Cost of Living: Seattle vs Bay Area, CA

[drexle]

Hey guys,

I currently live in Seattle, but if all goes well with the hiring manager I may have a job offer for flash development in one of the suburbs halfway between San Francisco and San Jose.

I'm curious if anyone who has lived in both places can tell me what the difference in cost of living will be for someone coming from Seattle. I know what kind of salary I'm worth here, but I don't know how that translates into bay area dollars. I've looked at some salary comparisson charts that say SF is 81% more expensive and I'm trying to figure out how this can be... I don't own a home, but I do own a car. I know WA has no state tax and CA does. I also know that rent in the bay area is more than in the city of Seattle as well.

Can anyone help me out here? Years ago I heard things like "Yeah, in Northern California the poverty line starts at about $60000 a year." How true is this?

[Flash Gordon]

I'm interested in hearing first hand too. But in the mean time, play round with this and tells up what you come up with:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=cost+of+living+calculator&spell=1

[drexle]

There are a wide range of answers given by following that link. Some sites say San Francisco is more expensive than San Jose, and some say that San Jose is more expensive but not when you take the average pay that people make.

I like the breakdown given by the CNN Money one and the one on bestplaces.net. the salary.com one was where I got the 81% difference the first time, and they didn't break it down at all. Unfortunately all that I checked neglect the difference that WA's lack of state income tax makes...

As I expected, housing and utilities are outrageous in CA compared to Seattle.

Hmm... I would feel silly raising my asking price by 81%, but I wouldn't want to move if I couldn't reasonably say it would be worth it to me, and if I'm going to move to some kind of suburban area when I currently live in a vibrant urban setting I certainly wouldn't want to take a pay cut to do it. Even the thought of raising my asking price by 40% shocks me, but mostly because of the number value. I'm still used to thinking in North Carolina dollars, even after living in Seattle these past few years. ;)



Incidentally though, the calculators all say that Chicago is almost equivalent to Seattle in CoL, and I've been considering that city as well, for personal reasons. Of course, Chicago hasn't called back yet...

[Flash Gordon]

well, just to give you an idea the jobs I seen in So Cal pay between 70 - 120k. The guy I work for lives out there. His electric bill is twice mine.

I've seen east coast job bring in 45 - 60k. I don't think asking for a 81% is too bad if that is what you are looking at.

[newblack]

i live in the most expensive (and greatest) city in the country on all fronts and it just wouldn't be fun if i didn't make a salary influenced by location. most people pretty much spend what they make... if cost of living goes up and your salary does not- well, that's just not fun.

[CyanBlue]

Well... Ask them how much they think you are worth and then you can go on from there, I guess...