Moving to The Bay
Hello!
Firstly I wanted to say a huge thank you for this site and the fantastic community, it's been great help to get me started. So a little about me; I'm a Brit living in the UK and work for a .com in their London office. I've been invited to apply for a similar role in our San Francisco office, based in the financial district. It's a fantastic career move, but I'm worried about the practicalities, and frankly the reality of moving away from friends and family... I figure the latter issue is something only I can deal really, but all opinions welcome to help convince me that this is (or indeed isn't!) a good idea. In terms of the practicalities, visa-wise, my company has lots of experience of bringing folks in on an L1, and they've said that should be fine in my case. I've found lots of great info on this site regarding finances, particularly in this thread, but I'd appreciate a sanity check of my budget to help me understand if this is even feasible. So I'm single, and currently earn about £65k in the UK. I've put my current monthly budget below, together with an estimate of what would get be liveable in San Francisco Code:
Now Equivalent SFO Estimate I recognise that I'm going to end up in a smaller apartment in San Francisco, but I'd hope to find a nice 1 bed place in a reasonable area - I've visited a couple of times and really enjoyed areas such as Haight-Ashbury, I'm really not cut out for the districts which my US colleagues referred to as "edgy" such as Mission. Beyond that, I'd hope to broadly maintain my quality of life that I have in the UK - does that seem possible on this budget? Sorry for writing an essay in my first post, and thanks in advance for any help! Regards, Chris. |
Re: Moving to The Bay
Not bad, you sound like you've got your head screwed on.
Some thoughts. Utilities may be more. $200 for vacation? Perhaps you meant $2000 or more...(Oh that's the monthly budget? Still low though.) Emergency fund. I suggest having a padding of $10k, at the very least, when you can. No matter who it is, employees get laid off with very little preamble or protection. Everyone is disposable. Company will be providing a reloc package? Green card process? Tax help first year? It can be tempting to overthink things. If you want the experience and they'll pay you $80K-$100K minimum, and do all the admin processing required, you'll do great. (I came over with Adobe, just for six months experience, but that was 15 years ago and I'm still here.) |
Re: Moving to The Bay
What is the offer - dollar equivalent of 65,000 GBP?
Healthcare - are you sure you don't have to pay any premiums (I assume $30 is just a copay figure)? Car estimates look a bit low but you do get the free shuttle. |
Re: Moving to The Bay
Originally Posted by MrChris
(Post 11182668)
Hello!
Firstly I wanted to say a huge thank you for this site and the fantastic community, it's been great help to get me started. So a little about me; I'm a Brit living in the UK and work for a .com in their London office. I've been invited to apply for a similar role in our San Francisco office, based in the financial district. It's a fantastic career move, but I'm worried about the practicalities, and frankly the reality of moving away from friends and family... I figure the latter issue is something only I can deal really, but all opinions welcome to help convince me that this is (or indeed isn't!) a good idea. In terms of the practicalities, visa-wise, my company has lots of experience of bringing folks in on an L1, and they've said that should be fine in my case. I've found lots of great info on this site regarding finances, particularly in this thread, but I'd appreciate a sanity check of my budget to help me understand if this is even feasible. So I'm single, and currently earn about £65k in the UK. I've put my current monthly budget below, together with an estimate of what would get be liveable in San Francisco Code:
Now Equivalent SFO Estimate I recognise that I'm going to end up in a smaller apartment in San Francisco, but I'd hope to find a nice 1 bed place in a reasonable area - I've visited a couple of times and really enjoyed areas such as Haight-Ashbury, I'm really not cut out for the districts which my US colleagues referred to as "edgy" such as Mission. Beyond that, I'd hope to broadly maintain my quality of life that I have in the UK - does that seem possible on this budget? Sorry for writing an essay in my first post, and thanks in advance for any help! Regards, Chris. Phone/BBand/Internet - Need to up by about $40 per month Cell Phone - Expect to pay around $80 per month Groceries - Depends how much you intend to cook, but this seems a little light to me Flights, you won't get 2 flights back to the UK for $1,800 The big area that seems wrong is your healthcare costs. $30 per month seems way off, you need to double check this number. |
Re: Moving to The Bay
Originally Posted by N1cky
(Post 11182840)
The big area that seems wrong is your healthcare costs. $30 per month seems way off, you need to double check this number.
My health care costs (for a very good health plan) were, until last year, just under $30 per pay period (ie every 2 weeks). Costs increased to about $35 per pay period this year. |
Re: Moving to The Bay
Overall those numbers look fairly reasonable.
Depending on exactly where you end up living in San Francisco and what you want to do on the weekends you may want to carefully consider the pros and cons of car ownership in San Francisco. The major disadvantage is the lack of available parking in many areas, and the cost of parking. Initially, at least, you may want to consider the merits of occasional car rentals on the weekends and/or the use of things like Zipcar. Also don't underestimate how much you may end up spending on one-time expenses like buying furniture (almost all rentals are unfurnished), TV, kitchen stuff etc. You will also find life much easier if you have a fairly substantial amount of cash available for deposits for utilities and apartment rental. Typical rental agreements want first and last month's rent plus a security deposit so, in your case, you could easily be looking at $7,000 for that alone. Put it this way - if you have $15,000 available to spend within the first month it won't be too much. |
Re: Moving to The Bay
Welcome to BE and good luck! Oh and kudos for some solid research!
One thing to factor is lack of credit and driving history, meaning you may end up having to also put down deposits for a lot of the utilities. Utilities do sound a bit low, but then again, I don't know what the heat/cooling costs are out there. Phone/cable/internet that's definitely low. You might see a triple play deal stating $80 but then they charge you $15 extra for the set top box and taxes etc and it's then closer to $100-120 a month. Car maintenance sounds a bit low too...but then the lack of the harsh winters might help in that regard, but oil changes cost loads more here and get done far more regularly. Cost of parking, can't be cheap and what if you got a place that didn't have parking of it's own? I've no idea what it is like in the bay area, but decent, covered, off street parking that's carded entry is about $650-900 a month down in Boston. |
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