- 2023 Average Monthly Rent: $1,179
- Livability: 77
- Monthly Grocery Cost Per Couple: $418.54
- Monthly Healthcare Cost Per Couple: $525.29
- Monthly Utilities Cost Per Couple: $317.35
- Monthly Transportation Cost Per Couple: $364.55
- Monthly Necessities Cost Per Couple: $2,804.45
Retirees can live in Hagerstown with a few hundred dollars to spare at the end of the month. With the price of monthly necessities about $2,804, Hagerstown is the cheapest place to live. Why? Healthcare costs average about $100 less per month and far below every other city in the study.
Andrew Lisa contributed to the reporting for this article.
Methodology: GOBankingRates determined the best cities in the East Coast (FL, GA, SC, NC, VA, MD, DE, NJ, NY, CT, RI, MA, NH, and ME) to retire on $3,000 or less a month. GOBankingRates first isolated all cities in the East Coast with a 2023 average monthly rent under $1,900 and a size rank below 1,000. GOBankingRates then used Sperling’s Best to find the cost of living index for each listed city, looking at grocery, utilities, transportation and healthcare index scores. Next, GOBankingRates used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2022 Consumer Expenditure Survey to find the annual expenditure amount for groceries (“food at home”), utilities, healthcare and transportation costs for people 65 and older to find how much retirees (65 and over) would spend on necessities in each city on a monthly basis. GOBankingRates then added together the monthly costs of housing, groceries, utilities, transportation and healthcare to find where a couple 65 and older could survive on $3,000 or less. To be qualified for the study, the city had to have a livability score above 70 as sourced from AreaVibes. GOBankingRates scored and combined both livability and monthly necessities expenditure, with the lowest score being best, to determine final rankings. All data was collected and is up to date as of Sept. 13, 2023.
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