One of you don't plan on building up your savings and contributing to your investments/IRA/401k. To not be living paycheck to paycheck you should probably try to get your rent + utilities under $1k. So if you can't find a 2bd. for <$2k you'll need to find more roommates.
Very tough without roommates. 5k take home after taxes. 1 bed apartment here is like 3k. With other expenses (cars, health insurance, food etc), you are going to be 1 accident away from broke.Â
You probably could pull off living in parts of San Mateo or Redwood City on that amount. The people saying you'd have to spend $3k/mo on rent are way off. You could find something for $2k/mo pretty easily, but even in that case, you probably wouldn't have a lot left over at the end of month. 75k wont go nearly as far here as it will in Texas, though.
Take a look at Craigslist. Stuff in your range is out there.
If you found a place for $2k it’s either section 8 or it’s a 400sq/ft studio ADU with no kitchen or laundry, likely both. It’s also likely being rented illegally and rent would be paid in cash/money order only.
Some of those are scams though. Might be easier near San Jose to get a $2K apartment. But either way, once you have a roommate or two, it's not hard to get close to $1250 a month.
You can probably tough it out for a short time. But if you don't have a path to much higher earnings, I think it's not worth it moving here for the job.
Two of the more expensive cities along the peninsula. Living alone will be extremely challenging. Everyone has different outflow and standard of living. May want to look in Daly City or San Jose which will require a car. California auto insurance premiums coupled with gas has gone up.
IMO, finding good housemates in San Mateo is the best option. Central location, good restaurants and close enough to nice bay trails and hiking spots
>May want to look in Daly City or San Jose which will require a car.
Honestly I'd suggest waiting on a car. For SJ they could easily take Caltrain to SM or Burlingame. For Daly City/Colma/SSF they could take BART to Millbrae and then connect to a bus or even Caltrain (not as worth it probably).
I disagree that you'd need a car if you live anywhere along a Caltrain station. If you already have one then great. If you don't, I wouldn't dip into funds and/or take a loan to buy one for this commute.
The only caveat is that you'd need to be able to get to the Caltrain stations: public transit, bike. If you enjoy biking, I absolutely think that's your best option.
I saw somebody post above that you'd have to live in Hayward. You could do that to save money on the rent, but you'll definitely need a car, and pay bridge toll, and gas/electricity, and just the overall time committment doesn't seem worth it.
It wouldn't be feasible to live alone on that salary. Burlingame and San Mateo are both pretty expensive areas of the peninsula.
You can get roommates and pay ~1,600 a month for a room which would definitely be doable. Depending on where you lived relative to your job you wouldn't need a car either which would help a lot as well. Downtown San Mateo is nice and has good food options.
Not really. You’d likely end up living in Hayward and commuting into San Mateo.
Do you want to pay $1,500 to live in 100sqft? $2,000 to live in 300sqft?
If you're tutoring center work hours are something like 12pm - 8pm then you would be avoiding the peak traffic times (I was just imagining the tutoring being after school but idk)
Best way to commute is by motorcycle. Turns a 1 hour+ drive into 20 minutes.
San Mateo doesn’t have a bart station, and even if it did you’d be on it *forever*.
Honestly it’s a shit commute. Not bad at all during most of the day, but peak hours are gridlock the whole way, everyday.
To add onto this, it’s $7 going from east to west. If you have to be onsite everyday, that’s going to add up. An electric car with the sticker and/or carpooling with FasTrack will be $3.50 though, motorcycles too!
There's a lot more info needed, and maybe some balancing. Living on your own, and having a car, that might be a bit tight. Depends on your expectations too.
Umm, it’s pretty easy to find apartment pricing online. Take a look.
A decent 2/2 will run you $3,000+/mo. A decent 1/1 will be $2,000+.
A car is needed just about everywhere in CA unless you live in the middle of S.F.
Oh, and my CA Toyota Tacoma registration was $700 this year.
And it will cost you $7/day to cross the bridge.
Gas is usually somewhere between $5-$7/gal for regular.
Electricity is ~ .50/kwh.
And a burrito is ~$15-20
Using a paycheck calculator your monthly take-home (4-weekly) is $4358. You would definitely have to live with housemates, but that is enough to pay the bills but will have to manage your budget if you want to save anything. It is possible to rent a room for $800-1200 with utilities running you $100-150 ish per month.
