How much do I need to make to live comfortably in San Francisco?

Rent will be your biggest expense – it is much more expensive here than in Dallas. Rent for a moderate one bedroom in a neighborhood close to good public transit – $1800–2200 (if you are willing to rent a room with roommates you can find something much cheaper – around $700–1000).

Unlimited monthly transit pass – $60 total for all muni trains and buses, $70 total if you also want to include unlimited BART within the city. If you have friends in the east bay budget extra since BART to Oakland/Berkeley is not included in this pass and costs about $7 round trip each way.

The good news is that you can eat delicious cheap food out in SF. A great burrito will cost you $4. Entertainment can be cheap here too – a band at a bar in the Mission could charge just a $5 or $10 cover. And there is lots of free entertainment with nearby hiking, Golden Gate park, etc.

In other words, if you are comfortable living with 4 roommates, you can have a great quality of life for $35k, as long as you are pretty frugal and don’t have many expenses beyond rent, bills, and occasional eating out. If you want your own place, I’d say you would need to make at least $45k to be comfortable, and probably more if you want to rent a nice apartment. Also, this is not factoring in any student loans, etc.

Take home $3000—$4000/mo to start but if you stay in one place rent control kicks in. My rent in 1990 for 900 sf 2bd 1.5 ba in a great little neighborhood was $900— almost 45% of my income. In 20 years my income has gone up 100% while my rent has only gone up 25% Of course the apt is done in 1970’s Bradt Bunch harvest gold.

@occ – $70/mo for transportation would be a steal for me. I probably spend that in a week with my commute.

Yeah, that’s the thing…rent is very expensive, but other things are cheaper in San Francisco than in other big cities (transportation, eating out, entertainment). Also, did I mention how much good cheap food there is in San Francisco!!?

Before you read on, take a guess at how much you think you need to make annually in San Francisco…now proceed.

I moved to San Francisco over a year ago and before I moved people kept telling me that you needed to make at least 60k to life in the city, nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m not talking about being able to barely eek by while eating at fast food restaurants and using the stove as a heater. I’m talking about living a completely normal life in the city.

You will always hear how good, bad, expensive, or cheap something is but you never really know until you actually find out for yourself first hand.

In order to help I decided to write out my expenses so you can see exactly how much goes into living in one of the world’s most desirable cities.

* Rent $1,150/month
* Utilities $150/month
* Gym $24/month
* Food $400/month
* Health insurance $89/month
* Phone $70/month
* Miscellaneous $117/month

The total after everything comes to $2000/month and oftentimes my expenses are less. The amount I budget for food oftentimes includes going out to eat, bars, and clubs.

The total amount I spend annually is $24,000 (and oftentimes under). This means that you can live comfortably in San Francisco making an annual salary of just over $30,000, around half of what I was told I needed to make to live in San Francisco.

It’s easy to spend 3–4/month living in the city, but there’s no need for that. The key is to just set a budget for yourself and to stick to it.

So there you have it, you can live in San Francisco on an annual salary of just over $30k.

Quoted from:

http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-live-in-san-francisco/

Good luck with your potential move! I would say that if you want your own, nice, 1 bedroom apartment you can expect to spend upwards of $1600.month. Rents are going down somewhat. Especially if you don’t mind living in a less desirable (ie FOGGY!) neighborhood. Check out the Sunset and the Richmond and you can definitely find a 1bdrm for $1400 or even less. When thinking about salary don’t forget that when you have to think about taxes. The salary you are offered is not your take-home so you need to make 15% or more on top of that…

If you don’t mind living in a studio you might find one for $1000 (but in the foggy zone).

GOOD LUCK!

Lets get one thing straight-foggy does not equal undesireable! When it is 95* downtown and 110* in the suburbs, it is very desireable to go home to 60* and a good night’s sleep. On the other hand, it switches up in winter. Inland today the morning temp was 31* w/ground fog and in the outer Richmond it is 60* with sparkling sunlit skies.

@galileogirl – Is fog the only thing bad about outer richmond? I ask because I can stand some fog if it saves me money. But I’ve also heard that the weather is pretty unpredictable out there otherwise. Is that true?

I don’t know if you would consider it bad or good but the only other complaints I hear about the Ricmond are:

1. It is too quiet. This is not a place to go clubbing. There are movie theaters, restaurants, coffee houses and neighborhood bars but the streets are very safe and quiet at 2 am. However if you are into the club scene, go to it in other parts of town and take a $10 cab ride home.

2. It is too far from downtown jobs. If you take the local busses it can take 45 min to reach Market Street. However there are Express and Limited busses that can make the trip in 20 min. Since San Francisco is only 7 miles square, no place is really too far.

3. The demographic is too old. It is a very mixed family place. If you are out walking in the morning what you see is a lot of older Chinese people. They all seem to take their morning constitutionals ending up meeting at dim sum, jook, or donut shops. Then there is the parade of grandmas escorting the little kids to school and pet walkers. Throughout the day the shopping areas and all along Geary there is a lot of activity with people going about their business. After 3 there are a lot of teenagers and people shopping on their way home. On the weekend however, the 20–30 somethings who work weekdays are walking and biking and meeting at coffee houses.

As far as variability of weather that is not true. I don’t know how to explain it scientifically but when the storms come in from the ocean, they are only really severe when they hit the coastal mountains. The City is relatively flat so we only get about 14” of rainfall Oct-Mar and only trace the rest of the year. There may be 1 or 2 big storms a year but that means 1½” in 24 hours. I saw that in 1 hour in IL, TX and DC. It also seems to rain more at night than in the day. Overall we have very moderate weather.

http://www.rssweather.com/climate/California/San%20Francisco%20County/