Ask HN: Any tips for living cheaply in SF?
I'm a young wannabe-hacker looking to move for a summer to SF area. I'm working on a web project (Rails) and will try to reach ramen profitability over summer. If I fail I'll go back to living with my parents/continue college in the fall.
I can't move until June 13 since I'll only be 18 then (and be able to rent). So 2.5 months of living.
I already have around $3000 (paid taxes recently) and mainly telecommute part-time on C++/COM gigs. I might continue working with my current employer down there but I don't think I should rely on that. I'd rather rely on what I already have rather than hope I don't get cut off :)
Can somewhere answer these questions:
a) Will it be easier to pick up some part-time C++/Rails gigs in SF bay than Seattle? I'd really like to have some continuous source of income so I'd have money to come back/extend my runway.
b) Is it possible to live on $1000/month in SF? I subtract $600 for transit gas, emergency, etc.
For the rest, I summed up rent+utilities to be around $700, $100 for food, and $200 for everything else.
Am I correct in my calculations? Is there anything I'm missing?
c) How is the weather down there? Is it much hotter than Seattle?
e) Am I fucking crazy?
Thank you much.
83 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 125 ms ] threadEDIT: I think that the advantage that moving down there will give me will outweigh the $200.
Depending on your motivations, it could completely defeat the purpose of heading here though.
Also, I generally found while looking for a place on craigslist, that while there are a lot of cheap places listed, they're heavily competed due to rent control. Places with a room for 500-600 will get hundreds and hundreds of responses, and you'll have to do an awkward interview for the room, which is like a combination date/job interview. It will take time to find a room. Nearly everyone I know that has moved to the bay area has crashed on a friend's couch for 2-3 months, or take an expensive, short term sublet.
I landed a job in New York City, where I'm currently living at. The city is awesome and my job is fun. But in reality, the Bay Area was my first choice, and it's still dream of mine to be able to land a job over there. I'm in the process of getting more information to further my skills so I can begin actively searching for work over there.
I was doing well in Puerto Rico (earning more money than most people I knew, living close to beach with constantly great weather, all my friends and family living there, etc.) and I'm certainly doing well in New York City. But if I had the chance to move to San Francisco, I wouldn't think twice about it. Maybe I'm wrong, but the Bay Area is kind of like the Mecca for developers and aspiring entrepreneurs like myself.
Like I said, I certainly can't speak for mannicken. I'm sure he has his own reasons, perhaps even similar to my own reasons. But if he's really willing to do it, that should be reason enough, regardless of where he is now.
As someone who lives in Atlanta, this sentence about made me spit coffee out my nose... =)
(FWIW, I'd love to move to Seattle area, but it's just not in the cards for me.)
The SF bay gets its summer later than Seattle, but it lasts longer, and the rest of the year is massively more enjoyable. Everyone here complains about the chilly weather in the spring, but a bit of springtime chill is far better than 10 months of gloom.
--Probably. As a rough lithmus test, you could run searches on startuply/ craigslist for both cities and compare the number of returns.
"b) Is it possible to live on $1000/month in SF? I subtract $600 for transit gas, emergency, etc."
--It's possible. 100 for food seems low ($3 per day). A big expense is rent; if you could cut that down you'd be better off.
"c) How is the weather down there? Is it much hotter than Seattle?"
--Not sure, I'm from NYC =)
"e) Am I fucking crazy?"
--No. And keep us in touch!
Why not just do it from home? I don't really see the benefit of moving to SF. You'll reach Ramen profitability a lot more easily if your costs are $0. You might even start college with something that most students can only dream of: income.
If he was out of uni, then fair enough, go startupping or freelancing and avoid getting a regular job if you can... but at 18, seriously, just go enjoy university life, have sex, take drugs, take philosophy classes, and all that...
I don't really see the point of sacrificing your university life to go freelancing. If your start-up is taking off big time, AND it requires you to stay on it full time, then fine... but to give up uni to "make some contacts"... that's silly. The contacts can still be made 4 years later, there's really no need to go there right this minute.
It is wrong to say "go to uni to do X" if there is nothing stopping you from doing X outside of university. Also, avoiding the infantilizing effects of university would do lots of people good.
It certainly requires dedicated to learn as an autodidact, but I'd bet many people could get a better applied computer science education in 4 years by trying to become an active developer.
The exception is stuff like math (and math needed for CS like machine learning and graphics).
For personal context, I want to undergrad & grad school, and learned a lot of math required for the CS areas I specialized in.
Well, there is, because you won't have all the free time that you have as a student (which, btw, can also be used to start your start-up and acquire all that experience).
It is wrong to say "go to uni to do X" if there is nothing stopping you from doing X outside of university. Also, avoiding the infantilizing effects of university would do lots of people good.
