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Comment by whimsicalism | Hacker News Reader

> Making 60k a year in not-SF is like making 200k a year in SF. Except 60k is far more attainable basically everywhere.

I hear this a lot. It sounds absurd to me, I do not think there is a $140k cost of living difference for a single person living in SF vs not SF.

> My favorite restaurant where I line now (northern Arizona) is cheap at $8 a person, and tastes mostly the same. There’s also no reservations, and it doesn’t take 3 hours to get to because of traffic.

You must have lived in the suburbs in the Bay, as nowhere takes 3 hours to get to because of traffic living in SF. I would expect in Arizona things would generally take longer to get to, on average. Definitely agreed on the price aspect there though.

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Two points:

1) my uncle has a modest 2 bedroom 1 bath 800sq ft in Daly City (which is cheap compared to SF proper), and he is working on about $3200 a month for rent alone. My 3 bed 2 bath 1300sq ft in a good neighborhood in AZ is $900 a month.

2) I just disagree with this. My “town” is about 25 miles from end to end and it takes about 35 minutes to drive from on end to the other during the busiest time of day. Whenever I am in SF, going from Daly City to the Golden Gate is 11 miles, takes 55 minutes according to google at the time of writing and has a $9 toll. And that is mostly freeway. If you go during after work rush hour (say, trying to drive home from GGB to South Bay) you’re looking at over 3 hour commute.

I could be wrong about some of the estimates, but just trying to provide more context

I’d like to provide another data point for perspective. I rent a single family home with a 2 car garage and 3 bedrooms for under 3500. I am under 20 minutes from Palo Alto. 20 minutes to San Jose. Have access to the Bart which takes me under an hr to get to sf.

My cash comp is around 225k a year. Im not a staff engineer and My incone seems pretty average for swe engineers in the area.

We have a kid but I’m the single earner at the moment. Sure, buying a house wouldn’t be feasible on my income in the moment if I want to be close to work. The Bay Area is expensive but it feels like your experience is a bit more extreme than mine has been. I don’t think my situation is uncomfortable by any means.

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