Cost of Living Questions

[weby]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

Hmm, interesting. So there are no alternate rules in any of the pyramid issues that provide more in-depth rules for cost of living, job income, status, and so on? Maybe I'll sit down one night and work out some more detailed rules.

I think the basic idea would be to:

1. Scale CoL as a percent of TL, modified for the prosperity of the area you are.
   
2. Seperate jobs from status, and instead base them on skill plus a status modifier. It's harder to be hired if you don't know people or live the lifestyle they expect, but not impossible. There has to be some way for a Status 0 person to get a status 1 job so they can become status 1.
   
3. Introduce finer granularity into every day life within status levels, area for players to find a happy medium with risks and rewards.

I basically threw out the GURPS jobs/wealth/status rules and built my own.

Some basics:

In that wealth is 5 points/level and is looked up on the speed/range table as relative to 1. So the 1.5,2,3,5,7,10... progression.

Basic pay scales directly as the wealth. But you can try to get higher wealth level job by taking a penalty to the job search and monthly job roll. The penalty is quite complex, but simplified it is about -3/missing wealth level for "average cases", If you are bad at your job you can do the reverse to get a job that is below your wealth level and get a bonus that again averages to +3/extra wealth level.

Status is wealth/2 round down as base. It can then be modified from that.

Cost of living is based on wealth as base, but you can live at higher or lower wealth level if you wish, but that modifies your range of allowed statuses as relative to the base.

[wellspring]

My approach (not completed) was to decompose Wealth into three Advantages. Lifestyle covers the status and fluffy elements of your character concept. Disposable Income is your available cash for adventuring gear. Home Base is your access to a safe haven.

So you could have an impoverished nobleman with an estate and servants but no money for a sword. Or a murder hobo with a sack of gold but who lives like a mountain man.

[dukofdeth]

I'm a bit late coming in on this discussion, but I'd say those CoL prices are way too small - unless someone is living in an unfinished and unfurnished basement suite, gets all their furnishings from the share-shed or the cheaper second-hand stores, and buys a lot of really cheap [and not so nutritious or healthy] food.

I mostly work part time, as that is what I have guaranteed; the rest comes and goes. Some months I'm lucky to clear $1000, some I'm able to pay all my bills, my past-due bills, and still pay down my Visa by a substantial chuck - that isn't hard when you only qualify for a $3000 limit. Those are the months I do nothing but eat, sleep and work.

A more realistic CoL should be in the $1000 to $1200 range.
Rent - $500 to $800, if you aren't in an over-priced housing market.
Electricity - $20 to $50, depending on usage. My wife and I don't run up more than about $30 on average, with at least one computer running some 12 hrs a day [I only shut down at the end of the day]. But we have hot-water heat central to our apartment building. I'm paying $664 for a two bedroom, but I got a good deal as it is mostly a basement-level suite, and both heat and a basic cable package are included. Add to that cell phone bills that are $70+ a month, internet for $70/month [I'm paying for higher bandwidth, and there is less competition with ISP's where I am (can you say, "monopoly")].

A character's lifestyle would make a huge difference. Someone who is off adventuring or working abroad a lot would not run up much of a monthly bill, but if they had the usual amenities, I'd still say that a $600 a month bill is only if one is exceptionally thrifty. Or not there to spend more. $600 a month might be the absolute minimum to maintain one's "personal space", excluding the food one eat. Bear in mind that in the past decade, food prices have shot up with the fuel prices [but not fallen with them, as fuel has lately], so even a single person living alone would be lucky to get by on less than $50/$75 a week just for food, and much of that will be starchy and processed. Better, healthier food costs more, and doesn't last, so it has to be eaten or gets wasted. {I just cleaned out a fridge in a suite a tenant had abandoned, and just after a week it was surprising how much of the veggies had turned to mush}.

My wife drives about a six by six block area [small town], and maybe uses $10 a week in gas. If we lived on the other side of town [across the lake], that would jump x2 or x3, just from the increased distance. Cars require maintenance, there's the payments [nobody but the filthy rich pay for a vehicle in full at time of purchase], and then you've got insurance to add.
A bus pass in my town is $45 a month [less passenger volume to share the cost of the service].

