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Lived in Palm Springs before and my girlfriend lives there now. Awesome area but the summers are brutal. When she retires, we will always go back to visit but we won't live there.
Lived in Denver but the winters there were not for me.
San Diego is awesome too but can get pricy. We vacation frequently in northern San Diego County and the coast. Love it.
We spent a week at the Central Coast last fall and fell in love with it. Beautiful area with a lot of wineries and great driving. Can be pricy, but we will be looking in the Paso Robles and Templeton areas for a house in the next year or so. Lifestyle relaxed there and not nearly as crowded.
Rob - i agree you need to let the edu thing go. . You made a good move to a location that has good edu and it worked out. You could have moved to an area in CA that has good public schools and gotten similar results. Although i am sure that your quality of life for the $$ spend is much higher in CO. I happen to love CO and if forced to leave here that's where i'd go. I would say that the education thing is an issue all around the Country. Its getting harder and harder to get into top schools than it was 40 years ago - period. Whether that's UCLA or UT or CU. Public high schools are hit and miss - here and in other states. This scandal thing is not indicative of CA. But it does show that people are willing to do whatever they can to get their kids into school. But bribery (whether, legal or illegal) happens all the time. You think the guys who have buildings named after them have a hard time getting their kids into Yale or Stanford. Who you know is sometimes as important as what you know..
No one is arguing that taxes in CA are high. Whether they are too high here or in the US, that's a different debate. Lets not devolve into politics (or degrade). But facts are the US is spending $1T more than it gets in revenues. If the US were a person, we would be going broke quickly. CA is running a surplus on its budget in 2019. They tax high and spend high - some state as the gentleman above - wastefully. I still think CA is either a donor state or right around the line (Federally). Either way they are in the top 5-10 of least Federal $ per capita. Those are all facts.
In the mean time, I pay through the nose but for now i'm still cool with CA. I dont think about politics or taxes etc., when enjoying all that it has to offer me (including the amazing day we are having today). If i did, i'd go nuts
Lived in Palm Springs before and my girlfriend lives there now. Awesome area but the summers are brutal. When she retires, we will always go back to visit but we won't live there.
Lived in Denver but the winters there were not for me.
San Diego is awesome too but can get pricy. We vacation frequently in northern San Diego County and the coast. Love it.
We spent a week at the Central Coast last fall and fell in love with it. Beautiful area with a lot of wineries and great driving. Can be pricy, but we will be looking in the Paso Robles and Templeton areas for a house in the next year or so. Lifestyle relaxed there and not nearly as crowded.
We need some young wealthy Cali millennials to chime in here. I want their perspective.
I'm 31 and a mergers and acquisitions attorney in San Francisco and have lived here for a year and a half (via NYC). I have been following this thread with interest since "should I stay in California" is a topic on my mind recently and I have gotten a lot of value out of the views shared here. For context, I have a decent income (would be considered a high income on an objective standard, but perhaps not by the 991 GT3 GT3RS and 911R forum standard) but do not consider myself "wealthy" - I'm nevertheless hoping my perspective can add to the conversation. I financed my own legal education and paid it off, and at this point in my life I'm focused on building liquidity. No kids but they are planned within the next 3-5 years. Below are some of my observations and some of the key factors I'm weighing when I think about whether to stay here long-term.
Opportunity (+). The Bay Area is extremely hot for M&A right now and there's no shortage of dealflow. There are few better places to be for what I do, but I think that speaks more broadly to the business opportunities available here for people who want to be involved. When I left NYC I had opportunities to settle in other markets, but the market potential here outweighed others for me.
Cost of Living (--). Awful. At least from a renter's perspective, significantly worse than NYC both in terms of price and quality. My fiancee works east coast hours so it's important for us to live within walking distance to the Financial District in SF, which gives us few options for neighborhoods that are safe and clean at 5am. From a home buying perspective, here in SF, up in Marin or south on the Peninsula, the minimum price to play is over $1 million. That is likely to get worse in the future (https://sf.curbed.com/2019/3/13/1826...ey-wealth-tech), changes in the business cycle notwithstanding. Taxes are obviously high and that subject has been discussed at length here. When the time comes, access to good schools will be important. The public schools in parts of Marin and San Mateo Counties are generally high quality. I think living in SF would force private school, which as others said is a $20-$60k/yr endeavor. I'm pretty confident that there is easily a 911's worth of difference between the cost of living here versus elsewhere. On the whole, the opportunities described in the first bullet have more than made up for the cost of living, but I remain focused on ways to reduce the overall "drag" on my income so that I can build wealth. I worry about whether I'm missing out on wealth accretion simply because it costs so much to live here (I write this fully aware that SF/the Bay Area is only one part of California, and that there are other, less expensive places in the state; for now my job keeps me in SF).
