And the 42 winners are ...

Who are Houston's best marketers? The AMA breaks it down from MFAH to SaintArnold

We won!

Oh, and so did 41 other amazing Houston companies in their respective marketing categories, by the way.

What are we talking about? Well, the American Marketing Association's (AMA) Houston chapter recently dropped the awesome bomb on a boatload of Houston businesses. Forty two lucky ducks were selected as the Best of Category winners for AMA Houston's Marketer of the Year award. These 42 contenders will now go on to vie for the coveted 2010 Marketer of the Year title, to be awarded in a ceremony on March. 7.

And we were one of those 42.

CultureMap took Best Marketer in the Media: Print category. Pretty darn neat, we must say.

"Nominations can be made by anyone," Matt Ross, chair of the Marketer of the Year event, told us via e-mail. "To be considered, a nomination has to identify the company and specific reasons why it is being nominated. The Best of Category winners are determined by a vote of the AMA Houston members and a panel of judges."

Ross continued, "We had 206 nominees, and the tough economy meant that many companies had to push constrained marketing budgets to do more with less."

Yeah, we actually do feel pretty cool now.

Wait! Before you go crazy with the showering of praise, save a few pats on the back, will you? Marketers with moxie at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Theater Under the Stars, Gexa Energy, Saint Arnold Brewing Company, and Discovery Green (and so many more!) also took home honors in their respective categories. For the full list (because we can't possibly mention everyone!), see here.

Now it's do or die for these 42 dynamo finalists. The last contender standing will be honored as the creme de la creme of the marketing world in Houston.

"The overall winner is determined by four groups of out-of-town judges who review questionnaire responses submitted by each Best of Category winner," Ross said. "Their ratings are consolidated, and the overall high score is AMA Houston's 2010 Marketer of the Year."

So now everyone competes against each other for the big, bad, grand prize — the Marketer of the Year Award.

But with a lineup like this? The future of Houston marketing is most certainly in capable, savvy hands, no matter which company wins.

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in this economy?

This is the salary you need to live comfortably in Houston in 2026

money, salary, income to live comfortably, SmartAsset

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Single Houstonians need to make a little more than $82,000 to live comfortably in the city, the report found.

A 2026 report analyzing how much it costs to live "in sustainable comfort" in the biggest U.S. cities has found Houston residents have the 11th lowest salary requirement to live a comfortable life in 2026.

SmartAsset's annual report found single adult residents in Houston need to make $89,981 a year to qualify as "financially stable." Compared to last year, single Houstonians needed to make $83 more to live comfortably in the city.

Families with two working parents and two children need to make a household income of $204,672 to have a financially stable life in Houston, the report found. That's almost $2,000 less than what families needed to make last year.

To determine the rankings, SmartAsset's analysts examined 100 of the largest U.S. cities and used the latest cost of living data – such as the costs for housing, food, transportation, and income taxes where applicable – from the MIT Living Wage Calculator for childless individuals and for two working adults with two children.

For the purpose of the study, the 50/30/20 budgeting strategy was used to determine "comfortable lifestyle" costs for both individuals and families: 50 percent of income to cover needs and living expenses, 30 percent for "wants," and 20 percent for savings or paying down debt.

Here's breakdown of a Houston resident's comfortable lifestyle based on SmartAsset's findings:

$44,991 dedicated to needs and living expenses
$26,994 dedicated to wants
$17,996 dedicated to savings or debt repayment

This is SmartAsset's interpretation of a comfortable lifestyle for families of four:

$102,336 dedicated to needs and living expenses
$61,402 dedicated to wants
$40,934 dedicated to savings or debt repayment

SmartAsset said single individuals and families should compare the fluctuating local cost of living and their long-term goals to fully "understand the context" of their respective household incomes. But it's worth pointing out that a financially stable life in Houston isn't quite attainable for many residents: The city had a median household income of $64,361 in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Comfortable salaries in other Texas cities
Elsewhere in Texas, the report found that families in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs Frisco and McKinney "are closest to a comfortable salary."

"In Frisco, [Texas], the median household earns $145,444 – substantially higher than the national median of $83,730," the report's author wrote. "This figure also accounts for 63.1 percent of the $230,464 income a family of four in Frisco needs to live comfortably. In McKinney, TX, the $124,177 median household income accounts for 53.9 percent of the $230,464 needed."

Both cities also tied with Plano for the 29th highest salary needed nationally to live comfortably in 2026. Single adults living in these cities need to make $109,242 a year to live a financially stable life this year.

On the opposite end, San Antonio has the lowest salaries needed to live comfortably in the U.S. Single adults only need to make $83,242 a year, and $192,608 for families of four.

cost of living reports salaries smartasset money