A Quick Cost of Living Comparison - NYC to Paris

A friend asked me the other day about the cost of things here and so I rattled off a few of them. While a lot of things are cheaper and certain quality items are more easily available here, particularly French ones, it comes down to just a few major monthly expenses that make the most difference. There are a lot of these cost comparisons out there,

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So much of this really does come down to insurance and rent. Rent here is easily half what I was paying in NYC or less and I am in walking distance to everything here in town whereas I was much further out in NYC. And I know that we are paying above the market average, and we could definitely spend less for a nice place a bit further out. We might. However, Nantes is not New York and it’s not Paris, either. While a fine place, it feels like a kind of provincial city at times, even as that is changing.

I’d like to also make a note about how the costs of rent are getting higher or too high for many of the French folks who live here, which concerns me with any place we go to.

A Sample of Our Cost of Living Comparison

I made a quick comparison chart of a few expenses using numbers based on Numbeo, Expatistan and some of my own experiences. Obviously, rent is wildly variable, so these are rough estimates and actual costs can vary, etc. I never lived anywhere near what could be considered the city center in NYC and I’d be unlikely to in Paris either. For my preferences, apartments in Paris are infamously tiny and I just don’t think I would want to deal with that. If something should bring our lives closer to Paris, we might live on the outskirts.

The city we’re living in, Nantes, is a smaller city in France. Numbeo says average rents and the overall cost of living is 45% less than Paris, which may be true, but finding numbers to compare those cities isn’t so available. New York and Paris comparisons are pretty easy – here’s an example of some basic costs:

New York City vs. Paris Cost Comparisons - in USD

Utilities (Monthly for 85m2 apartment)

 $150 - 250 New York

 $150 - 200 Paris

Internet (Monthly unlimited data) 60 Mbps or more

 $60 - 100 NYC

 $30 - 50 Paris

Health Insurance (Monthly - medical, dental, optical)

 $450 - 1000

 $30 - 70

Rent (1-BR near city center)

 $3000 - 4500

 $1200 - 2000

Dining Out (Mid-range restaurant   3-course meal for 2)

 $75 - 150

$50 - 100

Cost of Beer (0.5 liter in a supermarket)

 $1.50 - 3.00

 $1.00 - 2.50

Coffee (Regular cappuccino in a cafe)

 $4.00 - 6.00

 $2.50 - 4.50

Lunch (Standard, downtown)

 $15 - 30

$12-20

Public Transportation (Monthly pass)

 $127.00

 $75.00

Supermarket Food (1L of milk)

 $1.00 - 1.50

 $0.90 - 1.20

Bread (1 loaf)

 2.50 - 4.00

 1.00 - 2.50

Eggs (dozen)

 3.00 - 5.00

 2.50 - 4.00

Milk (1 liter)

 1.00 - 1.50

 0.90 - 1.20

Cheese (1 kg)

 10.00 - 20.00

 5.00 - 15.00

Apples (1 kg)

 3.00 - 5.00

 2.00 - 3.00

Chicken Breasts (1 kg)

 8.00 - 12.00

 7.00 - 10.00

Beef Round (1 kg)

 12.00 - 20.00

 10.00 - 15.00

Rice (1 kg)

 2.00 - 4.00

 1.50 - 3.00

Potatoes (1 kg)

 1.50 - 3.00

 1.20 - 2.50

Tomatoes (1 kg)

 3.00 - 6.00

 $                     3.25

Fuel (per gallon)

 $3.50 NYC

 $8.15 Paris. Sure, fuel’s so much more expensive, but now I don’t own a car!

Not in France, but at Stew Leonard’s, a chain in the northeast.

It comes down to a handful of costs

Really, the one that is far and away the difference is health care. For me, even with a good insurance policy in my union as a teacher, I could get blindsided with $1000 bill in any month of the year. Dentistry was generally not covered under my policy, and I saw a lot of surprise bills here and there.

Healthcare is overwhelmingly cheaper here; I can’t even compare it. For the first year that we were here, I didn’t have any insurance except a travel policy and a series of eye surgeries that, combined, cost me less than any single year of typical healthcare in the US, without anything like surgery.

Food is also moving up in costs steadily as inflation does its thing. The café we like serves pints of microbrew beer for €7-8 a pint and basic lager for €5, although wine is cheaper, or it certainly can be. A lot of our money does go to groceries here, but we also tend to eat really well. There is an appreciation for freshness here. It seems like every day of the week, there is a farmer’s market somewhere within walking distance.

France most certainly has its issues, but although it’s considered an expensive place to live, it simply depends on what you’re comparing. I’ll pay more for a pair of jeans, but thousands less for basic healthcare.

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