Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Bedford's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Bedford?
Your $100,000 in Bedford has the same purchasing power as $93,853 in the average US city. You'd need $6,147 more here to maintain that standard of living.
Demographics and workforce data from the US Census ACS 5-Year.
bachelor's or higher
Climate, safety, and walkability indicators.
See a side-by-side breakdown of cost of living, housing, and salaries.
Popular comparisons
Sorted by affordability — most affordable first.
Within 10 points of Bedford's cost index of 107, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Bedford? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly no state income tax and paychecks come in above the us average, plus 4 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
Texas is one of the handful of US states with no state income tax on wages, so the only income-tax bite on a paycheck in Bedford is federal. For a household earning $100k, that's a tangible four-figure difference every year compared to a comparable salary in California or New York.
The typical household in Bedford pulls in $80,924 — comfortably above the US median. Combined with the cost of living here, the income-to-expense ratio works out better than a quick look at either number in isolation would suggest.
Reported crime in Bedford comes in around 2,448 per 100,000 — under the national baseline of about 3,500. Worth digging into specific neighborhoods before settling on one, but the city-level picture is on the safer side.
With a citywide Walk Score of 72/100, Bedford sits firmly in the walkable-by-US-standards camp. Pick a central neighborhood and most daily errands happen without keys in your hand.
Average commute time in Bedford runs around 25 minutes one-way — short enough that it doesn't restructure your day. Compared to the 45-plus-minute commutes that are normal in major metros, the difference adds up to a real lifestyle gap.
Bedford has a college-educated share of about 40% among adults 25+, which is higher than the national norm. It shows up in the local job mix, in the school district's reputation, and in the kind of conversations you have at the coffee shop.
Reasons are pulled from Bedford's actual data — Census ACS, BLS, BEA, NOAA, EPA AQS, FBI, and Walk Score. We don't list positives that aren't supported by the numbers, which is why different cities show different sections.
Not really a snow town. With winters averaging 37°F, Bedford sits in the mild-cold band where snowflakes appear occasionally and everything melts within a day. Most years see one storm worth talking about.
Cool, not cold. Winters in Bedford sit around 37°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. Bedford's summer averages around 94°F with daily highs that routinely break 100°F. The trick to summer here is starting the day at sunrise and staying inside through the worst of it.
Approximately USDA Hardiness Zone 9. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 9 or colder should survive a typical winter in Bedford. (The estimate is derived from our winter-temperature data; the official USDA map uses station-level annual minimums and may differ by half a zone.)
Roughly 610 feet (186 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Officially, Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30, but most of the action lands between mid-August and mid-October. For Bedford, that's when to keep half an eye on the National Hurricane Center forecast cone — and when an actual evacuation plan is worth having in the drawer if you're in a low-lying or coastal neighborhood.
Middle of the pack. Bedford comes in around 2,448 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
It's a middle-of-the-road US city on cost. Bedford's index of 107 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Bedford scores 72/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. It's the kind of city where you don't think of going to the grocery store as "going" to the grocery store.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $74,585 to live in Bedford the way a $70,000 earner lives in a typical US city. The math gets less forgiving the lower you go below that. Median rent in Bedford runs about $1,332/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.