
Ask Hacker News: Cost of living in Silicon Valley - Prrometheus
I’m trying to get a feel for what a single person’s burn rate would be in the valley. I know the cost of living there is supposed to be among the highest in the US. What can someone in Silicon Valley expect to pay each month in rent, food, utilities, car insurance, and gas?
======
joeguilmette
If you're lucky enough to work close to a BART stop, you're going to save
yourself about $1000/month.

Rent a room in a house close to any BART station. Berkeley is nice and cheap
(it's all relative), as is the peninsula Redwood City and up, until you get to
SF. The peninsula isn't actually connected to BART, it only runs south to
Millbrae. You can, however, use Caltrain, which runs from san jose to sf, with
BART connections in Millbrae.

The Bay Area's public transit is pretty bad, but if you're lucky enough to
live and work near BART or Caltrain, you'll be fine and it'll actually work
quite well.

Great tips for affordable, sane living: -Use BART/Caltrain whenever possible
-Know Caltrains somewhat limited schedule (dont get stuck in Millbrae at 9pm)
-GO TO THE FARMER'S MARKET. The food is a bit more expensive, but is
lightyears above local markets (Safeway, etc) in quality. \--The Bay is very
close to one of the world's largest and best agricultural systems, and the
only way to benefit from that relationship is the Farmer's Market. Safeway's
food is nasty in comparison. Every town has a market at least once a week.
\--And it's not just produce. They have a lot of local meats, eggs, and
restaurant booths too. All sorts of great stuff. It is marginally more
expensive, but just do yourself a favor and buy a tomato when they are in
season and compare to Safeway. Yes, they are $1/lb more, but, it doesn't
matter and you'll see why. -Use Yelp to find good cheap restaurants. If you
like ethnic food (asian, indian, etc) you'll eat for cheap and love every
second of it. There is never, ever, a reason to eat at place like the Olive
Garden or Chevy's. EVER. EVVVERRRR. Between the Farmer's Market and cheap
foreign food, you'll eat food better than almost anywhere in the US.

~~~
ardit33
excalty about the food part, and going to the dude going Olive Garden? WTF? I
imagine it is ok to go to Olive Garden when you are in a place in middle
america that has only chain restaurant around, but the bay area offers so much
more in authentic multi-cultural cuisine, most of them family run.

Farmers market are awesome, and to get good deals go there late, around 2pm-
ish, when the farmers are wraping their stuff, they'd rather give a lot of
their food for half the price then bring it back.

If you live in SF, there is a awesome small grocery (only fruit and vegies)
store at 4th and Geary. Very fresh, and very very cheap. Half the price you
get in your local safeway/lucky's/calmart.

Ah, and stay away from wholefoods. Horribly overpriced.

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kirubakaran
Please poke holes in this idea:

1\. Save up some dollars

2\. Move to a city in India that has good infrastructure (Coimbatore is the
city I have in mind) =$1200

3\. Release and iterate till you get good traction =$200/month/person

4\. Move to Silicon Valley do the mating dance etc =$1200

Personal burn rate while at India would be as low as $200 per month without
compromising on any comfort.

After success, I plan to buy a big house there where visiting hackers can stay
for free :-)

~~~
falsestprophet
I think that is a great idea, but I suspect you can accomplish the same thing
by moving to a Midwestern college town or the ghetto in your hometown. The
expense of moving is only worthwhile if you intend to take a very long time to
build your product. Most web applications should only take a few months,
right?

If you do go to India, consider Goa. I am told it is very beautiful, very
European, and the Goans speak English.

~~~
kirubakaran
I agree that the India plan will be inexpensive only if the projects take more
than 2 months.

Problem with Goa is that it is very expensive due to all the tourists. It is
comparable to the west, I hear. Coimbatore has mild climate, a dozen
engineering colleges, inexpensive housing, great public transport, great food
etc.

~~~
jyu
general rule of thumb: any place in a foreign country where most speak English
will be expensive.

------
veeneck
When we lived out there, we rented a 2 bedroom townhouse for 3 people. Rent
was $2100. Food was ~$500. Public transportation is good out there, so we used
that exclusively for travel. And then another $100 for internet and bills. So
~$2700, but you could probably get that down to $2100 for just one person.
This was in Mountain View.

