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No. 18 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Winston-Salem, N.C.

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Where to Live Well for Less No. 25 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Tripoli, Libya No. 24 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Tbilisi, Georgia No. 23 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina No. 22 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Minsk, Belarus No. 21 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Chennai, India No. 20 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Gaborone, Botswana No. 19 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Quito, Ecuador No. 18 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Winston-Salem, N.C. No. 17 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Windhoek, Namibia No. 16 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: San Salvador, El Salvador No. 15 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Tirana, Albania No. 14 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Skopje, Macedonia No. 13 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Kampala, Uganda No. 12 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Kolkata, India No. 11 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Asunción, Paraguay No. 10 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Nouakchott, Mauritania No. 9 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan No. 8 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Tunis, Tunisia No. 7 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Tegucigalpa, Honduras No. 6 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Islamabad, Pakistan No. 5 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan No. 4 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia No. 3 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: La Paz, Bolivia No. 2 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Managua, Nicaragua No. 1 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Karachi, Pakistan

No. 18 Cheapest City for Expensive Living: Winston-Salem, N.C.

Monthly rent, unfurnished 2-br luxury apartment: $500
Lunch for one at a nice restaurant: $40
One liter of gas, unleaded 95 octane: $0.81
Beer, local brand: $0.93
Cup of coffee, including service: $3.50

This city of 230,000 people is the least-expensive U.S. city in Mercer's survey. Winston-Salem, home to Reynolds American (RAI)—the holding company of cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds Tobacco—as well as Wake Forest University, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Novant Health, and Hanesbrands (HBI), has a median household income of $41,979 and a poverty rate of 13.5 percent, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.