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OK, so I'm looking to move from Cleveland to the Bay Area, and started putting together some numbers for the sake of comparison. I will post my cost breakdown as 4 separate posts (just to keep it clean and less clutter-y looking).
I will start off with the Electricity and Gas Bills for the last year. I would welcome any comments on the difference in COL between what they see here and their own experience in the Bay Area. These bills are for a 2200 Sq. Ft. home with 2 adults and a kid.
Gas
December - $133.69
November - $73.01
October - $44.63
September - $36.62
August - $37.57
July - $38.28
June - $47.94
May - $72.14
April - $109.69
March - $117.30
February - $135.13
January - $151.69
Total - About $1000 for 2013
Electricity
December - $78.62
November - $64.40
October - $79.88
September - $141.33
August - $131.99
July - $185.12
June - $80.63
May - $82.06
April - $74.52
March - $70.30
February - $88.87
January - $88.53
Total - About $1200 for 2013
So, obviously, these are nowhere near the $1500 a month stuff that some were talking about, but they're not cheap either. How do these numbers compare to what you folks are seeing in your own homes? Ideally, when we move to the Bay Area, we would like to rent a similar sized home or apartment (may be 1600 sq ft, to be realistic).
Moving on to another expensive item of everyday use - Petrol/Gas:
According to www.fuelgaugereport.com, the Gas/Petrol prices as of today 1/31/2014 are:
$3.694 (mid-grade) - San Jose
$3.435 (mid-grade) - Cleveland
I commute to work and so does my wife. We put in about 250 miles a week in commute for each of us, every week (total 500 miles a week between the 2 cars).
So, for 52 weeks, it would be about 26,000 miles.
We average out about 20 miles a gallon, so that's about 1300 gallons each year.
At the current price of $3.435, that would have cost us about $4500 in Cleveland.
Assuming we do the same amount of driving in the Bay Area and we spend the $3.694 per gallon instead, our total annual cost for Gas is about $4800.
The difference is - about $150 higher in San Jose per car per year or $300 higher for the household per year.
These costs will be the same, no matter where we live:
Internet
Dish Network (cable)
Netflix
Car Note
Vonage
Cell Phones
Credit Cards
So, they don't have to be factored in to the equation.
So, all that's left is the costs associated with groceries, parking costs, home rent/mortgage, and daycare.
We eat healthy. We end up buying 50% of our groceries from the organic isles and the 50% regular stuff. The groceries for 2 adults and 1 child ends up being about $500 a month. Please pitch in to help figure out how much this would cost us in the Bay Area. I have to suspect it is cheaper.
Parking for each car is about $150 a month for work. How much do you guys end up paying for work-related parking? My job is probably going to be in the Palo Alto area (since most of the companies I'm targeting are based there).
Now, home is where I think we would find the most difference. $2000 a month in mortgage. We will not be buying a home there, but renting. So, to do an apples-to-apples type of move into a 2200 sq. ft home in the South Bay area, we figured it would cost us about $3000-$3500 in rent.
For daycare, we pay about $230 a week, or about $12000 each year. It's a local KinderCare. Any KinderCare parents out there (for a 2-3 year old age range) give some insights into the weekly costs there?
For those, who've been keeping track, here is what it breaks down to (annual costs):
Category Cleveland San Jose Difference
Rent 26400 42000 -15600
Petrol 4500 4800 -300
Groceries 6000 ? ?
Parking 3600 ? ?
Daycare 12000 ? ?
Gas (home) 1000 ? ?
Electricity 1200 ? ?
Total 54700 ? ?
Costs that will stay the same (or close enough) in Ohio and California, and therefore will not be factored into the COL calculations above:
Internet
Dish Network (cable)
Netflix
Car Note
Vonage
Cell Phones
Credit Cards
Eating out
Movies/Entertainment
Healthcare (hopefully employer provided)
That's it. It will be great if you guys can help fill the question marks. I realize there are always misc expenses, but please alert me to any big ticket expenses that I may have missed.