There is also nothing to stop you from doing Y while you're also doing X at uni... So why not do both?
It certainly requires dedicated to learn as an autodidact, but I'd bet many people could get a better applied computer science education in 4 years by trying to become an active developer.
I'll agree with you on CS - I did physics, however, and I certainly wouldn't have learned all that outside of uni. I personally don't advise studying a computing-related subject if you want that to be your career - as you say, you'll self-teach all the useful computing stuff when you need it.
I'd say perhaps a better applied programming education. Programming != CS. The things which I learned in my CS education and the things that I learned in real-world hacking have a relatively small overlap, however, having that CS background did open up some possibilities for working on interesting problems.
That's not to say that you have to go through formal education to get a good grounding in the theoretical elements of CS, but it does facilitate it.
I've found job and contract opportunities are 3-4x more plentiful so you could probably earn a decent income on the side.
I don't think you can live on $1,000/month in SF. The absolute lowest I was able to live on for 1 month was $1,500. I think $2,000/month would be a much better min to shoot for. If you're here for 2.5 months, then you only need to make $2k on the side to have that.
I would recommend trying to get a job or internship and working on your project at night. If it's a website, it will take time to get users and crystallize anyway, and you really can't speed that up by spending 60-100 hours a week on it. So why not spend ~20 hours a week on the site and spend the rest getting paid for things people need right now?
my 2 cents.
I think you can, if you really want to, and it sounds like he does, so I say: go for it.
You can get a room share for $600. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/roo/
That leaves $13 per day to spend, which is tight, but livable if you really want it. Suggestions: bring a cheap bike, so transport costs nothing; make your own lunches; $5 burrito dinners, etc; work from the public library and/or work from coffee shops and spend as little as possible/nothing; go to all the free events (there are lots, and some are free for the first x visitors) - some even feed you for free (saves $5), and give you booze.
And if you do come to SF, I'll stand you one Chicken Shawarma for dinner, because I think moving to SF for the summer when you're 18 is ballsy, so I'll put $8 behind that. (I spent the summer I turned 18 alone working in Scunthorpe, UK - believe me, SF will be better..)
Those people who are telling him to do it probably have done it themselves (that includes me). After moving in the Bay area, I asked myself why I didn't do it earlier.
I have lived in 4 US cities and no city comes close to the startup environment in SF. It's like watching the Superbowl in person versus watching it in your own house. The energy is just different.
He's 18. If he fails, so what. Sometimes, it's better to regret things you have done than regrets things you didn't do. (Ok that doesn't include committing crimes.)
(a) Freelance work is heavily dependent on contacts. If you don't have contacts then it's a crapshoot. Maybe you'll luck into something, maybe you won't.
(b) For housing, scan http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/sub/ ; $700 is not impossible, but you'll be living in a spare room of someone's house, and even then that's the low end & you should expect compromises. SF housing is much more expensive than Seattle, as in 2x the cost for equivalent space. I don't know where you got the idea that the costs are comparable (are you mistakenly including East Bay or South Bay prices instead of SF city prices only?). $100 for food is doable if you know how to buy cheap food in bulk and cook it yourself. As for "everything else", heat/electric/broadband can easily consume close to $200 if you're living alone. In a share it should be less, but you should ask about utility costs in your housing situation. On that budget, you should not count on spending any money on entertainment. There's some free entertainment to be had if you're scrappy, but expect to get most of your entertainment from walking around the city or riding your bike through the parks.
(c) Summer SF weather is colder than summer Seattle weather. Bring sweaters.
(d) [you skipped (d)]
(e) SF is an expensive place to live. If this is your 2.5 months of adventure before college, then you just have to weigh whether you're willing to pay $3k for that experience. (Not a bad way to spend it actually.) If you're really trying to bootstrap into a sustainable living situation, SF isn't the best place to go with as little savings as you have; there's too much danger of burning through your seed capital before you get revenue-positive ;). I get the sense that for you it's more the former than the latter --- that is, there's not much downside if you fail --- so what the hell, go for it.
But that's not quite the same dream as "reach ramen profitability on my web project". In fact, the two dreams may conflict. Moving to and learning a new area takes a bunch of time and money, and the bay area (especially SF proper) is expensive -- compared to Seattle or living with family.
For a young techie, the biggest benefit I could imagine being in the bay area versus Seattle is a larger job market and scene of potential collaborators. But are those what you need to make your project ramen-profitable -- or do those opportunities represent other paths entirely?
This, and "I-really-want-to-try-to-live-Cali-and-get-out-of-my-parents'-bedroom" reason. I think this is enough to spend $3000.
Basically, I'm making myself a little YC experience :)
One thing might be to consider a shorter trip down there to see if you can connect with some people in the course of a couple weeks, scout out places to live, and so on, and then do a more permanent move at a later date.