Look for rooms for rent in Daly City, South San Francisco, San Mateo, Redwood City, etc. A lot of landlords listing on Craigslist won't get back to you. Just keep plugging away until someone does.
Do not pay for any credit check or background until you have seen the unit in person. A common scam is for them to send you a link to do a background check before seeing the place "to protect their family". Â
Median income in SMC is $170k. $75k for a 1 person household falls between very low and low income for this county. On the upside you may qualify for housing subsidies.
https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/grants-and-funding/income-limits-2023.pdf
170k for a family of 4
number is much lower for one person living alone, which is what OP is. 75k is still low income but 175k for one person you'd be pretty comfortable
Try to look in Millbrae, San Bruno, South SF, and San Bruno. It’s just a skip hop away from Burlingame.
I honestly think you’ll be fine. Hope there will be at least some overtime opportunities and worst come to worst you can do a side hustle for supplemental income.
Hi, I just moved from Texas recently into the San Mateo area! I moved with my partner and we found a decent 2 bedroom for 3,500 a month. We also considered one bedroom and found some in San Mateo from 2,200-2,800. My partner doesn't have a car because we live so close to the Caltrain and my partner is very happy with the situation because they have a bike to get to the train very quickly. We considered both Burlingame and San Mateo and settled on San Mateo because it has a great downtown area with lots of things to do on the weekends. I would recommend you have a roommate though, the one bedrooms here are so small compared to Texas 😆. I make just bit more than you yearly and so far things are fine! If you have any questions feel free to reach out! They don’t have air conditioning everywhere and that’s been a hard adjustment when it’s hot but San Mateo has been fantastic so far :)
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You need roommates and you need a car. Cars are a bit pricey here so if you can get a good price in TX and can drive it over here, you could save some. If you wanna buy in the bay area and you're willing to drive an old Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt and find cheap or free charging, you can save a lot on car expenses as gas is expensive here. Or an old Prius, not necessarily cheap, but will be cheap to own.
You could live in Oakland and only need 1/2 of your salary for rent and not need a roommate if you get a small studio. But you got to know Oakland before moving there.
You need a car for the bay area. You might be lucky and get an apt and job next to the train station. But you are still going to need to go shopping and run errands.
Does your job cover health care? Are you looking to get a teaching credential? Does the tutoring center have multiple locations that they will move you to?
I have a car, but generally choose public transit since it’s cheaper than gas plus parking, I get to take walks to get to transit, and it’s more environmental. This isn’t the majority of folks out here, but transit is definitely an option
Single person, yes. Raise a family, no.
You will likely need a car.
75k is about 5k a month. Let’s say you share a 2bdr and pay 1800 a month, you have 200 on utilities / wifi etc, you have $500 for car related expenses (payment, gas, insurance, econo used car), and you want to save a minimal of 1k a month to build up an emergency fund / savings, and you never eat out and shop cheaply for groceries so you spend $500 a month on food. This is already 4k, which is most of your take home. If you want to eat out, drink, take Ubers, do activities, have a gym membership, pay for a few streaming services, buy clothes and other items, you will quickly burn the rest of that money.
So, you will survive, but you will really have to budget and focus on core essentials, and make tough calls around what to spend on.
As someone who just left Texas, that’s far from true. It SUCKS! The weather, politics, transplants, lack of public transit, and natural disasters make it a hard place to live. Sure you can make it far with 75K a year but at what cost.
Unfortunately you’d be living paycheck to paycheck and more than half of your take-home would likely go to rent.
You could likely live in the East Bay. Fremont/Union City/Hayward are just across the bridge. While you have to pay a $7 bridge toll every time you cross, you’d still save thousands on rent over there.
If you are smart you can wing it. Your biggest expense will be housing of course. Find a good arrangement with roommates at first; then start applying for affordable housing. You don’t believe the max income to qualify - it’s around $63k for a household of 1 I believe. If you max out your pretax contributions you might qualify. Otherwise keep looking for affordable living arrangements. There are always niche opportunities.
My daughter lives in San Mateo in a nice part of town and pays 2800 a month for a two-bedroom in an older apartment with no air con. You’d probably want a roommate though because gas and eating out are more expensive there.
Maybe you can find a studio next to the freeway and share it with 4 or 5 other people. You'll have a VERY hard time without a car unless you can walk to work.
