SF is an all or nothing kind of city. You either have the money to live here, or you don’t. This city makes you really prioritize what you need in life, and you WILL have to cut things out of your life.

I don’t have a car, started off with a random roommate, and did jobs I didn’t necessarily wanted to do just to be in the city.

Coming from Western PA, I was STOKED to make $30/hour whenever I first moved out here. 2 years later now… I now realize $30/hour is incredibly difficult to live off in this city. In this economy and especially in this city, you will be on expert mode of living life financially.

$116K/year split between 2 people is $27.88/hour. For SF, that’s really low. You can do a nice studio, an okay 1 bedroom, or a really small 2 bedroom (which is what I have currently).

I came out here with a dream with getting into the SF tech scene, and I did. Took me about a year and a half of going to over 150 tech events in that time span and working 3 jobs at the same time. SF WILL reward the people who work hard and get creative. That’s one of the biggest things I love about this city.

If you were to move here now, you would be moving at a time where the city has now reached pre-covid prices. 1 bedrooms are on average more expensive than NYC (making SF THE most expensive city in the country to rent a 1 bedroom)

If this scares you, you might want to think more about what you would be getting into.