BTW, Berkeley might be a better option in some ways - with students leaving for the summer, maybe you could swing some cheaper housing there. It's not a bad place, either.
I won’t lie. In my opinion the chances of success are slim to none. But this is the best time of your life to take a chance. The more adult you get the less able you are to take huge chances. So as long as you hang on to enough money to get yourself home should things go bad I don’t see a down side (where as if you don't you could end up regretting it for the rest of your life)
That said, two pieces of advice....
First, get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Ask-Moon-Get-Percy-Ross/dp/0722529465/...
Percy Ross went from nothing to being a millionare and he attributes most of that to getting help from the right people. In that book he gives his 10 rules on how to ask for people's help and get it. The most important thing to remember if you do this is that 90% of the people in the bay area tech scene have been where you are (aka chasing a dream). If you need help and you ask right I suspect most will do what they can to help you succeed.
Second, look into hostels: http://www.hostels.com/us.ca.sf.html
Hostels are basically cheap dorms for anyone to stay in. They’re not very popular in the U.S. but in Europe there are tons of them and they serve young people with little money very well. The bay area has more than just about any U.S. city so you should be able to find a cheap place to sleep (and most have free wifi)
Anyway, hope it helps.
Downsides/danger include attractive people of both sexes, easy availability of booze and weed, failure to complete coding projects because you stayed up until 3am the previous night. The main benefit is that the place is low turnover, so your friendships there aren't transient like at a lot of bigger hostels. Mind you, I haven't kept in touch for about 4 years, and lots of places go through different phases.
Besides, the point of moving to a cool city at the age of 18 is to get into trouble, no? Look after your property, don't be too trusting, practice safe sex and and avoid over-friendly strangers whether on the street or behind a desk etc. etc.. Don't assume that coming to Sf will launch your career or you'll find a pot of money, treat the $3000 as the price of a useful learning experience and if you do luck out regard it as a bonus.
That being said, another student programmer and myself are working on a startup in Ruby. Interested angel, that kind of thing. If you think you can contribute, I'd be willing to pad your ramen budget. Added bonus: one of our early target markets is Seattle, maybe something will come of that.
email is dp4man@gmail.com
B) I don't know what your transit costs are going to be, SF has wonderful transit. You could make the investment in a Muni pass and be able to explore one of North America's most beautiful cities.
Many SF apartments include some of the utilities in the rent, just be savvy. SF, being an incredibly choosy market often forces 6-month or 12-month leases: this doesn't apply to you. You probably need to plan on getting a room in a house with some like-minded hackers
C) As Mark Twain said: The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. Think LAYERS.
D) Where's D go?
E) Absolutely not. Take a risk, work hard, and meet dangerous fun people. You can live a lot of fun in SF on the cheap because, well, not everyone can be rich as Lergei.
I think you should just plan on the 2.5 months though and go to school afterwards.
I'm in a very similar situation. I'm taking a break from school (college), I have a bunch of savings built up, and I have a business that makes about enough for me to live off of.
I'm sharing a place now with some other hackers (we were in Palo Alto for a few months) and it's come down to $500-$900/month for rent depending on who gets a roommate. Not too shabby.
Coming from Boston, I thought it was really lame that there wasn't a central, unified subway system. But the busses here are just as good. There's one route that comes by my place every 5 minutes.
Also, I never realized how much the weather affected my emotions. I love how sunny it is out here.
I lived in the mission for a little more. Definitely try the east bay for cheap rent- if you don't mind getting the bus/bart into the city the rent is a lot cheaper.
i'd recommend avoiding treasure island.
somewhat related, scratch the north bay off your list. i never was able to find a cheap way to commute from there.
-Rent was under $500 - you can still get these prices. Sublet a room in a house with some other young people. - Electricity/internet bill - $35. - Cell phone - $50. - Bring down your bicycle and bike for transport - Free - If you cook every day, and eat mostly vegetarian and rice - not just MSG-infused ramen - you can live on $5 a day - that's $150 for the month. - Give yourself $250 for very infrequent meals out, beers, or BART/Caltrain trips - and surprises.
I'm guessing most of the people who said you can't do it for $1000 never tried. If you have to, you make it work.
Summer's a great time to live in SF for cheap - lots of free outdoor activities. 2 months isn't that long to tough it out. Come back again and enjoy the great city when you hit it big :)
No the weather is not hotter than Seattle. It's cold here. Also, good luck trying to live off of $1,000 per month. Rent alone will be close to that.
It really doesn't help to live out here despite what everyone else says regarding the "networking abilities".
An 18 year old has no place in this city, tbh.
Maybe yes, but taking a leap into the unknown is the kind of crazy thing that more people should do. Progress, unreasonable man, and all that. Go for it!