How expensive is California, really?

In My Humble Opinion
1

For the California dopers:

I keep seeing job postings in my new field in California. So far, I’ve eliminated them from my job search because I’ve always heard how expensive it is to live there.

Is it really?

I’ve seen listings in a variety of cities and towns lately, the most recent being in San Diego.

Most of the postings list starting salaries of between $40-$45k per year, although some have been significantly less and some slightly more. I’m hoping that I could pull for the high end of the starting salary, since I do have work experience that I have managed to relate to this field.

Would I be able to survive on that salary in your city - and that means, rent (and other bills), food, car (or public transportation) AND a social life or am I better off continuing to avoid those listings, at least for the time being?

2

Buying a house is expensive and you pretty much have to have a car in most places. The San Francisco Bay area is really the only place with any kind of decent public transportation. Rent varies widely. It’s actually a bit better right now, because so many people are buying houses due to low interest rates.

I’ve lived fairly recently small-town midwest and I think that the rest of your living expenses in California would be comparable or even lower. For example, here in San Diego I can shop at regular chain groceries, warehouse stores like Costco, co-ops, farmer’s markets, and specialty stores like Trader Joes which have great deals on things. Dress is casual and you don’t have to invest in a lot of seasonal clothes. Heating and cooling bills are lower, if you live near the coast.

There are a lot of free or nearly free outdoor activities and they are available year-round.

There are a lot of college students here, and they seem to be surviving pretty well. The surfing waiters in our apartment building (half a block from the ocean) seem to have active social lives, anyway.

A year or so ago I heard some report stating that $40,000 was the minimum required to support the basics for a single parent with 2 children in San Diego. This is pretty dire news for single parents with 2 children, but you would probably be fine.

3

I do pretty well on slightly more than that, but I live in rural California, where things are a little cheaper than the cities.

If you don’t now have a car, be prepared to have to buy one. There’s not a lot of public transportation, although I understand quite a few people in cities commute by bicycle. The weather’s often nice enough for it. My dad did for years, except on the coldest days. Gas this afternoon was $1.53 a gallon. I spend a good $300-400/month on gas, but I commute and have to use a full size truck for work, so I’m on the high end of that scale.

I’ve decided that I won’t ever be able to afford to buy a house on my own here. Every time I make a little more money, the housing market shoots up past my reach. It’s worse, much worse, near the cities. Which is why the city commuters are driving up the prices in my small towns. (I commute the opposite way.) My rent is on the low side though, since I’m friends with my landlord. I pay $625/month for a 3-bed house with a yard.

With all that, though, yes, you could live in a smallish Central Valley city on 40 - 45k. I’ve done it for less, with two kids to support.

4

I haven’t lived in Southern California for many years, but I know you can’t live without a car down there and public transportation is virtually nonexistant, so factor that cost in. Car insurance is much more expensive in CA than elsewhere. My guess is that you could certainly live on $40k/year down there, but it depends on exactly where you want to live/work and what standard of living you’re used to.

In most parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, on the other hand, you’d be living in poverty at that level. Housing is ridiculously expensive here – in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland and other parts, a small, not very nice one bedroom apartment in a so-so neighborhood can run you $1000/month or more. Things have gotten better in recent years with the recession so you may have more luck finding more for your money, but it’s still very expensive relative to the rest of the country.

5

I lived in Hermosa Beach (LA beach community, very expensive) on $45 K a year. Sure I was sharing a room for cheap, but I had scads of money for eating out every night, entertainment, etc.

LA is very liveable at that rate of pay. You would have to do a little bit of searching to find a nice apartment in the metro area (~$800 for a single/studio is possible) or do what a lot of people do: buy a house/condo in the valley and sit in trafic everyday.

From what I can tell, San Diego is a bit cheaper, so it’s definitely possible. Maybe you should fly out for a weekend and look around sometime.

6

My ex- daughter-in-law lives in Riverside and pays $950.00 for a very nice two-bedroom in a fairly new complex with a pool. Another son rents a room with private bath in a condo in Chatsworth with a family and pays $350/mo.