OK, so I'm looking to move from Cleveland to the Bay Area, and started putting together some numbers for the sake of comparison. I will post my cost breakdown as 4 separate posts (just to keep it clean and less clutter-y looking).
I will start off with the Electricity and Gas Bills for the last year. I would welcome any comments on the difference in COL between what they see here and their own experience in the Bay Area. These bills are for a 2200 Sq. Ft. home with 2 adults and a kid.
Gas
December - $133.69
November - $73.01
October - $44.63
September - $36.62
August - $37.57
July - $38.28
June - $47.94
May - $72.14
April - $109.69
March - $117.30
February - $135.13
January - $151.69
Total - About $1000 for 2013
Electricity
December - $78.62
November - $64.40
October - $79.88
September - $141.33
August - $131.99
July - $185.12
June - $80.63
May - $82.06
April - $74.52
March - $70.30
February - $88.87
January - $88.53
Total - About $1200 for 2013
So, obviously, these are nowhere near the $1500 a month stuff that some were talking about, but they're not cheap either. How do these numbers compare to what you folks are seeing in your own homes? Ideally, when we move to the Bay Area, we would like to rent a similar sized home or apartment (may be 1600 sq ft, to be realistic).
I pay the bills for Mom and she lives in a 60 year old 2300 square foot home and gets cold easily... original windows, etc. her gas and electric for was $1,186 for the year combined.
Moving on to another expensive item of everyday use - Petrol/Gas:
According to www.fuelgaugereport.com, the Gas/Petrol prices as of today 1/31/2014 are:
$3.694 (mid-grade) - San Jose
$3.435 (mid-grade) - Cleveland
I commute to work and so does my wife. We put in about 250 miles a week in commute for each of us, every week (total 500 miles a week between the 2 cars).
So, for 52 weeks, it would be about 26,000 miles.
We average out about 20 miles a gallon, so that's about 1300 gallons each year.
At the current price of $3.435, that would have cost us about $4500 in Cleveland.
Assuming we do the same amount of driving in the Bay Area and we spend the $3.694 per gallon instead, our total annual cost for Gas is about $4800.
The difference is - about $150 higher in San Jose per car per year or $300 higher for the household per year.
Gas for regular at Bay Area stations has been anywhere from about $3.37 with Costco to $3.99 in the city... varies a lot around the Bay Area.
These costs will be the same, no matter where we live:
Internet
Dish Network (cable)
Netflix
Car Note
Vonage
Cell Phones
Credit Cards
So, they don't have to be factored in to the equation.
So, all that's left is the costs associated with groceries, parking costs, home rent/mortgage, and daycare.
We eat healthy. We end up buying 50% of our groceries from the organic isles and the 50% regular stuff. The groceries for 2 adults and 1 child ends up being about $500 a month. Please pitch in to help figure out how much this would cost us in the Bay Area. I have to suspect it is cheaper.
Parking for each car is about $150 a month for work. How much do you guys end up paying for work-related parking? My job is probably going to be in the Palo Alto area (since most of the companies I'm targeting are based there).
Now, home is where I think we would find the most difference. $2000 a month in mortgage. We will not be buying a home there, but renting. So, to do an apples-to-apples type of move into a 2200 sq. ft home in the South Bay area, we figured it would cost us about $3000-$3500 in rent.
For daycare, we pay about $230 a week, or about $12000 each year. It's a local KinderCare. Any KinderCare parents out there (for a 2-3 year old age range) give some insights into the weekly costs there?
Can't help on the Internet through Cell Phones since I don't have these costs.
In general, quality food seems to be reasonable here... especially at the many farmer's markets... plus there is tremendous variety too.
Never pay for parking... more and more high tech companies offer car pooling or transit assistance to those not driving... just something to consider.
Home prices vary a lot too... I rent a 3 bedroom 1 bath in Oakland for $1500 a month... I have friends that live 20 minutes away in San Francisco that pay $1500 for a Studio...
Some firms offer Day Care and others I know average a $100 a day for quality care... I'm sure higher prices are out there too.
