photo by: Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo

Downtown Lawrence is pictured in this aerial photo from December 2017.

No matter which way you slice it, Lawrence is just on the edge of being really expensive, by Kansas standards anyway. By national standards, it is still a relative bargain.

A new report that uses detailed payment data from consumers across the state compares the average monthly living expenses in Lawrence to more than 30 other cities and towns in Kansas. There are two ways to look at the data, and both of them show that Lawrence is just outside the top tier of most expensive cities in the state.

The first way is to look at the average monthly living expenses in each community. That includes items such as mortgage or rent payments, car loan payments, utilities, insurance bills and a few other miscellaneous items.

The online payment company Doxo — which has access to what millions of consumers are paying across the country — ranks Lawrence the 11th most expensive community in Kansas in its latest report.

The company found Lawrence residents pay, on average, $1,899 in household expenses each month. While that was No. 11 out of the 35 Kansas communities measured, the total is still 7.2% less than the national average.

Eight of the top 10 most expensive cities in the state were located in Johnson County, which really should come with a caveat that we will discuss in a moment. The two non-Johnson County communities that were listed as more expensive than Lawrence are Derby — just outside of Wichita — and our next-door neighbor Topeka.

If we were ranking these in tiers, I would say Lawrence is in the second tier of this particular measurement. The eight Johnson County communities are all above $2,000 per month, while Derby, Topeka, Lawrence and Kansas City, Kansas, are either at or very near $1,900 per month.

Here’s a look at the top five most expensive communities, based on total dollars spent:

• Leawood: $2,686

• Prairie Village: $2,375

• Lenexa: $2,304

• Overland Park: $2,245

• Olathe: $2,232

Here’s a look at the five cheapest communities, based on total dollars spent:

• Coffeyville: $1,347

• Independence: $1,474

• Salina: $1,489

• Parsons: $1,500

• Dodge City: $1,505

There’s a second way to look at the numbers, and Lawrence fares a little bit worse in that analysis, but still doesn’t rank among the most expensive in the state.

The Doxo report provides an estimate of what percentage of a household’s income is spent on monthly household expenses. In the case of Lawrence, the average household spends 39% of its income on monthly living expenses. That ties Lawrence for the eighth-most-expensive city in the state. It is tied with Parsons, Ottawa and Topeka.

This list is more interesting than the first one. When just looking at total dollar amounts, the top eight cities were all Johnson County communities. But none of those Johnson County communities shows up as being expensive when you look at how much of their income is devoted to living expenses.

The reason, of course, is that Johnson County residents are bringing in monthly incomes that are much greater than residents in many other communities. It is the classic reminder that when looking at affordability, there are two parts of the equation to be examined — how much something costs and how much money someone has to spend. If you only look at one side of the equation, you likely won’t solve your affordability problem, which could be an apt statement as Lawrence continues to tackle housing affordability.

So, which communities did rank the worst in amount of income spent on living expenses? There were two runaway losers: Pittsburg and Kansas City, Kansas. Residents in Pittsburg spend, on average, 49% of their monthly income on living expenses. In Kansas City, residents spend 47%.

On the other end of the spectrum, four Johnson County communities ranked as the cheapest. Leawood, Shawnee and Olathe had averages less than 30%. If you are scoring along at home, you’ll notice Leawood ranked as the most expensive in the first metric, but least expensive in this one. Olathe was the fifth-most expensive and Shawnee was the seventh-most expensive in the first metric, but both are among the cheapest in this measurement.

Those communities have figured out that the price tag isn’t as important as the thickness of the wallet. In other words, grow incomes in your communities, and affordability improves with it. Growing incomes in a community is not easy, but neither is figuring out how to decrease the prices of merchandise and key services. Governments generally resort to subsidizing those goods and services to control their price, which raises the question of whether the gains in affordability get wiped out by increases in taxes and fees that the government uses to fund the subsidies?

This report doesn’t dive anywhere near that deep. But, I thought the results were worth passing along because the company does seem to have access to some high-quality data about household expenses.

Here’s a look at the five most expensive communities, based on percentage of income spent:

• Pittsburg: 49%

• Kansas City: 47%

• Emporia: 44%

• El Dorado: 42%

• Coffeyville, Junction City, and Manhattan: 40%

Here’s a look at the five cheapest communities, based on percentage of income spent:

• Leawood: 25%

• Shawnee: 27%

• Olathe: 27%

• Prairie Village: 29%

• Overland Park: 30%

Doxo also completed a report that ranked the states. Kansas ranked No. 37 in terms of total dollars spent on monthly living expenses. The Kansas average was $1,820, which was 11.1% below the national average, and the average household spends 34% of its income on monthly living expenses.