Is 65K enough for a single person in LA?

[la_fantaseer]

Originally Posted by thursdaymcgee

Wowsa, the world sure is a diverse place! We have a family of four on about 50K a year, so yeah, single guy, 65K should do you just fine. Are we comfortable? hells no. But we have a family of four. Don't pretend you're a millionaire celebrity and buy a bunch of stuff you can't afford, and you can rent a perfectly lovely 1 BR and have cable and a cell phone and a reasonable car and go to bars every week or so on 65K. You can't buy a house, or rent a condo in Santa Monica, or drive a Range Rover, sure, but 65K is a very decent start.

Yeah I'm with you. Rent will probably be the biggest expense, but $65K should still allow for a fine lifestyle in LA.

[jm1982]

Very true about not being able to have the Range Rover , live in Santa Monica,etc.

There are lot's of cities where you can live in a nice area for a lot less than Santa Monica....but a Range Rover will be the same price anywhere. SO there's nowhere in the world you should be driving a Range Rover making $65k in my opinion.

There are so many luxury cars in L.A ...I always wonder how many of them driving them are actually comfortable and how many are struggling or in debt and don't look at the huge car payments. I know many are leased...but leases on a luxury car aren't cheap either.

It seems like after insurance,gas,maintenance payment ,etc even payments on entry level 'luxury' cars would be $1000 a month or more that's $12,000 right there.

jtamay3, I agree UFC and those movie channels are a luxury. I didn't even have movie channels and my bill was ridic. I realized I wasn't even watching TV and now basically just have the network channels but it comes with CNN through TimeWarner and internet. Good idea to take advantage of free or cheap stuff in L.A

Also imagine how many LIVE performances you can actually see in L.A for free or low amounts through getting tickets on goldstar or other ways. If you are paying a lot to live in the city and live near most of this stuff it seems to make sense to go out and enjoy it instead of sitting at home watching TV which you can do in any city in the country.

Los Angeles Free Activities and Attractions - Free Concerts

All Events in Los Angeles | Goldstar

[Silver10]

I was born and raised in Los Angeles and know basically all of the cities and neighborhoods in SoCal. I myself have lived and worked in many parts of LA. I can tell you for a fact you can live, not luxuriously but comfortably on $65K per year in most parts of LA. Your school loan payment however is a total game changer. $800 is a huge amount to pay monthly and will make things difficult in just about any city. That being said you CAN still live in LA and be very happy doing so. If you are a young person and will be working in the eastern part of LA I would recommend trying out Downtown for a fast paced urban lifestyle, Silverlake for a hip atmosphere. If you want peace and quiet with a cutsey vibe go to South Pasadena. DO NOT move into the area referred to as East Los Angeles! Even if that's where you are working. All of the sub cities there like Boyle Heights, Vernon, Maywood, Bell Gardens and Huntington Park are dangerous and ghetto especially at night. Don't let people discourage you because they are jaded by their personal problems living in LA. This is a great place to live and most places that are cheaper just don't compare. That's why I've never left!

[Radical347]

Originally Posted by makingthatnaborspaper

Virgin mobile metro and the other budget carriers are terrible for speeds and streaming in my experience im a oil field truck driver with alot stand by time. Work 12-15 hours a day used 24 gbs last month most of that at 4g (lte) speeds on my galaxy s3 I cant complain it gets the job done unlimited plan 120 is fine. I know metro/virgin say their speeds are fast etc but I tried their network its not the same ...you get what you pay for as with most things. I guess because I can I like to have Hbo, showtime, starz and I like having the hopper. My bill is really 56 including taxes but by the time im done ordering ufcs its 120 or so. Im amazed at how many people use netflix as their primary source of home entertainment after about 2 months we went through everything intresting we wanted to see. $450 for gas. A month is excessive ? 1800-2700 for a house is excessive ? Where do you live and what do you drive a prius plug in? It costs $50 just to fill up my girls honda civic.

I live in the Bay Area, which is even more expensive than LA, and drive a Honda Civic. If you say streaming is better on the more expensive cell carriers then I'll give you that one...but just that one. I can't give you 120/month on cable because while it's certainly your prerogative on if you want to spend money on that...it's still a luxury esp. when there are so many other channels for free/almost free. It's not like smalltown USA where you get like 3 or 4 non-cable channels. I say 450 is excessive for gas because if you add up my commuter pass and gas money I spend each month, it's about 225 total (the portion I spend on gas is less than half of that), and I even think that's too much. When I was going to school in town I probably spent like 60-70/month total on gas and transit. A house is probably 1800-2700, but a single person doesn't need a house. I'm sure you can get a respectable apartment at the low end of that, or even less...like 1000-1400.

