
Cost of Living - jdavid
My is gearing up to submit to the ycombinator winter round, and we are having a small amount of trouble to see how to fit 4 months into 5000 per person?  Especially when 2 of the guys are married.<p>this is the budget i have for the south bay area:<p><pre><code> housing         600	
 internet         50	
 electricity     100	
 food           1050	35$ per day
 water            40	
 entertainment   100	

 cost            1940	
</code></pre>
how much should we budget per person?
right now we have 2 single guys on the team, and 2 newly married guys, that would either want to bring their wives with, or they would need to visit often.<p>any advice would be great to see how this would work, but right now it seems like we would need money just to win ycombinator, which for those of us in Milwaukee, the VCs/ Angels alone might be worth it.
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rrival
"I'll keep it short and sweet -- Family. Religion. Friendship. These are the
three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business." - Mr. Burns

~~~
mynameishere
"Misquoting Mr Burns...that's a paddling."

~~~
rrival
<http://tinyurl.com/3ex4y8> ? =(

~~~
mynameishere
"Quoting Mr Burns correctly? Oh, you better believe that's a paddling."

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skell
Depending on your age and current lifestyle, saving up beforehand makes a
world of difference. I currently own a house and have a very comfortable job
(which I would have to leave). Fortunately, I have saved up for the obligatory
6 month emergency fund, which I may dip into if my team is accepted into the
program.

If you have decent savings, then great. Planning is always key, but taking
risks are where people make themselves in life...

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spoonyg
I live in the Bay Area, and those #'s look pretty close to me for a minimum,
penny-pinching baseline. When it comes down to it, you can almost forget about
the money ycomb is offering. The money is NOTHING. It is all about the
contacts and guidance, which is priceless.

~~~
tirrellp
I agree with that sentiment. I am married, and I have a child. My wife and
child will not be coming with me to the Bay area if I am accepted. I will be
living in a cardboard box and eating ramen in the Valley, but the necessary
financial arrangements have been made to ensure that my son will continue his
current (private) school, the bills will be paid at home, and life will
continue more or less as normal for the 3+ months I am away.

It comes down to how badly you want the experience. Look at it this way: Grad
school at Stanford is ~40k/year, not including living expenses. Making
whatever sacrifices necessary to experience ycombinator should be
significantly less, but the experience and contacts most likely will dwarf
what you are most likely to gain from a top tier graduate program in
Engineering. Is it worth the investment? I can't speak for anyone but myself
when I say "Absolutely."

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menloparkbum
your food budget is 2x what I would consider normal, your housing budget is
about 1/2 what I would consider normal.

However, about $2K a month is pretty close to average living expenses, no
matter where you cut back.

here is my breakdown

housing: 1100

internet: 0 (upstairs neighbors let me leech, coffee shops)

electricity: 0 (covered in rent)

food: 300 (burritos, cook at home, burger/pizza on weekends)

water: 0 (included in rent)

entertainment: 100 (beer)

gym: 60

cost: 1560

if you live in the south bay, you forgot car, car insurance, parking and/or
caltrain.

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jdavid
thanks for the info, great response

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falsestprophet
The womenfolk can work too.

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johnrob
I say worry about that if and when you get accepted.

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jamiequint
$35/day for food is insane. You can eat really really well for less than half
of that (if you are willing to cook).

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anamax
The food is high and the housing sounds low.

Have you checked housing advertisements?

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JeffL
600 a month rent is what I'm paying, splitting a large rental house with 3
other people in Santa Clara, so definitely doable.

I agree that the food is really high. If you are really trying, the one time
cost of a rice cooker and a 10 lb bag of Basmati rice from Costco will go a
long way, as will bag lunches instead of going out. If you try, food can
really cost very little.

