How Much Money Does It Take to Live Comfortably in Colorado in 2025?

I remember getting my first apartment in the Denver Metro Area when I was in my early 20s, and I thought I was paying a lot of money when my rent was $600 per month. I will say, I lived in a really nice apartment and had a huge bedroom with a walk-in closet.

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When you have a place like that, just starting out as an adult, you feel like you are a king. A king with minimal furniture, but a king nonetheless. Fast forward to the present, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a closet to live in anywhere in Colorado for less than $1,000 per month.

I know that things have gotten really expensive in Colorado over the past 15 or so years, but where hasn't? Even cities in the Midwest that are not hotspots for relocation seem to be out of reach, too.

How Much You Need to Make to Live Comfortably in Denver, Colorado

Go Banking Rates recently released a list of 50 cities in the United States and how much you would need to make annually to comfortably live in each of those cities. Colorado had two locations listed. Denver and Colorado Springs.

On a ranking scale of 1 to 50, with 1 being overall the most expensive, Denver was just outside of the top 10 at 12th place. The average salary that someone would need to live comfortably in the city of Denver is $129,528. When you break that down to an hourly rate, working 40 hours per week, you would need to make approximately $62.27 per hour to have a comfortable life in the Mile High City.

Colorado Springs wasn't that far behind, ranking 20th overall. Someone living in Colorado Springs would generally need to make $108,462 annually to live comfortably in the largest city in Southern Colorado.

The Most Expensive Cities in America to Live Comfortably

Ready to hear something mind-blowing? If you were to live in the most expensive city in the United States, you would need to make a staggering $127.37 per hour to live comfortably in San Jose, California. Speaking of California and this list of cities you would need to make the most money to live comfortably, six out of the top ten of these cities are all located in the state of California.

See the full list at gobankingrates.com.

The 10 Least Expensive Hotels In Colorado According to Hotels.com

Are you searching for a great deal on a hotel room in Colorado? Believe it or not, you can still find a hotel in Colorado for less than $50 a night.

For this gallery, I conducted a little test. Using the website Hotels.com, I searched for a room for two guests for the date of September 27, 2023. The search produced a number of hotels offering rates in the $50 range. Please note, the findings presented here reflect a singular website and only those offers valid for the date of September 27, 2023.

If you can live without amenities such as a hotel gym, golf course, and fine dining, these Colorado hotels may be precisely what you're looking for.

Gallery Credit: Waylon Jordan

Best First Date Spots and Activities in Northern Colorado

Before you ask someone out for the first time, it's a good idea to have a plan of what you want to do. Nobody wants to go on a date with someone indecisive! So here's a pretty solid list of first date ideas around NoCo to get your brand new relationship started on the right foot.

Gallery Credit: Chris Kelly

Filed Under: Denver Colorado