That's about double what I pay to live in Florida.

~~~
Prrometheus
Finally an advantage to living in DC – $2100 doesn’t sound all that bad to me.

------
thinkcomp
I've lived in Boston, Dallas, Atherton, Mountain View and Palo Alto. Rent is a
lot higher the closer you get to Stanford. I live a block away from Stanford
in Palo Alto, so rent is pretty high--$3,500 per month for a 3-bedroom house.
Utilities vary a lot depending upon where you live; they're typically handled
by the municipality. Gas is $3.69 per gallon around the corner from my house.
Car insurance depends upon your car and your insurance company.

I have to disagree about public transportation, having come from the East
Coast. It's godawful. There are five discrete transit systems (BART, Caltrain,
MUNI, SamTrans, VTA) that are actually more expensive to use than driving. You
really need a car out here.

It's double what I paid in Dallas, but I think it's worth it.

~~~
joeguilmette
While it sucks that the transit systems are disconnected, it is still most
definitely cheaper to take public transit than to drive.

To connect them all, use google transit. The bummer about Bay Area transit
isn't the cost, it is inexpensive in relation to driving. The bummer is
coverage. If you want to get somewhere in San Jose from Berkeley, it'll take
you 3 hours, as opposed to 1.5 hours driving.

But yea, I don't own a car, and Google Transit has changed my life. It's soooo
much easier to get around now!

------
abstractbill
My wife and I pay $1700/month for a two-bedroom house in Mountain View. I pay
$300 each six months to insure an awesome Z3 that I never get to use (I take
the train every day - $150/month for a pass between Mountain View and San
Francisco). Internet is $60/month, Electric is usually about $50/month. I'm
embarrassed to say I don't know how much we spend on food... I would guess
about $400/month, but that could be wrong by quite a bit since I don't do the
food shopping.

~~~
curi
Electric is significantly more if you keep multiple computers on 24/7.

~~~
powerflex
I live in a one bedroom apartment in SF, and have 2 mac mini's, a laptop, and
two servers - all are on 24/7. Electricity is $20 per month.

~~~
curi
2 cpu g5, imac, sometimes an old pc or macbook, don't use electricity for much
else besides light, varies but often 80-100. in berkeley. i wonder what's
causing the large difference.

edit: i'm buying this [http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-Kill-
Electricity-Moni...](http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-Kill-Electricity-
Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/)

~~~
powerflex
update: Im now at about 300Kwh/month for a bill of $35...

------
sgoraya
I would recommend east bay if you do not mind the commute / public
transportation; Rents are definitely cheaper on the east side; Though if you
would like to be near palo alto and do not necessarily mind a tough
neighborhood, try East Palo Alto (The difference crossing over the 101 on
University Ave. is pretty drastic, as are the rents)

I've lived in downtown San Jose and Berkeley - SJ is cheaper, but I prefer
Berkeley because of the weather, college atmosphere and good looking women
(mostly ;)

Cost of lving (I lived alone) SJ rent for 1 bedroom: $1,350 // Berkeley rent
for 2 bedroom: $1,850 (Both included all utilities except electricity)

Food: Dont skimp on food or toilet paper! ;) I like to cook, so I prepared my
own food for the most part to keep costs relatively cheap - ex: cooking a nice
cut of tri-tip with veggies can last a few days, etc. $200-250/mo

Internets: ~$70/mo for static IP

Extracurricular: $250/mo

Gas/Transportation: Variable depending on whether you drive or bus / Bart

------
tachibana
I'm a professional apartment manager in the Silicon Valley area. We currently
(Feb 2008) have 2-bed/1-bath apartments renting for $1500/mo and 1-bed/1-bath
apartments renting for $1100/mo. Water and power typically runs in the
$100/person-month range.

~~~
ssanders82
Can you be more specific on location?

~~~
tachibana
Around Homestead and Stelling (Cupertino/Sunnyvale). Within walking distance
are \- Safeway \- Longs Drugs \- Loehmann's \- McDonalds/Starbucks/Taco
Bell/KFC/Pizza Hut \- near I280 and CA-85.

------
bgutierrez
Living in San Francisco:

$1000 is the starting price for rent on a decent studio and can get as high as
you want, depending on the neighborhood.

Food can be cheap enough if you shop at Trader Joe's and eat out at Tommy's
Joynt. (Say, $300 a month.) I like to eat out more often and spend $600-$700
on food each month for me and my girlfriend. We don't go out drinking very
often, but when we do, it's easily $100 a night for several drinks, pizza, and
a cab ride home.

I don't own a car, but when I did it was $150/month for a spot in a garage and
$40 for parking tickets. Public transportation is great and the city has a
strong bicycle advocacy group, so that's what I choose.

