Well, I just relocated to California to start a new career for a well known & respected tech company. Everything so far has been great (weather, people, food, work) except for one thing, the cost of living! I thought people were kinda joking when they warned me but it’s absolutely insane out here. If you take the Americana Apartments for example, they quoted their lowest 1 bedroom for $2480 per month. The representative said that in order to qualify, you must earn 3x that amount in monthly salary (before taxes of course). So let’s see, the minimum yearly wage must be at least, $2480 * 3x * 12m = $89,280! (let’s call it 90 even with utilities, electric, water, garbage, insurance, etc). In addition, in order to reserve a place, you must put down: first ($2480), last ($2480), deposit ($500), utilities ($125), insurance ($20), a bed, internet, etc… which comes out to be over $5,600 of initial payment.

I’m finding it really hard to find places which aren’t built like resorts (pools, hot tubs, lounge chairs, ping pong tables, pool tables, rec rooms, common areas, bars, etc.) and places which aren’t in rough areas, old buildings, poorly maintained, etc. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground available unless you spend your whole day looking around at every possible option.

Anyway, I guess at the end of the day I’m lucky to be where I am but yeah, it’s kinda crazy out here to be honest! Hopefully I can get back to some useful open source coding again once I get settled in. 🙂