The exact same thing goes on up here though. People spend way too much on things they don't need and then complain that the cost of living is too high. I even saw someone try to say that you might be able to make it in San Jose as a single person on 80,000 if you're "frugal". (Granted, the COL IS really high here--but not so high that 65,000 is going to be tight. I make less than that and am never strapped for cash.)

[jm1982]

True. And you will find people convinced you can't live in L.A under 250k+ a year. I am sure many residents in the most expensive areas would say that. Brentwood,Beverly Hills,Holmby Hills,etc.

I also thinking what it would be like having some rich person live in a "bad area"

Might be a great idea for a reality show..kind of a spin on that Paris Hilton show "Simple Life" where she was living on a farm.

I think it would be fascinating.

Instead of taxing the rich more...maybe we should force them to live in lower income areas..kind of an internship of sorts. Or give them an option to pay the tax or "see how the other 99% live"

I think this could do more to help society in many ways, and give everyone a better understand of issues.

I see a real divide in this city (and I know it happens in others ) where there is not much interaction between rich and poor. Unless it's a employer/employee basis .....and the rich usually aren't even the ones hiring "the help" .

Maybe kind of an undercover boss type thing on a massive scale.

Vice versa , I'm sure there is also a lack of understanding about the rich by poorer people too.

The rich probably have a lot to share with poorer people too , but these exchanges don't really happen.

We live with the myth that the US is a classless society which results in ignoring a lot of fundamental issues.

I saw this video on wealth disparity in the U.S and it was very interesting, well done..and quite disturbing..has over 5million views now.

http://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM

I truly believe ignoring this disparity and pretending we are a 'classless society" for so many decades has played a big role in increase the disparity between rich and poor.

It seems that it's only been since the 2008 "financial crisis" that these issues have even been spoken about in the mainstream press.

We can't point fingers only at either the rich, middle class, poor, corporations or government.

[Eric_J]

Originally Posted by jm1982

There are so many luxury cars in L.A ...I always wonder how many of them driving them are actually comfortable and how many are struggling or in debt and don't look at the huge car payments. I know many are leased...but leases on a luxury car aren't cheap either.

It seems like after insurance,gas,maintenance payment ,etc even payments on entry level 'luxury' cars would be $1000 a month or more that's $12,000 right there.

Most of those cars are owned/leased by people that literally live in their cars. They may have little to no housing expense with multiple related people in the same free and clear house so everyone just chips in on prop 13-limited proerty taxes. Most of my childhood neighborhood operates exactly like this, with 3+ generations living in a single house surrounded by 400-500k worth of luxury cars. My next door neighbors bought their house in the 80s for 80k or so and have turned it into a multi-generational compound, and they're not even as dense as the new immigrants. This is one of the chief drivers of population increases and worsening traffic on the east side of town...

Down here in SD, one of my former coworkers had a 50k salary as a field tech and drove a brand new luxury SUV that he traded up regularly. His trick was exactly this. He paid $300 a month for an 8x8 room in a tiny 2-bedroom apartment and spent everything else on his car and living it up. Sadly, I don't know of any way to do that in Los Angeles without a family deal like above because there are no deals like that on sublets.

[socalpete]

You can just go to craigslist and look at apartment rental prices and figure all this out. If you want me to do the math for you, $4000/mo after tax - 800 loan payment - $1300 rent moderate 1bd - $500 food and utility - $500 entertainment. You can save a few hundred every month for your IRA! Just remember, two car rule on left turns at intersections. All your saving can go away if you mess this up.

[jm1982]

EricJ I'm sure that does go on quite a bit. Seems like a waste of money spending all that on money on . I guess it's great for the car dealers though! They bought for 80k in the 80s? What area ? Crazy how much property has appreciated in la.

Wow the guy in SD spending more on car than housing pretty ridiculous !

[mayorhaggar]

I have 10 years of solid work experience and I couldn't even get a simple $28,000 a year office job last year in LA. So if you can get a 60k+ job right out of college, that is pretty good. Yeah LA is expensive but it's cheaper than SF or NYC, and I lived for years on about $34,000 in SF. You won't be super wealthy but you'll be comfortable.