I highly recommend living in the city if you aren't bothered by crowds, and
there are plenty of software companies here. (For anyone that is a PHP and
JavaScript pro, I can pass on a resume to the hiring manager here at Trulia.)

Let me know if you have any questions!

------
iamelgringo
This is something that my wife and I thought a lot about before we moved out
here, and we still work hard to keep costs very lean and mean. So, I'll write
a book for ya.

I've lived in Minneapolis, Chicago, LA, Providence, Fresno and now the Bay
Area. And, it's the most expensive city we've lived in. There is usually a
gentleman's competition ongoing as to what area is more expensive to live in:
Bay Area or New York City. I think that Manhattan generally wins as to a
specific region, but if compared to New York City as a whole, I think that
Silicon Valley probably wins the competition.

It's expensive.

But, you can make it work for you. It just takes work, and a willingness to do
stuff differently than you're used to.

If you're moving here, consider Craigslist to be your Bible for rental
listings. Every one advertises on Craigslist, even the large corporate
apartment complexes. Search around there for a few months. Then use the
neighborhood designations that Craigslist uses to research the specific
neighborhoods that you're interested in.

As to what your burn rate will be in the Valley, it all depends on how you
want to live. If you're going to share an apartment with roommates and eat
ramen noodle/frankfurter surprise 3 meals a day that will cut costs
dramatically. If you want to get your own studio or one bedroom and eat out at
_Chez Snooteee_ 7 days a week, that raises prices a lot.

Also, where you live matters a great deal in how much you pay for rent. San
Francisco and Palo Alto are the two highest rent areas in the Valley. Prices
go down the further out you live from there. East Bay prices tend to be quite
a bit lower, but commutes can be quite nasty because of having to cross the
Bay on one of the bridges. We found San Jose to be a great compromise. It's a
nice city, getting around is pretty easy, has a decent little downtown for
events/entertainment and rents are pretty reasonable considering the area.
And, I commute opposite traffic because I work nights.

Food prices in the grocery stores are about 30% higher than we've paid in
Boston, although there's ways around that. Safeway.com actually lets you order
groceries online, and their prices are exactly the same in store as they are
online. (We've researched it). But if you want to get a feel for what your
grocery bill will be, save your receipt from your next trip to the grocery
store, and create an account and a shopping list at:
<http://shop.safeway.com/register/default.asp?brandid=1> You can then compare
the two and figure out what you'll be spending on groceries at the store.

Gas prices are usually 20-30% higher than the rest of the nation, with gas in
San Fran usually topping the national price charts. Gas is about $3.50 right
now for us in San Jose.

Restaurants are anywhere from %30-50 more expensive in the Bay area. After
you've done your neighborhood research on Craigslist, look at Yelp.com for
restaurants in that area, and look at their menu's. You'll see what I mean. My
wife and I routinely drop $50-80 for dinner with a glass of wine at a mid
priced restaurant like the Olive Garden. Back East, that'd be $30-50 a dinner.

Electric bills are some of the highest in the nation. We rent a 4 bed 2 bath
house in San Jose, and our electric heating bill for Nov-Fev usually runs
between $300-400 a month. If you can rent a place with utilities included,
you're in luck. You only need air conditioning for 2-3 weeks out of the year
in the South Bay. You probably don't need it in San Fran.

Water and trash is $50 a month.

Rents go down about %10-20 during winter and around Christmas, and up an
additional %10-20 during the summer. So, if you move out here, you can get the
cheapest rents in January or early December. It's a terrible time to move, but
it really makes a difference when your paying $1800 for a 3 bed 2 bath house
as opposed to $2400.

Cable and Internet are comparable to %20 higher than elsewhere.

If you can, get a place with utilities included. It's worth the extra money in
rent. Utilities out here are expensive.

Public transportation stinks compared to Boston, New York or Chicago. People
out here are thrilled that they can occasionally ride it to an event down
town. It's rare that people use it to commute every day. However, people in
San Fran can get by without a car. You can't in the rest of the area. A new
perk some of the larger companies (Google, VMware) are offering is shuttle
service to and from work. If you can land a job with a perk like that it'll
save you $100-200 a month in gas depending on your car.

We rent that 4 bed 2 bath house in San Jose for about $2100 a month. It was
more expensive to rent a house, but it gives us a lot more room for stuff,
which ends up making in more economical for us in the long run. Here's what we
did: We've turned our garage in to a mini warehouse lined with shop shelves,
and we shop in bulk at CostCo (www.CostCo.com). I mean ++shop_in_bulk++. We
buy 4-5 months of staples, paper goods, meat, office supplies at CostCo. We
also have 2 freezers to store meat, prepared meals, etc... And, we're able to
rent out a room to family. Yeah, it's a little weird, but it works for us.

