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It’s almost all real estate cost.

I’ve lived in very expensive cities (Boston, Los Angeles) and now live in a moderately priced one (Cincinnati) and most things cost about the same except real estate. Gas (which I don’t use as I have an EV) is a bit more in California due to taxes but food, clothing, services, gadgets, utilities, etc are almost the same.

If I were a 20-something today I’d stay away from high cost cities. Real estate eats everything. I might consider living in such places for a little while to build network but would bug out after maybe two years. For example I’d say if you live in SF/SV and are approaching 30 and making under 300k you should leave.

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If you insist on like-for-like, yes, so when I lived in NYC I just completely punted this question and didn't even try to live in anything like the kind of apartment I would have rented in basically any other city. I took a tiny, shitty studio in Hell's Kitchen for far less than I could afford and never worried about it.

Cost of living calculators assume you're trying to live in the same kind of housing in HCOL-city-A as you would have in LCOL-city-B, but there's no reason to accept this assumption.

I rationalized it this way: there is no amount of money in LCOL-city-B that could buy me the feeling of living in HCOL-city-A, so I'm going to treat the housing in HCOL-city-A the same way (i.e. mentally assume it's not available and consider that the tradeoff for getting the thing that isn't available in the lower-cost-of-living city).

This is a great mindset. I was forced to move from NYC to the bumfuck Midwest because of my girlfriend’s job, and I hate it here. Yes I own a house with a yard, but I’d trade it for my apartment in Manhattan any day of the week. Density makes life worth living

In reality you made a choice to move with your girlfriend.

A lot of advice basically takes the form, "people should be more like me," but at risk of that in this case: I'd just try to find ways to maximize the benefits of homeownership. Try to take advantage of the things you can't do (easily) in NYC. I'm in Providence now and I miss NYC all the time, but I also have a garden and I put a little workshop in my garage and I'm trying to learn woodworking and I like to take on DIY projects and I play my guitar louder than I would in an apartment etc, etc.

This is the flipside of living in a tiny studio in Hell's Kitchen and pretending nicer apts don't exist. It's just a matter of making the most of it, in either case.

Price of gasoline in California has a lot of factors… like because of mountains, there are no pipelines from Texas. CA uses Middle East oil. Also, due to the way the wind and mountains block in the air, the smog is worse than areas where the wind blows it out to sea (indeed, the opposite can happen when china’s smog blows in). The clean air act has the fed gov force California to lower smog, which is does by changing the gasoline formation during the summer, which is more expensive. Plus taxes! But it is far more complicated than “CA is high tax”.

Oh, one other thing. I think if you are young you should definitely live in an expensive locale. After 30 years you can stay and be done. Or sell and move. You will be able to afford the entire country. If you stay in Ohio for 30 years, you will never be able to move to NYC or Los Angeles. You are forced to 2nd tier or 3rd tier cities.

Why is "moving to NYC or LA" a thing people should aspire to do?

Seems like a waste of effort dick measuring contest to me.

And even if you check that box when you do decide to cash out and move to Cincinnati or whatever nobody around you from that point forward will place any positive value upon the fact that you have checked that box.

The point is that decisions you made in your 20's will unfortunately lock you out of potential options 30 years later (without making major sacrifices). So they're saying the best move for someone in their 20's is the move that gives the most number of options for the rest of their life.

There's two sides to that coin. If you pop out some kids in NYC and spend the first 10yr of their lives raising them among the rat race you can't go back and re-raise them when you do finally decide to cash out and move to some suburb of Buffalo. Those years spent riding the subway are years not spent building your personal and professional network wherever you do wind up settling down.

You seem very fixated on what people think of you.

I live in NYC because it’s densely populated, diverse, with access to world class most things (museums, restaurants, theater, music, …). I get to experience and do interesting things.

That’s why people should consider moving to these cities. No one gives a shit what Joe from Cincinnati thinks or will think in some hypothetical future.

> No one gives a shit what Joe from Cincinnati thinks or will think in some hypothetical future.

This mindset is the problem. If the plan after 30 is to move and live next to Joe from Cincinnati, then like the parent comment says: this flippant attitude will not garner any positive value.