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jdavid
i have found more opportunity working in a cafe, and going out, than i have by
working in an enclosed space. I figure

2-3$ for breakfast (egg, cereal, organic milk) lunch will cost (12$) at any
reasonable panera, etc... and if i get something else cheap for the day, that
means another day i can invite someone to lunch for a networking opportunity.
that leaves me with ($10-$20) for dinner. eating just noodles does not work
for me, i need to get some sort of carnivorous delight for a meal at least
once a day, fish is like 6$ a pound and then you have veggies on top of that
if you cook at home, or a sushi tray is like 8$-12$ for a small one.

At 28, I can not live like a freshman college student any more. I just can't
think on 1800 calories of carbs. I need a more well balanced diet.

Am i wack for thinking this? I know the average age of YC is 25, and on our
team we are all 27/28, with a few younger and a few older helping on the side
lines.

~~~
anamax
> I have found more opportunity working in a cafe, and going out,

That may be true, but are you really lacking in opportunity if you're in a
decent startup?

>i can invite someone to lunch for a networking opportunity

Is this "networking" for the startup, you, or is it a euphemism for a social
life?

Let me suggest a test. Networking involves enough pre-meeting prep to enable a
non-trivial agenda. Post-networking, there will be a debriefing to evaluate
whether you achieved your goals and possibly what to do about it. You may not
achieve said agenda every time, but if you do, that will often result in work
that you have to do for the startup. If it rarely does, then either you're not
very good at networking or you're not networking for the startup.

So, let's hear more about the value of this networking to the startup.

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jdavid
I guess now that I am in the bay area, Networking is a whole different beast.
Everyone is doing something, so its more about something in detail and with an
agenda, than it is about just finding people in general.

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Xichekolas
Mainly your food seems extremely high. If you don't mind the tasty Lipton
noodles ($1), Shells and Cheese ($1.50), Frozen Pizza ($2), Hot pockets ($3
for 2), Spaghetti (~$2), Canned soup ($1-2), Cereal ($0.25)... you can eat a
lot of cheap meals. I don't see why it should be hard for someone to eat
nicely at $300/mo.

For instance, last night I ate a chicken breast ($1), mashed potatoes (instant
kind - $2), and green beans (can - $1.50), with a can of Coke ($0.25)... a
decent meal for $4.75.

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comatose_kid
As a married person who applied to ycombinator (and didn't get selected):

You are totally focusing on the wrong things - think about the application,
your product, and your team (not in that order actually). Worry about the
other stuff once you get in.

\- Visiting/bringing wives is nice, but keep in mind that apart from the
expense, your cofounders won't really be seeing them all that much.

-Make sure all or a majority of your founders can move. If they can't you've just given YC an easy way to move on to the next application..

~~~
jdavid
We are discussing it tonight, and for those people out there with out 1 year
leases, I just do not know how you wing it so much.

Right now I am on a 3 month notice monthly lease, and I have a roommate that
is planing on leaving in the spring. I have verbally committed to him to stay
till march, it would be really sh*tty of me to leave him early and to also not
give my landlord proper notice, especially since we work in a professional
environment together.

So if i am going to be decent and honest, i will need to support my $800
Milwaukee, habit until march just to keep the peace.

Of course, it might be that the only way to win, is to just think of yourself.
I would rather not live in such a world, and so often times I am willing to
support the consequences of being decent to people and friends. It has tended
to pay off for me in the long run.

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jey
Entertainment should come out of your own pockets. We just paid for food and
housing out of our YC funds, in addition to miscellaneous expenses for
incorporation and etc.

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anamax
> Unless you somehow lose intelligence and execution ability when you get
> married and have kids, the structure doesn't make sense to me. It seems to
> be geared towards single, foot-loose folks. As somebody who's put long hours
> in on multiple technology projects, I don't feel that having a higher
> overhead translates to being a worse risk.

Higher overhead may not make someone a worse risk, but it does make them more
expensive. That has consequences.

Is your participation worth twice as much as that of someone with half the
overhead? If not, why should YC pay for your overhead?

As someone once said, "The universe is not here to please you."

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Ouch.

