NY-->Bay Area, 23 y/o female, new job!! (San Francisco: apartment, car insurance)

[DwightKShrute]

I just received a job offer in the Redwood City area. I currently live in New York. It is entry level, right out of college, and pays about 42000 plus benefits and possibly bonuses. Can I live on this in a one bedroom in the Bay Area (South bay I suppose)? My student loan payments will likely be around 100 a month, and I might have to make car payments, then there is rent, utilities, car insurance, gas, food, supplies, beer, security deposit and furnishing my apartment. I am, however, pretty good with money and very frugal.

On another note, where should I live? I like to have the option to walk to dinner and to the grocery store and not have to drive everywhere and would especially like it if I could walk to bars to go out on the weekends. Safety is a concern as well.

My boyfriend currently lives in East Bay so I would want to keep the commute to go see him under an hour, but don't want to have my commute to work any more than a half hour. I've never lived anywhere aside from New York (upstate and downstate) so any help would be great!! Thanks!

[krudmonk]

Redwood City is up the peninsula. You can live further north, BART over to your boyfriend and Caltrain to work.

[t_thibaud]

What Krudmonk said. You're young and from NYC. Live in San Francisco near BART. Anywhere on the Peninsula will bore you out of your skull. Don't even think of living outside of SF.

[DwightKShrute]

I'm from the NYC suburbs, but lived in NYC for a few months. I hated living there, too many fricken people. I went to college in upstate New York and loved it. I think it would be really cool to live in San Francisco, but I don't think I'll be able to find a one bedroom that fits my budget right?

[Livin_the_LIFE]

Palo Alto is nice and has a fun feel (not NYC or anything; different but nice). Plenty of close transportation.

[Mach50]

My wife and I lived in Manhattan and now live in downtown Redwood City.
We walk to Wholefoods, Safeway, Movies, Record shops, the Library, and all of the local restaurants in Redwood City.

In RWC you will be close to everything, and still affordable!

1 warning, RWC is not your typical "sterile" Bay Area suburb (like PA, Sunnyvale), it is a mix of everything (races, poor, rich, young, old), which we like.

[DwightKShrute]

Do you think that downtown Redwood City or downtown Mountain View or Palo Alto would be better (regardless of distance to work) for a 23 year old female? I think Palo Alto is the most expensive of the three so I don't think that would work and I was originally leaning towards downtown Mountain View.

[DwightKShrute]

Anyone? A friend told me to check out San Carlos and San Mateo as well as Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara, but I really don't have enough time to explore all of these. Which ones should I look at?

[krudmonk]

I would not do Sunnyvale.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

San Carlos, Belmont, San Mateo (the parts west of the Caltrain tracks), Mountain View.

If I were you I would not discount the City either. Live in one of the more "suburban" hoods such as West Portal, The Sunset or the Richmond - rents are OK and there are a reasonable number of walkable stores, restaurants, bars, etc - and, the parking situation is reasonable. It does not have the feeling of a beehive.