Moving to SF from the East Cost (NJ)

Go to San Francisco. It’s more expensive than San Diego but you will fall in love with the city. Check out where you’re moving to first. There’s some bad parts of SF.

Check out the Mission district. There’s some good places there. Also for a city as foggy as SF gets, the Mission is good because it’s sunny more in that area.

Shop around. Given the housing market some are desperate to rent becuase if they don’t find a tenant they may lose the property. You can take advantage of this opportunity.

I last lived in San Francisco in 2004 and was paying $1750.00 for small 1bdm in Daly City which is about 15 minutes South of SF. Look into rents there and in Pacifica unless you and your girl are willing to take a studio/room in a house with a squadroon of other people. San Francisco is a hell of place to live but expensive to stay. It’s not unusual to pay $300.00 a month for a place to park monthly if you do find a job in SF itself.

Awesome. I moved to San Francisco after college with no money, no job, and three credit cards. It worked out. My advice:

1. Do not live in the Tenderloin, no matter how tempting the cheap rent is.
2. Do not live in the fucking Tenderloin, no matter how tempting the cheap rent is.
3. Get a shitty retail/admin job. Maybe get two. It’ll help you make ends meet while you search for a real job. (Do you want a real job? If so, what kind?)
4. Apartment hunting sucks. That’s just how it is. You probably will have a lot of roommates. To me, it was worth it to live in an awesome apartment in an awesome neighborhood (the Mission) and have an extra roommate.
5. Shop at Trader Joe’s.
6. Shop at the Farmer’s Market.
6.5. The Alemany one, not the Ferry building.
7. Get a bike.
8. Wake up every morning and be grateful that you live in the best city in the world.

Well 2200–2400 is our budget total for a month, so 1750 (hungryhungry)would be way over budget for rent. Also we most likely plan to not be using a car and opting for public transportation which I’ve heard is pretty good in SF (BART). Here in JC, NJ public transportation is pretty good and I’m very used to it already so it wont be too hard to adjust.

What are you basing your budget on? I thought neither of you had a job yet? One of the things you’ll find about SF is that while prices are ridiculous, salaries tend to be somewhat inflated to match the high cost of living.

Public transportation in SF is essentially useless. I hate to say it, but I would not plan on using it for much of anything. If you do plan on using BART, you are going to have to take that into consideration when you’re looking for both your apartment and your job, since almost no neighborhoods are functionally served by BART.

Fortunately, San Francisco is very bike-friendly. This really is your best option in terms of cost and efficiency.

She already has a job in SF. I plan to come out and stay there for a bit to go job hunting. The prospect of moving is all under the assumption that a job will be in place before I move out there. We’re definitely trying to avoid as many missteps as possible, but we know we wont be able to avoid all of them so we’re trying to get a realistic look on things to maybe help us plan out better.

I’m completely for using a bike to get around and so is she. Thanks for that piece of advice, as I had actually been expecting to use the BART religiously. A bike will double as a nice little exercise too so I’m all for it.

@FireEmblem BART is mostly for travelling to SF from other areas. BART in SF has only 4–5 stops in SF proper. MUNI is what you’ll be spending most of your time on.

hungryhungryhortence is correct in that having a car in SF is problematic. Parking is crazy. You should factor parking tickets in to your monthly budget. Seriously.

Moving to the bay area doesnt mean you have to live right in SF. There’s good parts of Oakland, Daly City, San Leandro, Berkeley, and Alameda. They’re all in easy BART range of the city and you may save a few $ by living in any of these places.

And absolutely DO NOT even think about the Tenderloin. Seriously. Just don’t.

Oh alright, well as long as there is some form of public transportation. And yeah a car wont be an issue if it will be more detrimental than beneficial. If we can’t use the car then we wont. We’ll definitely adjust the parts of ourselves that aren’t necessary(like a car) to live in the city.

I’ll look into some of those other parts of the bay. Is parking as serious an issue outside of SF? In Berkeley and such?

Oh and believe me, we aren’t looking at the Tenderloin. Some friends that have lived in SF for a few years have warned us. I definitely wouldn’t want to put her through that.

Berkeley is much easier to live in honestly.
If you dont mind hippies you’re golden. Parking is easy and its less cramped.
There’s permit parking in most of the city.

The closer you get to UC Berkeley then it starts getting crazy.
Highly recommend Berkeley as an alternative. Smaller. Just as fun. Easy BART to SF. Best of both worlds.

And Berkeley also has an intensely intellectual vibe, as well, especially around the campus. The arrogance behind it drives me nuts, but hey, many people see it differently than I do. I highly recommend a visit before you move to the area. I would consider it really important.

@Trustinglife Yeah the sanctimony of some Berkeley residents can be a bit much. You can’t take them seriously.