$600 a month??? What a joke!

Then, in 1980, at the start of our "TL8", $600 a month was reasonable. Heck, you could by a house for $100,000 and a car cost $100. Candy bars cost $0.50, and a play-through on a video arcade machine was $0.25.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by dukofdeth

I'm a bit late coming in on this discussion, but I'd say those CoL prices are way too small - unless someone is living in an unfinished and unfurnished basement suite, gets all their furnishings from the share-shed or the cheaper second-hand stores, and buys a lot of really cheap [and not so nutritious or healthy] food.

I mostly work part time, as that is what I have guaranteed; the rest comes and goes. Some months I'm lucky to clear $1000, some I'm able to pay all my bills, my past-due bills, and still pay down my Visa by a substantial chuck - that isn't hard when you only qualify for a $3000 limit. Those are the months I do nothing but eat, sleep and work.

A more realistic CoL should be in the $1000 to $1200 range.
Rent - $500 to $800, if you aren't in an over-priced housing market.
Electricity - $20 to $50, depending on usage. My wife and I don't run up more than about $30 on average, with at least one computer running some 12 hrs a day [I only shut down at the end of the day]. But we have hot-water heat central to our apartment building. I'm paying $664 for a two bedroom, but I got a good deal as it is mostly a basement-level suite, and both heat and a basic cable package are included. Add to that cell phone bills that are $70+ a month, internet for $70/month [I'm paying for higher bandwidth, and there is less competition with ISP's where I am (can you say, "monopoly")].

A character's lifestyle would make a huge difference. Someone who is off adventuring or working abroad a lot would not run up much of a monthly bill, but if they had the usual amenities, I'd still say that a $600 a month bill is only if one is exceptionally thrifty. Or not there to spend more. $600 a month might be the absolute minimum to maintain one's "personal space", excluding the food one eat. Bear in mind that in the past decade, food prices have shot up with the fuel prices [but not fallen with them, as fuel has lately], so even a single person living alone would be lucky to get by on less than $50/$75 a week just for food, and much of that will be starchy and processed. Better, healthier food costs more, and doesn't last, so it has to be eaten or gets wasted. {I just cleaned out a fridge in a suite a tenant had abandoned, and just after a week it was surprising how much of the veggies had turned to mush}.

My wife drives about a six by six block area [small town], and maybe uses $10 a week in gas. If we lived on the other side of town [across the lake], that would jump x2 or x3, just from the increased distance. Cars require maintenance, there's the payments [nobody but the filthy rich pay for a vehicle in full at time of purchase], and then you've got insurance to add.
A bus pass in my town is $45 a month [less passenger volume to share the cost of the service].

$600 a month??? What a joke!

Then, in 1980, at the start of our "TL8", $600 a month was reasonable. Heck, you could by a house for $100,000 and a car cost $100. Candy bars cost $0.50, and a play-through on a video arcade machine was $0.25.

Cost of living is in fact intended to be a minimal value. All it does is establish that living ain't free.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by dcarson

There have also been notes at least in Transhuman Space that at higher tech levels the normal level is Status 1 not 0.

Yes, and inching the CoL up is really the way to deal with some of the problems. The CoL is a good way to gauge Status, too. So right now in the modern US the CoL is probably closer to $3,000 for many "professionals" and that's probably someone of Status 1 living one level above normal. The THS rules for varying CoL by region is also something to consider. The CoL is probably cheaper in the rural, midwest US than in urban areas, or conversely, by living in the south/rural areas you can buy the same CoL at the lower level rate. In any event, there's plenty of adjustment that can be done here without scrapping the system, and that's probably less work that building a new system from scratch.

[weby]

Originally Posted by dukofdeth

$600 a month??? What a joke!

If using the basic system COl base idea I would use the THS idea of different costs for different regions, as things like housing costs are VERY different in different places and in the end that reflects other costs too.

Further you should note that the gurps$ is not US dollar, specially not US dollar of 2014. It is approximately US dollar 2004, since then there has been the thing called inflation making them be further from each other.

Some links:
Inflation: http://www.measuringworth.com/
Cost of living in different countries: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living...by_country.jsp