No it's not. But neither am I here to please the universe.

I'm just saying that it's not a lot of money. Perhaps it is to you. I can make
that money as pocket change in a very short amount of time in my normal
consulting business. If YC wants to pay 10 bucks for their team members, more
power to them. Not my call. They've got their math to do and I've got mine.
Even families have profit/loss statements and break-even points. Their rates
have consequences. After all the universe is not here to please them either,
right?

~~~
sbraford
The solution seems pretty simple then.

Apply to YC and let's hypothetically assume you get in.

Spend 20% of your time making this ridiculous amount of money you can make
doing consulting, the rest on your startup.

Problem solved. =) In all seriousness though, didn't Xobni have to do
something like this for a while? (side consulting)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I agree. I think you hit the nail on the head.

But you can't do both at the same time. Good one-on-one consulting (or
anything, for that matter) requires you to be 24/7 thinking of your client and
their problems, not yours. Perhaps other guys are better at multi-tasking
among completely different things. To me, you've got to pour your heart and
soul into it, or it's not worth doing. That's just the OCD-kinda guy I am :)

My biggest problem isn't the savings, it's the team. I chose to live in a
really rural area, which is great for kicking back after getting off a jet
from somewhere, but really sucks wind when it comes to meeting and forming
teams. I'm waiting for one of these YC groups to help us hermit schmucks out
with some good team-formation software.

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jpalacio486
I'm glad im not married, have no kids, and can manage to survive on the
minimum if I must. That said, a lot of people out there aren't so lucky, but
ultimately it comes down to what you really want. If you want to continue
working for a useless paycheck while the job requirements go up, then dont
apply. If you would like to risk it all for the slim possibility that your
idea/product might succeed, then by all means go for it. YC here I come!

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DanielBMarkham
Living expenses are the reason I'm not applying. Unless you somehow lose
intelligence and execution ability when you get married and have kids, the
structure doesn't make sense to me. It seems to be geared towards single,
foot-loose folks. As somebody who's put long hours in on multiple technology
projects, I don't feel that having a higher overhead translates to being a
worse risk. After all, what are we talking about here? The difference between
5 and 10K, or something like that? Being hungry is great. Having your wife
call you every day to tell you the house is getting repossessed is counter-
productive.

I agree that the knowledge and contacts are what you guys should be going for.
Running on savings and forgetting about the money is the only strategy I can
figure that works for us "high maintenance" entrepreneurs. If I apply, I'll
just make sure I have money in savings to run for six months or so first.

~~~
comatose_kid
If you think risking the delta between what YC offers vs. living expenses for
a few months is worth not applying, you might (as a potential founder) want to
reconsider your appetite for risk.

~~~
jpalacio486
Amen to that.

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jdavid
ok, for now, it seems like the same debates that always rage when making a
budget. you can either be honest with your self and try to spend less, or you
can lie to yourself and not have enough.

I am strongly in the camp of planning for the reality of the situation. when
it comes to entertainment, its less than 5% of the budget, i think this seems
fair. That is 2 dates at the movies, 2 nights of drinks, or one SCCA race a
month.

as for food, i might be able to get by on ramen, but i might also miss out on
other opportunities if i was out and about.

also, unlike many of the teams applying we nearly have a product ready to role
now, for us this is all about the networking and so our strategy is quite a
bit different than the make it go strategy, for us this is about a life style
shift, its about committing to the start up and if that means moving to
silicon valley, this might be the kick in the pants to do it. From my stand
point that means that the wives will most likely move too. They may not move
at first, but i suspect they will want to move out there.

If you want to see a demo of our app in adobe air. you can find it at:
<http://s3.derby.adobe.socialhelix.net/zcalendar.air>

Our goal is to start serving two customers by jan'08, which would be before we
leave, and have a revenue potential of $1,000 - $20,000 a year depending on
how well our app works.

You can see an early demo we did for one of our customers last year at
<http://info.socialhelix.com>

Our biggest fear is how do we scale our application, do we have all of the
kinks worked out, will the security model of the web keep shifting, etc......
How can we do this full time?

Just recently some of our team finished paying off their weddings and cars. I
am just trying to figure out what it will cost us to go out there so we can
make a decision on what our next move is.

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ratsbane
PG, have you thought of buying or leasing an entire apartment or condo complex
and putting YC founders up in that? Besides economies of scale there would be
efficiencies in putting together people with common goals.

There's a reason so many startups form in grad student housing.

