The cost of living doesn't seem to be going down, both across the country and in Montana. We have seen a rise in grocery and gas prices and the cost of buying a home. They all seem to continue to rise. When it comes to buying a home, in Montana, we rank as one of the most expensive states to try to make that happen.

Read More: There Are Only 2 States Where It's Harder To Buy A House Than In Montana Right Now

Purchasing a home, for most people, is the biggest purchase they will make in their lifetime. It's not an easy thing to do. These days in order to afford to purchase a typical home, a person needs to be able to put a substantial amount of money for just the down payment of a home.

Read More: How Many Figures You Need In Your Salary To Afford A Typical Montana Home  

Montana's

So with the costs on the rise, where does Montana's average annual cost of living compare with other states, how far does our money go? For a lot of those that live in Montana you probably won't be surprised to find out that we don't rank very high when it comes to how affordable it is to live here. According to the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center, Montana comes in at number 33 when it comes to the annual average cost of living. The state with the lowest annual average cost of living in 2023 is Oklahoma followed by Mississippi, Kansas, West Virginia and Alabama. The most expensive state to live in is Hawaii.

Missouri Missouri Economic Research and Information Center map of 2023 average annual income
Credit: Missouri Economic Research and Information Center
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The report looked at the cost of groceries, housing, utilities, transportation, health and miscellaneous goods. The only metric where Montana was below the national average, when it comes to cost, was the cost of utilities.

LOOK: Where people in Montana are moving to most

Stacker compiled a list of states where people from Montana are moving to the most using data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Gallery Credit: Stacker

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

Gallery Credit: Sophia Crisafulli

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