A personalized cost-of-living calculator — built around your numbers.

Who runs this

beststateforme.com is published by Red Goggles LLC, an independent operator of free web calculators and reference tools. We are not a real-estate broker, a moving company, a financial advisor, a tax preparer, or a government agency, and we're not affiliated with any state. We don't sell services, we don't collect leads, and we don't take your information — the calculator runs on your device and nothing you type is sent to us.

Why this tool exists

Almost every "best states to retire" or "cheapest states to live" list ranks by national averages — useful if you're the statistically average household, misleading if you're not. But the state that's cheapest for a pension-heavy retiree is different from the one that's cheapest for a Roth-heavy retiree, which is different again from the one that's cheapest for a still-working household with high wages. The differentiator here is that you plug in your specific numbers and see a ranking built for you. This tool grew out of a private retirement-planning spreadsheet and was rebuilt into something anyone can use.

How it's calculated

The ranking sums the state-by-state cost of the categories that vary most between states, applied to the numbers you enter:

• State income tax — including how each state treats retirement income (wages, pensions, public vs. private pensions, IRA/401(k) distributions, and Social Security), because that treatment varies dramatically. Sourced from the Tax Foundation's annual state income-tax report, with retirement-specific rules cross-checked against state departments of revenue and Kiplinger's annual retiree guide.
• Sales, property, gasoline, and alcohol taxes — state (and, where relevant, average local) rates from the Tax Foundation's annual publications; property-tax effective rates cross-checked against the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
• Utility costs — average residential electricity and natural-gas rates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
• Context, not ranking: per-state detail pages add healthcare-quality scores (Commonwealth Fund) and current climate data (NOAA / FEMA) so you can weigh the non-tax factors that matter to a relocation decision.

State income and property taxes are set locally in many states, so the ranking uses published state averages; the per-state detail notes where your county could differ. Every figure is meant to be verifiable against its primary source, which we link on the data-sources panel.

How we stay neutral and current

Where people live is personal and sometimes politically charged. We keep the tool to the math: a state ranks lower because of property tax or income tax, never as a value judgment about the state or the people in it. We don't characterize political climate, we don't editorialize on why people move, and per-state descriptions stick to geography, climate, healthcare, and lifestyle texture. State tax brackets and rates shift — usually each January — so we refresh against the authoritative sources annually and show a "last updated" date in the footer.

How the site is funded

beststateforme.com is free and supported by display advertising. Advertising is kept calm and never mixes with your inputs — see our privacy page for exactly what is and isn't collected.

Questions or corrections? We take accuracy seriously on a topic this consequential — reach us on the contact page.