~~~
pg
Actually our plan is the opposite. To run YC with just 4 people we try to
outsource everything. We don't even own our own servers. We'd never want to
own apartment buildings.

The reason startups form in grad student housing is the grad students, not the
housing.

~~~
ratsbane
The YC way seems to be working rather well.

I think grad student housing does help focus. You can get meal plan and not
have to spend time going to the grocery store so much; you tend to interact
much more with other people who are also focused on similar problems and
random friends don't drop by and try to drag you off on some irrelevant
adventure.

I have a problem with that sort of thing. I have to be a bit brutal when I'm
really deep in something. The keeping-in-your-head essay really hit the nail
for me.

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rickcecil
Of course, there's always the path to starting up without going to YC. You
just might not be a good match for YC. Doesn't mean that you can't be
successful, it just means you're going to have to find alternative routes to
success.

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aarontait
Learn to love Mr. Noddle.

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jdavid
So I thought I would update this post.

I am now living in the bay area and here are some hard numbers

our 3brdm is $3350 a month, and it fits 4 people snug but comfortably. So that
is about $1200 a bedroom.

Internet is included, but you might expect to pay a bit more than $50 a month.

food well, eating at Mel's Dinner will run you $12 for a meal, and about $2.50
for a drink, and another $2 for tip, or about $17 for a dinner meal. Milk is
between $4-$8 a gallon, and ground beef is $3 a pound. Cereal is about the
same cost, and Starbuck's Coffee, is the same price in SF as it is in MKE or
Chicago. Bagels at Noah's will run you about $2.50 for a bagel with cream
cheese, and lunch will run about $8 a person without getting a drink.

You will be using a laundry mat, and it will cost you $2 a load to wash, and
$1-$2 to dry them, so $3-4 in total at the brainwash laundry mat.

Beer is about $5-$6 in most of SF, but last night I was in the mission
drinking micro brews for $3-4 a beer. On another occasion in north beach I
paid $11 for a beer in a plastic cup.

The AMC theater on VanNess is $10.50 a person and matinées are $8.50 a person.

The bus will take you anywhere for $1.50 a trip, with a transfer that is good
for ~2 hours+ depending on how the driver tears the transfer ticket. The BART
is about $5 to Berkley, or SFO and a bit more if you want to go to Freemont or
to Palo Alto, etc.. CalTrain is a bit more expensive and runs about $10 for a
trip between Sunnyvale and like SF. Taking a cab between the Mission and say
"the Richmond" will run about $10-20, and where I live its about $10.

Oh, parking is a bitch. Expect to pay $200-$400 a month more for rent or a
separate parking space.

Living in SF you will also save money for heating and cooling costs, because
the weather is so temperate.

There are at least 5-10 tech events a week, so you will have to choose wisely
which ones you are going to go to and during the week its not pleasant getting
between Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, and Mountain View and SF proper.

Living in the Mission is probably the cheapest and has the best transportation
options for a tech entrepreneur, but pacific/laurel heights and the richmond
have their advantages too. potrero hill is a great area but pricier than
others.

if you are going to try to save on rent by being a bit farther out in the
city, make sure you are near a bus line that runs regularly, at night many of
the buses really reduce their schedule, but for example lines like the 38 will
run fairly late with 7 min intervals, and then 20 min in the late night.

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jonathan
$100 for entertainment is way too much ... YC's no fun ...

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imsteve
wives...(!)

