Simi Valley Average Utility Bills (Pittsburg: apartments, credit, how much)

[skumar814]

Hi,
I am moving out to the Simi Valley area soon from South Bend, Indiana. I am trying to figure out how much the cost of living difference is there from Indiana. Could someone tell me what average utility bills run in CA? I will have a 3 bedroom/2 bath apartment for my family of 4 which includes two kids. Any ideas would be helpful! Thanks, Sofia

[Humanoid]

Probably similar to what you pay in Indiana. What utilities do you pay? Usually apartments in southern California are all electric and the apartment pays water.

Southern California Edison has a tiered billing system, the 1st and 2nd tier are pretty cheap and the 3rd-5th tier get expensive. They base the tier's on the size of your apartment and whether its all electric or not, so your first 300 or so kilowatt hours a month will be tier 1 and cost around 10~12 cents each. 300-425 will cost you around 18 cents and so on. Anyhow, being wasteful in California gets very expensive. Anyhow, I pay around $30/month during normal months and around $50/month during the summer (AC usage) for a 2bd/2 in a near by area. But we are good about using energy saving blubs, turning lights out etc.

Water works in a similar way, but is generally pretty cheap. Standard Cable runs about $40 bucks a month, phone line is around $24, DSL is $20 ($34 for cable internet).

[skumar814]

Thank you. I apprecaite the information. In South Bend here I pay $92 for gas (heat), $117 for electric, on average $55 for water and trash combined.

[macsret]

Hi,
I am moving out to the Simi Valley area soon from South Bend, Indiana. I am trying to figure out how much the cost of living difference is there from Indiana. Could someone tell me what average utility bills run in CA? I will have a 3 bedroom/2 bath apartment for my family of 4 which includes two kids. Any ideas would be helpful! Thanks, Sofia

You have already received some very useful info, after digesting that you might consider.....

Getting a City Profile report at:
http://www.homefair.com/real-estate/city-profile/index.asp
Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed
Sure hope this helps.

jOE
Angeles City
Philippines

[Humanoid]

Doing a Cost of Living check on how South Bend compares to Simi Valley at:

I don't find those things very useful, I think what she is doing is more useful. In fact I just moved to CA from PA and the calculator did a horrible job. For example as far as utilities go I don't think these comparison make any note of different weather. You can live just fine in California without heat or AC and these two things make up a big part of your utility bill. The weather in Simi Valley is pretty mild, although you can get heat waves it always cools off at night.

I just did it for Pittsburgh (where I lived in PA) and Ventura County, it says that Pittsburgh is 43% cheaper than Ventura county. Yet from my budget my cost of living is around 15% more in CA and most of that is housing (We didn't downgrade apartments or anything like that either).

[macsret]

Humanoid, surely you didn't think that I meant for her (skumar814) to accept those sites as Gospel. If you did then you haven't given give either of us much credit. I simply was providing another source of reading material, something to add to her research.

Naturally, hearing what others have to say is very important and I would agree weighs in much heavier.

Best to you!

jOE