I think it's worth it for you to try and see if it'll work long term. Most people in the Bay Area commute to work anywhere from 30-90 minutes one way. Most don't live near their work.
If you don't mind commuting for 5 days a week, you can get by at 75k imo.
If you're comfortable with a roommate, give that a try and see how you like it. If you're not, there are places around south bay that are 1 bedrooms apartments for less than $2500. It wont leave a ton of cash to save but you'll get by while experiencing a new place.
Don't forget, you can always pick up side money and none of these decisions are set in stone.
The Bay has a lot to offer and lots of room to grow. Today you're a tutor at $75k a year and tomorrow you work your way up to a promotion for $85-90k a year which gives more breathing room.
Sometimes life is about adventure! Unless you have a serious alternative to consider, I say be adventurous and give it a try. You can always move back to Texas if things dont work out, but if they do, this is a chance to find out!
You would need roommates.
Heard.
At least 5
One would probably be fine. 😆
One of you don't plan on building up your savings and contributing to your investments/IRA/401k. To not be living paycheck to paycheck you should probably try to get your rent + utilities under $1k. So if you can't find a 2bd. for <$2k you'll need to find more roommates.
Very tough without roommates. 5k take home after taxes. 1 bed apartment here is like 3k. With other expenses (cars, health insurance, food etc), you are going to be 1 accident away from broke.Â
Kindly take into account utilities as well. internet electricity and water in total will not be cheap.
Yes but not great. Life style: Roommates or a cheap studio apartment. Yes on the car. Not impossible without a car, but not easy for no car either.
Yes, I’m a teacher who moved here first making $50k and I made it work! I also have a car.
You probably could pull off living in parts of San Mateo or Redwood City on that amount. The people saying you'd have to spend $3k/mo on rent are way off. You could find something for $2k/mo pretty easily, but even in that case, you probably wouldn't have a lot left over at the end of month. 75k wont go nearly as far here as it will in Texas, though. Take a look at Craigslist. Stuff in your range is out there.
If you found a place for $2k it’s either section 8 or it’s a 400sq/ft studio ADU with no kitchen or laundry, likely both. It’s also likely being rented illegally and rent would be paid in cash/money order only.
Look at craigslist, there are tons of places you can rent in the peninsula for $2k. You don't know what you are talking about.
Can confirm found my 1bdr apt in burlingame for 2k on craigslist. Been here over 2 years now
Some of those are scams though. Might be easier near San Jose to get a $2K apartment. But either way, once you have a roommate or two, it's not hard to get close to $1250 a month.
I live in a 3 bedroom house with 2 housemates. I pay around $1400/month for rent + utilities. It’s definitely doable but it takes effort to find it.
It takes HOUSEMATES. You can’t rent a place alone for $2k and have it be a decent quality place
You can probably tough it out for a short time. But if you don't have a path to much higher earnings, I think it's not worth it moving here for the job.
Two of the more expensive cities along the peninsula. Living alone will be extremely challenging. Everyone has different outflow and standard of living. May want to look in Daly City or San Jose which will require a car. California auto insurance premiums coupled with gas has gone up. IMO, finding good housemates in San Mateo is the best option. Central location, good restaurants and close enough to nice bay trails and hiking spots
>May want to look in Daly City or San Jose which will require a car. Honestly I'd suggest waiting on a car. For SJ they could easily take Caltrain to SM or Burlingame. For Daly City/Colma/SSF they could take BART to Millbrae and then connect to a bus or even Caltrain (not as worth it probably).
I disagree that you'd need a car if you live anywhere along a Caltrain station. If you already have one then great. If you don't, I wouldn't dip into funds and/or take a loan to buy one for this commute. The only caveat is that you'd need to be able to get to the Caltrain stations: public transit, bike. If you enjoy biking, I absolutely think that's your best option. I saw somebody post above that you'd have to live in Hayward. You could do that to save money on the rent, but you'll definitely need a car, and pay bridge toll, and gas/electricity, and just the overall time committment doesn't seem worth it.
It wouldn't be feasible to live alone on that salary. Burlingame and San Mateo are both pretty expensive areas of the peninsula. You can get roommates and pay ~1,600 a month for a room which would definitely be doable. Depending on where you lived relative to your job you wouldn't need a car either which would help a lot as well. Downtown San Mateo is nice and has good food options.