Natural Beauty (+). This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever lived. As a road cyclist, from my home I'm 20 minutes from being across the GGB and into Marin county where there are some of the best and most scenic rides in the country. As a former Coloradoan, I enjoy riding more here than I did in the front range. Obviously there is great access to beaches and nature of all kinds within a couple hours' drive, and Napa/Sonoma wine country is about an hour and a half drive from home.
SF Cleanliness. (-). SF has done a terrible job managing the homelessness and addiction problems and there are visual reminders of that everywhere. Walk a few blocks down Market Street or certain parts of SOMA and it is more or less common to see dirty needles (or needles in use at that moment) and human feces. I feel for the people in this situation, but it doesn't give me a great feeling about how my many tax dollars are being put to use. I understand that this is also an issue in other cities in California.
Cars/Car Culture (+). Robust car culture in California and Thunderhill, Sonoma and Laguna Seca are all within 3 hours. There are fantastic driving roads a short drive away, north or south. Unfortunately high taxes and fees, insurance rates, traffic and, in the city, lack of secure parking (as of February 2019, there were 55 car break ins a day in SF https://projects.sfchronicle.com/tra...-car-breakins/) make the car hobby harder to enjoy than in other places.
I think at the end of the day the decision of whether to stay or go will turn on personal and family choices. The cost of living really sucks but I enjoy being here and do believe it is offset at the end of the day so long as I'm able to afford it. Would be interested in how people later in their careers viewed the same choice and how it turned out for them.
I have always thought that...Those who can, do. Those who can't go to college. lol
Good for you!
Thanks for the kind words.
Haha I definitely think college has its place. It just needs to be viewed like any other business transaction. Will paying X likely bring me Y results. If there is a reason to go, I say go. If you are going because you are hoping to find yourself... I say travel the world for a few years or better yet, go get a job instead Nothing will help you find what you really want to be doing like a crappy job.
Originally Posted by Spyerx
I'm off to drive PCH.
Will be 80s this weekend
Will go see some cars tomorrow
And drive some mountains on Sunday
Car culture here is A+!!!
Just took a drive with the wife up PCH to Malibu this afternoon to grab lunch. Beautiful day today. Will be back up there this weekend!
The view from my office, the view from my house and the obligatory dog picture, taken during a summer cruise down the beach bike path to Manhattan Beach pier. Yes, the taxes are eye-watering. Yes, the traffic blows. But despite both of those things, it is still worth it to me to live in So Cal.
So much easier to read this thread than to contribute.. glad there are other crazies like me who see how exceptional this place is. it's neither political nor smug to observe and comment on reality. I don't know if I'll ever consider myself a Californian, but I do wake up grateful every day for the unbelievable place where I landed and get to live in, and contribute to.
I pay, and I play, and the ROI has been unmatched by anything else I've experienced.
I have a friend whose daughter is finishing her masters in LA. her field is in film school..and basically her dad has financed her schooling. I think she wants to continue on with a doctorate but my friend has told her she needs to get a job now and pay her way from here on. I don't know how she does it.. it boggles my mind. I have enjoyed the views on this thread immensely and im sure my friend knows how expensive it is lol....she doesn't intend to leave California. there's nothing for her back home in the way of job prospects anyway...
I have visited Cali about 10 times. I love it.
In future, I do plan to move to Bay area (Palo Alto, Mountain View or Menlo Park).
I prefer Bay Area over LA/SoCal
03-15-2019, 04:07 PM
. You made a good move to a location that has good edu and it worked out. You could have moved to an area in CA that has good public schools and gotten similar results. Although i am sure that your quality of life for the $$ spend is much higher in CO. I happen to love CO and if forced to leave here that's where i'd go. I would say that the education thing is an issue all around the Country. Its getting harder and harder to get into top schools than it was 40 years ago - period. Whether that's UCLA or UT or CU. Public high schools are hit and miss - here and in other states. This scandal thing is not indicative of CA. But it does show that people are willing to do whatever they can to get their kids into school. But bribery (whether, legal or illegal) happens all the time. You think the guys who have buildings named after them have a hard time getting their kids into Yale or Stanford. Who you know is sometimes as important as what you know..