No, the parent comment says that living in NYC won't be important to the people in Cincinnati, and it provides little value as a bullet point in the resume of your life because of that reasoning.

That's not the point of living in a city like NYC for many of the residents here. No one here I know is planning on leveraging "10 years in NYC" to impress their neighbors in Cincinnati.

That was true. I wonder if it will keep being so true as information is available everywhere and remote work takes hold.

I still think you can get a lot of benefit living for a while in a "center" like Silicon Valley, but a few years might be enough to absorb a lot.

But… what if you really like living in SF/SV? :(

It’s just such a bummer that the absolute worst financial decision of my life is to live in my favorite place in the world.

I get it, it’s how the world works, but it sucks to choose between daily happiness and financial security.

I sympathize with you as a lifelong Californian (grew up in Sacramento, educated in San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz, working in Silicon Valley). I love the desirable coastal parts of California (basically anything from Sonoma County all the way down to San Diego). If money weren't an object, I'd own a home in either Aptos or Pacific Grove. I currently rent in Capitola, and it's the best place I've lived in California. I love the tranquility of the town while having somewhat easy access to Silicon Valley and its amenities and opportunities. However, I simply don't make enough money to purchase a home near the coast unless I move to Humboldt or Del Norte counties, which are far from any urban centers.

Unfortunately with the exception of Sacramento (which is getting pricey as of late) California doesn't have a lot of middle ground between its really desirable yet expensive places and places that are affordable but less desirable. The Sacramento area seems like a reasonable compromise for me. I can comfortably afford Fresno's and Bakersfield's nicest suburbs, but I don't know if I'd be happy in those cities. Much of the rest of the state is quite isolated from major metro areas; this has implications regarding educational opportunities for children and health care quality and availability. I don't see myself settling down and raising a family in many of California's more isolated areas due to this, though it may be a nice adventure visiting these isolated areas for recreation.

I don't know what I'm going to end up doing....maybe I'll end up marrying a woman from Vermont and end up moving there in a few years XD. But I completely sympathize with you and the crazy housing market we're contending with.

Don't tell people about it here!

One of my good friends lives in Sacramento and he hates it. It has none of what makes California amazing.. the weather is too hot, there’s no beaches, no mountains, not really a good urban center either. And crime.

I've lived there and it's amazing, so many cool things, it's right on one of the largest navigable river deltas in the world, the farm fresh food is amazing, the art and music scenes are pretty great, on and on....

I lived in SoCal for 30+ year and now live in a Sacramento suburb. I previously had a pretty snobby view of Sacramento, but after living here for nine years I think it's the most underrated city in California. The restaurants aren't up to par with the bigger CA cities and it does get hot in the summer, but overall it's a great location.

One of the big benefits is that there are so many options for day trips. Visiting Lake Tahoe and the surrounding mountains is an easy day trip. Visiting SF or the beaches is doable in a day. Napa is close. For hikers, runners, and bikers there are tons of bikes paths and hiking trails all over the Sacramento region. And there are a lot of neat places in the nearby Sierra foothills.

To summarize: If you prioritize nightlife, music, and food, Sacramento might not be the best fit, but if you prioritize affordability (relatively speaking) and getting outside, it's hard to beat the Sacramento area.

That reminds me of Connecticut: there’s a little cool stuff in it, but the big thing people love to tell you is how close it is to other, better places like New York, Boston, and Vermont.

> If I were a 20-something today I’d stay away from high cost cities.

Disagree. Saving X% of one's early career salary goes a lot further when the salary goes up near a city.

I don't know.

I live in the midwest and invest over 50% of my salary.

I'm in my mid 30s and have almost a million in investments already.

Meanwhile I have friends from college, same major etc, who live in expensive cities and work in the same industry and they barely have anything to save after the high costs of living there.

One of the biggest factor in gas prices in CA and the rest of the west coast is that much the oil comes from Alaska which is a more expensive source and then is refined in smaller west coast refineries that cost more to run. The result is an overall higher baseline cost for gasoline all along the US West coast.

Taxes in larger cities tend to be higher as well. With the exception of Seattle, Miami, and any of the large Texas cities. The removal of the SALT deduction amplified the issue no doubt.

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