It’s doable on that salary, but what you have to think about is the quality of life. There are massive traffic problems and my son has seen people run each other off the road in the summer, with the heat and stress. There is a high level of serious crime, which you may or may not be used to where you are now. Personally, I wouldn’t live there on a bet. I was raised in the San Francisco bay area and I would love to live in that city again; but, again, traffic problems. It is a lovely city through. Ever thought of SF?

7

I’d say $40-45K per year is definitely doable in San Diego and Los Angeles.

If you decide to move to someplace like Lancaster where my dad is, you’d probably feel downright rich! (He just bought a 3 bedroom house out there with the proceeds of his 1 bedroom condo in Los Angeles!)

8

I lived in San Jose and paid $1350 for a one bedroom apt last year. Prices may have gone down. A friend of mine currently pays $1175 for a two bedroom in Walnut Creek. Just to give you an idea. It is $3.85 roughly to get from Walnut Creek to downtown San Francisco (Powell stn etc) one way on the Bart. (the subway). But in the San Jose area you definately need a car.

9

I lived in L.A. until the end of November. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a 30-unit building. There was a swimming pool (often closed, because it was filthy), two washers ($1.25 per load) and two dryers ($0.75 and $1.00 per load – I don’t know why they were different). There were nearly as many single-car carports as there are apartments. The neighbourhood was “so-so”. There used to be gunfire, but I hadn’t heard any in about 10 years. Not a geat neighbourhood, but not all that bad either. I was on Clarington Ave. just off of Palms Blvd., and three blocks up from Venice Blvd. Although I was in L.A., a lot of people thought I was in Culver City.

The rent for my apartment is now $900/month.

Gasoline is about $0.15/gal. higher than where I worked in Orange. In November, that would have put it at about $1.76/gallon. Sales tax is 8.25%.

Scout1222 mentioned Lancaster. Homes are relatively inexpensive up there. There was a housing boom in the '80s, and they overbuilt. I haven’t checked prices recently, but I’m sure you can find a three-bedroom house for under $200,000. Maybe a lot under. Lancaster (where I went to high school, and where I lived for 11 years) reaches as high as 115°F in the summer, but it’s usually closer to 105°F. “But it’s a dry heat!” It’s much better than New Orleans on a 90°F day! Many houses have “swamp coolers” instead of refrigerated air, and they work very well. Winter lows can be in the high single-digits, but usually id doesn’t drop much below 20°F or the mid-teens. The desert is a beautiful place, if you’re willing to look.

Lancaster is about 75 miles from LAX. Traffic slows when you enter The Valley, and is atrocious at the Sepulveda Pass. It doesn’t really get better after you get through the Pass. I commuted from Lancaster to LAX for two years before moving to L.A. It took me about two hours, getting to work at 0730.

10

40k/year? I live in So Cal on half that. By “live” I mean I have a roof and food and a car. What else do you need?

11

When did you move to socal? traitor! :wink:

12

Lsura, you’ll be fine on that salary. There are some start-up costs that may seem excessive, not to mention insurance, car stuff (parking, DLs, gas), sales tax, and maybe state income tax. Like everyone else has said, food and rent are not too expensive. What I’ve found to be the most expensive are things like eating out at nice restaurants, tickets for movies or concerts, and the other little extra, fun things that one would do on a date or do with friends on weekends. The great part is that there’s EVERYTHING in the world to do in SoCal but fun things seem to be more expensive here than everywhere else I’ve lived.

13

I’m living in Bakersfield on about that, but I have a student loan payement (but no car payment), a horse, a cheap car, and a two-bedroom apartment. I still find some money to go do things, but am not putting away money like I ought to be. Rent for a decent 2-bedroom here is about $600-800. A small house is about 800-1000. A decent house in an acceptable part of town starts around 120K (there are homes available for half that, but I wouldn’t feel safe in the neighborhoods they’re located in).

This is cheap for California, but I’d make the same salary and face much better housing prices in other places.

14

LOL, nearly 3 years ago, dear.

