Things are moving along out here. I owe quite a few updates as I’ve been kind of distracted setting up everything.
I think we may have found our new apartment. It’s nice townhouse about 1050 square feet, but has the big bedrooms that our furniture from Boston requires. It’s very odd that you can find big bedrooms in Boston, but in California, good luck getting a 2 bedroom place that will fit your furniture if it’s bigger than average. The rent is $1900, which is a pretty good price for a pretty updated place on the penisula.
The big win for me is the amenites. It includes a fitness room, heated pool, and spa. I’ll save $40 a month in gym fees alone. I’m trying to get my fiance to not get another gym and use what’s available to save more money, but that’s looking like a losing fight. I’m a big fan of swimming and living south of San Francisco will give me much more swim time than I could get in Boston. Even in the hottest day in Boston the pools top out at 78 degrees. Here they are heated to about 82-85 degrees it seems. It really makes a big difference.
It’s an odd coincidence that the cost of living will be about the same as my mortgage in Boston. I won’t be able to rent my condo out for that $1900 (likely more towards $1400) and I won’t get to deduct my mortgage interest from my taxes. Doing the math out on that and I think it’s around a $9,000 yearly loss in just housing costs. I just did a little math and if I get my expected salary (which is looking pretty good about now), I should make $16,000 a year more after taxes out here. My fiancee will probably make about the same amount more. So it looks like there may be about 23K ((16K * 2) – 9K) in it for the wallet. Of course that’s based on the assumption that only housing is more expensive. It will be interesting to factor in the other areas.
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