The Pay A Family Of Four Needs In Texas For Basic Survival

No matter where you live these days, it's expensive. Inflation has taken over the entire country and many are struggling to make ends meet. The good news? Living in Texas during this time is actually a very good thing.

Now, I know you're sitting there thinking to yourself, how is it a good thing? Look, nothing about how things are right now are good per se. However, living in a different state could mean you need to be making a whole lot more money just to survive.

Normally I look at things like "how much do you need to make to live comfortably". Comfortably means you can have a good lifestyle that allows you to buy your basic needs, have a nice place to live, and be able to go out and enjoy activities.

Sadly, these days we're trying to figure out how much you need to make just to cover basic needs. Well I saw a survey that Yahoo did and it broke down just how much a family of four needs to bring into the household in order to have the things they NEED, not the things they want.

Truthfully? It was rather alarming, because the numbers I saw meant either one person has to have a really good paying job, or both adults in the household need to be making a solid salary.

For example, the state you need to make the least in order to afford your basic needs? Mississippi, and you need to bring home $73,381 just to be able to do that. Look, that's wild. I can't ever remember a time where you had to bring in over $70,000 just to live. That used to be someone living in a lower middle class status, not barely breaking even.

So where does Texas fall? We landed 19th on the list out of 50 states, which isn't bad at all. So what is considered a living wage in Texas? How about $81,374 for a family of four. In other words, both adults need to be bringing in around $40,000 a piece.

Now, it could be FAR worse. I'll use Colorado as an example since I lived there for a long time. In order to make it there? Yeah, $95,563 has to be coming into the household, and they rank 34th on the list.

The most expensive state to live is Hawaii, which isn't exactly surprising considering all the goods and things you need to purchased have to be flown there, so naturally costs are higher than anywhere else. In order to call Hawaii home and survive, you need to pull down a stunning $182,900.

So what was the biggest surprise on the list? It had to be the 49th ranked state. I thought for sure it would be California or New York, but it wasn't. They were 48th and 47th respectively. Massachusetts checked in at number 49 on the list needing $142,341 to live. That was $12,000 higher than California. Never would've seen that coming.

You can check out the full list by clicking here.