15

I agree that $40-45k for a single person is perfectly livable in San Diego and most of SoCal. I’d even go so far to disagree with Giraffe and say that it is not generally poverty-level for the SF Bay Area, either. However depending on how many other bills you have to cover ( debt, entertainment ) and how far out you live ( further out = cheaper, but often hellish commutes ), it might well necessitate a roommate for anything beyond a studio apartment.

  • Tamerlane
16

I lived perfectly comfortably (for a college student) in Davis on ~24K per year, meaning rent, car payment, car insurance, utilities and food bills all paid, with a good chunk of play money left over for all those college-student expensies.

17

A two bedroom apartment in West LA runs around 1500 per month. Compared to the Bay Area rent is significantly cheaper in Southern California. Some BayArea dopers can jump in and correct me, but I believe its common to see a one bedroom in SF go for the same rate as a two bedroom in LA.

In Southern California, (LA, Orange County or San Diego) you MUST have a car. On the plus side, a used car that has been driven for 5 years in California is going to be in much better shape than a comparable used car from Chicago, Michigan etc. Car insurance is more expensive. I don’t have a fancy car, very good driving record, single male (but still looking ladies!) and my car insurance runs about 150 per month.

Heating bills, etc. are minuscule compared to many areas of the country.

I agree with the general comments that there are lots of free/cheap activities around in LA.

18

I lived in SoCal up to about 18 months ago. Essentially I found that some things were quite expensive, especially rent, car maintenance, and taxes, compared to the rest of the US, but some other things were not. As an example, I lived in South Torrance in a “large” one-bedroom apartment (larger than I really needed, anyway), and paid $1,060/month. I’m paying significantly less than that here in upstate New York for a two-bedroom place with a garage. On the other hand, if you know where to shop and you’re careful about it, your grocery bill can be quite low. I found entertaining to be fairly expensive, too, but during the year I lived there I didn’t know that many people and I didn’t go out a lot.

I’d say that if you don’t spend extravagantly, you could live comfortably on $30K/yr, even in a place like Torrance.

19

My gas bill ran about $7/month in L.A. Electricity was about $50 every two months. Here in northern Washington, propane is costing me about $200/month. I don’t know how much electricity will be yet, but I’m sure it will be close to $100.

20

Hear hear, Tamerlane. I live more-or-less comfortably in precisely that salary range in one of the tonier towns in the affluent county immediately north of San Francisco, and my girlfriend lives in a hip, central part of the city on a slightly lower income. Granted, we both live paycheck-to-paycheck, but we’re hardly living like Dickensian waifs.

I also lived in San Diego for five years between 1994 and 1999, and honestly, your dollar goes a LOT further there. You do really need a car, as the bus system in SD is a sick, sad joke. There’s a commuter light rail system which I never used, but is apparently not bad if you’re zipping up and down the coast. All in all, Sandy Eggo is a nice little town; the weather is pleasant to the point of monotony, people tend to be laid-back (if a little conservative), and there actually is a lot to do.

The downsides? Culturally, San Diego is still kind of a small town. That’s not always bad, since you get to know the people in your scene pretty quickly, but it definitely starts to feel like a small pond after a while. However, geographically, it seems to go on and on, with no sense of structure, just one big sprawl. Much like that sentence… There isn’t much of anything that’s very old, and most of the architecture seems like a shoddily-constructed afterthought.

There are some really great neighborhoods in San Diego, particularly north of downtown, like Hillcrest, Mission Hills, and North Park. I hear that Golden Hill is the up-and-coming hipster 'hood, although I think its also immediately underneath a flight path. Little Italy is newly revitalized, also, and apparently is becoming habitable once again. In those nicer neighborhoods (such as Hillcrest), the cost of living will rise closer to that in, say, San Francisco, but all in all, I’d say its still less expensive. Lsura, if you wouldn’t mind, maybe some more info about your field and your interests would be helpful? Given what you’ve said so far, I’d heartily recommend a visit to the southland; you may love it. Lots of people do, just not me.