Dealerships still have to make their profits. The monthly cost of an auto loan nationally is $433 per month. In Amarillo, you're looking at a slight savings at $414 per month.

Car insurance is kind of in the same boat as the auto loan. The national average is $196 per month, with Amarillo sitting at $185 a month.

CABLE/SATELLITE

This is the first (and only) category where we don't see a savings, but we also don't see an increase either. Amarillo pays the national average of $114 per month for cable and satellite services.

MOBILE PHONE

This one was kind of surprising to me. I didn't think there would be a category we would even tie the national average in, let alone be higher than it in. Mobile phones however are the one place where it's cheaper to live somewhere else. The national average for cell phone bills is $113 per month. We average $120 per month here in Amarillo. I wonder if it has something to do with the amount of cell phone towers. No idea.

If you'd like to see the full report, and also look at all the other cities in Texas, you can see the entire Doxo Insights survey here.