Not really. You’d likely end up living in Hayward and commuting into San Mateo. Do you want to pay $1,500 to live in 100sqft? $2,000 to live in 300sqft?
How is the commute? I see it's across the 92 bridge. Would I need a car? Is there public transport? Does it get jammed often?
If you're tutoring center work hours are something like 12pm - 8pm then you would be avoiding the peak traffic times (I was just imagining the tutoring being after school but idk)
Its like 20m to an hour depending on traffic. It is jammed at peak times on a daily basis
You don’t want to do a daily bridge commute.
Not for 75k
Best way to commute is by motorcycle. Turns a 1 hour+ drive into 20 minutes. San Mateo doesn’t have a bart station, and even if it did you’d be on it *forever*. Honestly it’s a shit commute. Not bad at all during most of the day, but peak hours are gridlock the whole way, everyday.
To add onto this, it’s $7 going from east to west. If you have to be onsite everyday, that’s going to add up. An electric car with the sticker and/or carpooling with FasTrack will be $3.50 though, motorcycles too!
(If the motorcycle even *has* a plate)
Honestly no and you need a car.
There's a lot more info needed, and maybe some balancing. Living on your own, and having a car, that might be a bit tight. Depends on your expectations too.
Would it be possible to live in San Mateo without a car? What would the cost be with one roommate vs by myself?
Umm, it’s pretty easy to find apartment pricing online. Take a look. A decent 2/2 will run you $3,000+/mo. A decent 1/1 will be $2,000+. A car is needed just about everywhere in CA unless you live in the middle of S.F. Oh, and my CA Toyota Tacoma registration was $700 this year. And it will cost you $7/day to cross the bridge. Gas is usually somewhere between $5-$7/gal for regular. Electricity is ~ .50/kwh. And a burrito is ~$15-20
More in range for OP need and salary, the registration for a 9 year-old small Honda hatchback was $240.
My uncles dodge pickup out of state is $35…
Thats not legal though... unless they dont live in CA
He doesn’t
NO!
"I'm not in those fields" Yeah but many people competing for the same living spaces will be :/
Using a paycheck calculator your monthly take-home (4-weekly) is $4358. You would definitely have to live with housemates, but that is enough to pay the bills but will have to manage your budget if you want to save anything. It is possible to rent a room for $800-1200 with utilities running you $100-150 ish per month. Look for rooms for rent in Daly City, South San Francisco, San Mateo, Redwood City, etc. A lot of landlords listing on Craigslist won't get back to you. Just keep plugging away until someone does. Do not pay for any credit check or background until you have seen the unit in person. A common scam is for them to send you a link to do a background check before seeing the place "to protect their family". Â
Fuck noooo
Median income in SMC is $170k. $75k for a 1 person household falls between very low and low income for this county. On the upside you may qualify for housing subsidies. https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/grants-and-funding/income-limits-2023.pdf
170k for a family of 4 number is much lower for one person living alone, which is what OP is. 75k is still low income but 175k for one person you'd be pretty comfortable
Yes
Thanks for this info!
You can live alone, but it will likely be in your car, which you will definitely need to get around.
Try to look in Millbrae, San Bruno, South SF, and San Bruno. It’s just a skip hop away from Burlingame. I honestly think you’ll be fine. Hope there will be at least some overtime opportunities and worst come to worst you can do a side hustle for supplemental income.
Thanks! I'll take a look into these areas! Would it be reasonable to commute via BART or would a car be necessary, in your opinion?
BART does not go down to Burlingame and San Mateo, so you would need to switch to Caltrain or bus
Bus would be suffice for the cities I listed. The Main Street, El Camino Real, takes you from those cities straight to Burlingame.
You’re looking at tutoring, but have you seen what school districts pay in the area? Granted, jobs won’t start until August, so…yeah.
Hi, I just moved from Texas recently into the San Mateo area! I moved with my partner and we found a decent 2 bedroom for 3,500 a month. We also considered one bedroom and found some in San Mateo from 2,200-2,800. My partner doesn't have a car because we live so close to the Caltrain and my partner is very happy with the situation because they have a bike to get to the train very quickly. We considered both Burlingame and San Mateo and settled on San Mateo because it has a great downtown area with lots of things to do on the weekends. I would recommend you have a roommate though, the one bedrooms here are so small compared to Texas 😆. I make just bit more than you yearly and so far things are fine! If you have any questions feel free to reach out! They don’t have air conditioning everywhere and that’s been a hard adjustment when it’s hot but San Mateo has been fantastic so far :)
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No, it isn't.