There is great shopping in the area. Ikea is for all your furniture and low
end household stuff. You can get great deals at Fry's electronics if you watch
their sales papers. And, for everything else, shop at the Gilroy Outlets. They
are actual outlets that sell overstock and seconds. They really are some of
the best outlets in Northern California, and you can get some amazing deals on
great products. Because of that, we actually pay less for household goods and
clothes than we did living anywhere else.

All that being said, moving here is the hardest part financially. After you
get here, things even out a bit, and salaries are high enough that they
generally compensate for the high cost of living.

Good luck.

~~~
ssanders82
Thanks for the long write-up, I'm thinking of moving out west as well (from
South Carolina of all places), and San Jose is on my radar. I'm a 25yo single
male used to living very cheaply, so those numbers are helpful. I'd be living
out there doing contract work for people in NC, which is probably backwards
from the optimal setup...

~~~
iamelgringo
Once you get out here, you can network pretty easily.

I've been hanging out on the rails business group:
[http://groups.google.com/group/rails-
business?hl=en&lnk=...](http://groups.google.com/group/rails-
business?hl=en&lnk=gschg) and I've gotten an email or two a month looking for
contract developers in the area. Or you can go to some of the Rails meetups or
Bay Piggies (Python users group) in the area and at least you should be able
to meet some people and possibly pick up some contract work out here. You just
have to make an effort to get out and meet people. Jobs don't seem to be a big
problem right now.

~~~
davidw
Any of you guys in SV get a sense that that area is headed south along with
the rest of the economy... or not? I recall moving back to the bay area in
2002, and it was pretty bad. I found work, but it was kind of difficult to
connect to potential employers as there were a lot of .com people still
milling about, looking for something to do.

~~~
iamelgringo
I know that Yahoo just fired 1000 people in the past few weeks, but I hear
that many of them got a 3 months severance. That should be enough time for
them to start a business or find another gig.

Friend was a laser engineer, just got laid off after 25 years, but had 5
offers on the table in two weeks.

GOOG's stock price has taken a tumble, but they still seem to be hiring:
[http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1116&...](http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1116&dep_id=1173)

Even the "big names" out here that are VC funded web startups, that would be
at risk of taking a one way to the dead pool in the event of a "bubble pop",
don't really have that many employees. Digg has 50 employees, Facebook had 300
at my last count but is still hiring like crazy:
<http://www.facebook.com/jobs/>

It seems like there are a lot of companies that are coming and going, but
there aren't the huge layoffs that hit the place so hard 6-7 years ago,
because web startups have kept it pretty lean and mean. For the most part, the
engineers still seem to be running the valley, not the biz dev guys.

Startups have been built without a lot of money, and are used to running on a
shoe string. If the economy tightens up, I don't think that it will the
startup guys that hard.

Some of the big hardware companies might shed some people if capital
expenditures take a nose dive across the country, so that means that Intel, HP
and Sun might shed some employees. But that's about it.

------
wheels
Similar question I'd been thinking of posting (I'll start a new thread if it
doesn't get enough traction here):

How about Boston / Cambridge?

