6 months after the move to San Francisco
Feb 5th 2013, 5:52 pm
#1
Just Joined
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2012
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 21
6 months after the move to San Francisco
Well this site still continues to help things with us - still have nuggets come up every day
I just thought I would add some information for people making the move
Renting: in the city is expensive as you've read. We have a 2 bedroom place in the sunset and it is $2500 a month including water, garbage and parking. Finding a place is hard work, you need to devote days to it and be prepared to move very quickly. If you don't have a car, rent one so you can move around quickly.
We had a full CV made up of our pasts, references from prior landlords in europe, bankstatements, pet resumes. You'll need to bring a checkbook in order to make a deposit on a place.
Cars: Ugh....we didn't want to lease so ended up with getting financing at a crappy exchange rate, but at least we are mobile. Our plan is to refinance within 3 months or so.
Expenses: aside from rent, life here is actually not that more expensive than places in Europe
For 2 people we tend to spend around $120 a week on groceries at trader joes and safeway to pick up the slack of what you can't find there
Gas is around $80 every month
Cable is $100 a month including internet
Public transport : i don't use it too often as work has a shuttle, and the sunset has pretty much everything we need, but you can get an all inclusive pass for $74 (including the old style cable cars)
Making friends is proving pretty difficult, however we're working on it. I work in South San Francisco and my office draws people from all over the bay area. My wife is not yet working (Getting over a health issue) but perhaps when she starts working as well it will help
Fundamentally, it is a great place to live altogether and we consider ourselves pretty lucky to be here
I just thought I would add some information for people making the move
Renting: in the city is expensive as you've read. We have a 2 bedroom place in the sunset and it is $2500 a month including water, garbage and parking. Finding a place is hard work, you need to devote days to it and be prepared to move very quickly. If you don't have a car, rent one so you can move around quickly.
We had a full CV made up of our pasts, references from prior landlords in europe, bankstatements, pet resumes. You'll need to bring a checkbook in order to make a deposit on a place.
Cars: Ugh....we didn't want to lease so ended up with getting financing at a crappy exchange rate, but at least we are mobile. Our plan is to refinance within 3 months or so.
Expenses: aside from rent, life here is actually not that more expensive than places in Europe
For 2 people we tend to spend around $120 a week on groceries at trader joes and safeway to pick up the slack of what you can't find there
Gas is around $80 every month
Cable is $100 a month including internet
Public transport : i don't use it too often as work has a shuttle, and the sunset has pretty much everything we need, but you can get an all inclusive pass for $74 (including the old style cable cars)
Making friends is proving pretty difficult, however we're working on it. I work in South San Francisco and my office draws people from all over the bay area. My wife is not yet working (Getting over a health issue) but perhaps when she starts working as well it will help
Fundamentally, it is a great place to live altogether and we consider ourselves pretty lucky to be here
Feb 5th 2013, 6:45 pm
#2
Forum Regular
Joined: Nov 2012
Location: Costa Mesa, California
Posts: 92
Re: 6 months after the move to San Francisco
great post