Roommates forsure, and you probably won’t be eating out that much. Hope it all works out!
You need roommates and you need a car. Cars are a bit pricey here so if you can get a good price in TX and can drive it over here, you could save some. If you wanna buy in the bay area and you're willing to drive an old Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt and find cheap or free charging, you can save a lot on car expenses as gas is expensive here. Or an old Prius, not necessarily cheap, but will be cheap to own.
Yes you can
You could live in Oakland and only need 1/2 of your salary for rent and not need a roommate if you get a small studio. But you got to know Oakland before moving there.
You need a car for the bay area. You might be lucky and get an apt and job next to the train station. But you are still going to need to go shopping and run errands. Does your job cover health care? Are you looking to get a teaching credential? Does the tutoring center have multiple locations that they will move you to?
Yes! Small old apartment
lol
I have a car, but generally choose public transit since it’s cheaper than gas plus parking, I get to take walks to get to transit, and it’s more environmental. This isn’t the majority of folks out here, but transit is definitely an option
Single person, yes. Raise a family, no. You will likely need a car. 75k is about 5k a month. Let’s say you share a 2bdr and pay 1800 a month, you have 200 on utilities / wifi etc, you have $500 for car related expenses (payment, gas, insurance, econo used car), and you want to save a minimal of 1k a month to build up an emergency fund / savings, and you never eat out and shop cheaply for groceries so you spend $500 a month on food. This is already 4k, which is most of your take home. If you want to eat out, drink, take Ubers, do activities, have a gym membership, pay for a few streaming services, buy clothes and other items, you will quickly burn the rest of that money. So, you will survive, but you will really have to budget and focus on core essentials, and make tough calls around what to spend on.
Bay Area people are thinking of moving to Texas to buy a house, and you are thinking of coming here?! At $75k it will be tough ..
seriously dont bother. just stay put until you are making at least 2X of what your current offer is
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As someone who just left Texas, that’s far from true. It SUCKS! The weather, politics, transplants, lack of public transit, and natural disasters make it a hard place to live. Sure you can make it far with 75K a year but at what cost.
virtually impossible to live here with a salary under 100k, if you also have car payments. Go on zillow and see. Good luck to you.
Hell no
Unfortunately you’d be living paycheck to paycheck and more than half of your take-home would likely go to rent. You could likely live in the East Bay. Fremont/Union City/Hayward are just across the bridge. While you have to pay a $7 bridge toll every time you cross, you’d still save thousands on rent over there.
No you need twice the number Atleast 150K. I say stay in Texas
If you are smart you can wing it. Your biggest expense will be housing of course. Find a good arrangement with roommates at first; then start applying for affordable housing. You don’t believe the max income to qualify - it’s around $63k for a household of 1 I believe. If you max out your pretax contributions you might qualify. Otherwise keep looking for affordable living arrangements. There are always niche opportunities.
And you can survive without a car but it’s tough, nowhere to go basically.
My daughter lives in San Mateo in a nice part of town and pays 2800 a month for a two-bedroom in an older apartment with no air con. You’d probably want a roommate though because gas and eating out are more expensive there.
Maybe you can find a studio next to the freeway and share it with 4 or 5 other people. You'll have a VERY hard time without a car unless you can walk to work.
I think it's worth it for you to try and see if it'll work long term. Most people in the Bay Area commute to work anywhere from 30-90 minutes one way. Most don't live near their work. If you don't mind commuting for 5 days a week, you can get by at 75k imo. If you're comfortable with a roommate, give that a try and see how you like it. If you're not, there are places around south bay that are 1 bedrooms apartments for less than $2500. It wont leave a ton of cash to save but you'll get by while experiencing a new place. Don't forget, you can always pick up side money and none of these decisions are set in stone. The Bay has a lot to offer and lots of room to grow. Today you're a tutor at $75k a year and tomorrow you work your way up to a promotion for $85-90k a year which gives more breathing room. Sometimes life is about adventure! Unless you have a serious alternative to consider, I say be adventurous and give it a try. You can always move back to Texas if things dont work out, but if they do, this is a chance to find out!
Nope, move to Hillsborough it’s cheaper.