We lived in Silicon Valley for several years. We bought 3 homes there. We moved to Southern California when I retired in December 2006 but not because of the cost of living. We prefer the warmer climate in SoCal plus we have a lot of family living here. If we didn't live in SoCal then we definitely would still live in the SF Bay area.
We loved living in the Bay area. There is a lot to love. The cost of living was not an issue for us because I made a fair amount of money. I was a Software contractor and made over $250k /year. We lived in Los Gatos, Cupertino, San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Livermore. We have also lived in Seattle, Portland OR, SE Florida, Phoenix, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela so we have a lot to compare with.
Even though we left 8 years ago, we still are well aware what is going on there as we have many friends in SV and our son and family live in Monterey so we frequently visit the area.
People make a big mistake in trying to compare the COL of different cities. The first thing you should consider is do you want tlo live there . If so then you need to calculate if you can afford to live there comfortably, not necessarily better or the same. In my case we could live better because our much higher income more than offset the COL. In fact we also owned a home in San Diego while living in SV from 1996-2007. You have to take the difference in the monthly cost of housing and then compare it to the difference in you salary. For example if the difference is $2k per month than you would need to net $24k more per year. In my case and most of my associates, the difference in pay is much greater in SV than that.
Now if you are not a techie than it is a different story. My point is that the difference in COL should not be your defining issue unless you are a minimum wage earner. The issue is do you want to live there and can you afford it.
Our son is another good example. He has a wife and 3 kids ( 4, 7, 10 ). They moved from Wichita Falls Texas to Monterey Bay 4 years ago. In Texas he worked at Midwestern State University and he does exactly the same job now at California State University Monterey Bay. Wichita Falls has a low COL and Monterey does not. However they live much better in Monterey because the quality of life is much higher and his higher salary at CSUMB more than offsets the COL difference. He is not a high income earner.
When we were first moved here (3 years ago) I was surprised at how much rent was, not to mention housing prices. But we've gotten used to it. I work 1.5 jobs, my wife works. I don't make spectacular money as a computer guy, but between the two of us we make over $200k+, so we do fine and money isn't an issue.
But we don't own a home, we just rent an apartment. I like the Bay Area. Sometimes Silicon Valley is a little boring, but I've lived in much more boring places, so I can't complain. And if it gets too boring, go up to Redwood City or Oakland or SF.
We eat healthy. We end up buying 50% of our groceries from the organic isles and the 50% regular stuff. The groceries for 2 adults and 1 child ends up being about $500 a month. Please pitch in to help figure out how much this would cost us in the Bay Area. I have to suspect it is cheaper.
We buy as much organic as possible. Our grocery bill is about $800/month. A big part of the problem is that the Bay Area apparently doesn't have food coops and we have to go to W***e F**ds to get good quality organic stuff. This is an increase from about $600/month from when we were in Sacramento shopping at the food coop.
Internet is more expensive. We paid $50/month with no contract for a combined DSL/landline package in Sac. Here the cheapest we found is $70/month with a 2-year contract.
Housing costs - it goes beyond the list price. In Sacramento, practically every landlord rolls water, sewer and garbage into the rent. Here, we pay $90/month for those things. Also, we are charged "pet rent" (note, not a pet deposit that corresponds to actual costs your pet incurs upon the property, but recurring pet rent that covers - I dunno what). I had never heard of this bizarre practice before moving to the South Bay but it is practically impossible to avoid here. So that's another $100/month to our expenses.
Rent goes up here. We lived in Sacramento for four years without a rent increase. This year in Fremont we just got our lease offer for 10% more than last year.
Driving. Yes, theoretically gas is only X% more expensive. However, unless you are really lucky your lifestyle here will involve a lot more driving around than in cities like Sacramento and Cleveland. And, you'll be much more frequently in stop-and-go conditions that are worse for gas mileage and wear and tear on your car.
Speaking of wear and tear, auto maintenance, insurance, and purchase prices of used cars are higher here.
Kids activities - or really, any expenses related to being a parent - are higher.
Museums and yoga classes are more expensive.
That's all I can think of at the moment.
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