The biggest concerts, games and shows coming up — refreshed twice daily.
Not a list of where to go. Honest talk about what it's actually like to live here — and a plain calculator for what a year of it really costs.
Three honest inputs. No signup, no pitch — just the math on what a year of the Austin basics runs, A/C and all. Every assumption is shown below.
Five months a year the city reorganizes itself around shade and water. You learn to run errands at 8am, park facing north, and treat the first cool front in October like a holiday.
How do you survive an Austin summer without losing your mind (or your whole paycheck to the A/C)?
Talk it over on the Spring →Barton Creek on a weekday morning, water actually flowing after a rain, nobody else on the trail. It costs nothing and it's the whole reason a lot of us put up with everything else.
Where do you go to get out and reset — and what's your rule for keeping it from getting loved to death?
Talk it over on the Spring →Between the wait times and the check, more of us are putting the good stuff on our own table — breakfast tacos on Sunday, a pot of something on a weeknight, the farmers-market haul.
What's the dish that says "home" to you in Austin, and where do you shop for it?
Talk it over on the Spring →MoPac at the wrong hour, the new toll lanes, the eternal "is it faster to just take the side streets" debate. How you move through this city shapes your whole day.
What's your hard-won commute hack, and are you ready to give up the car yet?
Talk it over on the Spring →Caliche clay, a brutal sun, and a growing season that runs backwards from up north. The people who figure it out guard their secrets like gold.
What actually grows for you in this soil and this heat?
Talk it over on the Spring →The "old Austin vs. new Austin" thing never ends, but the truth is most of us are transplants who fell for the place. Finding your neighborhood and your people is the real move-in cost.
How long did Austin take to feel like home — and what finally did it?
Talk it over on the Spring →Austin's original online community has been running since 1996 — thousands of topics, real people, every thread open to new replies. Pick a handle and jump in.
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