Potential requirements would be: at least two separate rooms, which can be
tiny (basically a bed and a desk in each), and it'd be fine if they're in a
shared house, plus broadband. Is $1000/month doable for that?

~~~
smopburrito
that is doable near boston/cambridge, exclusive of utilities.

if you are willing to live in somerville (parts of which are effectively
cambridge due to its shape) or even medford, definitely.

compared to SF/SV, there is proportionally a much larger student population in
Boston/Cambridge, so supply/demand/price varies with the academic calendar
more than in other places.

------
lurker
Here's the only answer you need: It doesn't matter.

You can make it work. You're a motivated developer/entrepreneur. You'll be
fine. Work whichever variables (roommates, location, dining, etc.) you want to
meet your budget, but this town is geared to you. You might spend a lot, but
you'll make a lot too.

------
jdavid
So we have been doing some exploring after another investor in the midwest
told us to just move to the valley for the networking alone. he may be right.

after a few visits, i can say that living in SF, and playing in SF is just
fine without a car. SF will be expensive like living in the loop in Chicago,
or in some parts of Manhattan, heck thats what you pay for being in the center
of it. If you are coming from the suburbs you are in for a shock if you move
to SF.

if you live out of SF, you will want a car/ or even better a moped or bike.
public transportation is nice, but it adds up and is time consuming waiting
for stuff. what i love about it is it runs late, so a night out can be had
without driving into SF.

right now in MKE i am paying $770 a month as part of a 2 bedroom that is $1540
a month. For that we have 2 bedrooms, 1800sqft, a backyard, and a garage. In
the valley i expect to have much less, but it still seems like i can get a 2
bedroom for ~1500-~1800 a month, or a 3 bedroom for 2100-3000 a month. i think
rent is actually fairly reasonable considering the average median incomes and
the number of people with degrees.

starbucks internet will cost you $40 a month, where in MKE i get cafe wifi all
over the city for $22 a month. i might have to give in and get Att uverse
internet in the valley so we can roam into a starbucks for free.

As far as food goes, i found that palo alto, and just outside of san jose are
craazy expensive. in MKE a quiznos sandwich and drink might cost you 8$ but in
that area, we paid $12-$13 50% more. I found food in SF cheaper. I do not know
about the grocery stores, but its pretty hard to meet people for lunch and or
coffee in your home, so I think Food may have its larges sticker shock.

as for location, we found that 90% of the events that we want to go to are in
the sunnyvale, palo alto, and north/west san jose area. so it makes more sense
for us to live there, well unless we are going to date...... there seems to be
a lot of lovely ladies in Downtown SF on a daily basis, in fact most of them
will smile back. It's kinda rare for a city to have that quality. So I would
rank SF very high on women being approachable there.

Our plan for our 4 guys (1 of which is married) is to get a 2 bedroom with a
great couch for the 3rd guy, and a when the married guy is in town, he can
have a hidden mattress or an inflatable one. When it makes sense, we will get
1 more apartment come fall 08 or something.

~~~
menloparkbum
The problem with dating in the bay area is there is a 10:1 male to female
ratio. The women are smiling at you because your fly is open.

~~~
jdavid
lol, i don't think that was the reason, because the gay men would have been
smiling too.

------
bps4484
I haven't seen anyone mention taxes in the equation, and if you're from a
state with low state income tax and sales tax, that can really add up. Granted
sales take may be already in people estimates prices, but income tax is
progressive and gets as high as 9.3% past 43k of income.

~~~
curi
Dodge sales tax by buying everything from Amazon.

------
barrkel
All I can say is, people moaning about how expensive the valley is haven't
lived in London, especially at today's exchange rate.

A single-floor flat in a house with 3 general rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen
(allocate rooms as you like to make bedrooms), in somewhere not terribly
appealing (but not nastyville or dangerous either) costs around $2400/m. About
1 hour commute to the city centre via tube. If you want to drive into the city
during business hours, it'll cost you $16 just for congestion charge. If you
drive a big car (i.e. American-style SUV etc., based on emissions), that'll go
up to $50 a day soon enough.

You basically can't get non-fast-food meals for less than $20 a head, to eat
something fairly decent will cost quite a bit more.

Every time I visit the valley, I'm amazed at how cheap everything is.

------
tlrobinson
Living in the Bay Area without a car is fine if all you do is commute between
home and work on public transportation... but if you're trying to start a
company, raise money, etc, I couldn't imagine doing it without a car.

------
yzeli
You may want to compare the COLA (cost of living adjustments) between your
current area of residence and the place you're expecting to move. I've moved a
few times and that numbers seems to make sense in long term.

------
menloparkbum
san francisco

\- rent $1000 (unheard of lofty studio thing. )

\- phone: $50

\- internet connection: $50

\- muni pass: $45

\- food, entertainment, occasional car share: $300

personally about 1500 a month. no car. I'm cheap... you can obviously spend
huge amounts of money on going to expensive restaurants, electronics,
concerts, booze, cocaine, etc.

you will either be sharing for $700-$1100 a month or renting a studio/1BR for
$1200-$2000/m. rent is the largest expense. a car will cost at least $500/m
even if the car is paid for and you hardly drive (parking: $150, insurance
$50, gas $3/gallon, parking violations: $200)

------
tokipin
when i was living in san jose in a... what those artsy-sounding things
called... it was about $1000 a month. rent was $700, everything else like
utilities added up to about $200. starbucks/jamba juice every day added up to
$100 >.<

i lived in the outskirts of SJ i believe. ebay was a couple blocks away. i
miss the bay area :(

