10 ms·
Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
- myth_drannon 16y agoToo bad it's not working for Canadian cities.
- camwest 16y agoHow about where my investor is from: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+francisco+to+chattanooga+with+a+salary+of+%24120000+USD http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+fra...
- clay 16y agoDallas: http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+francisco+to+dallas+with+a+salary+of+%24120000&x=0&y=0 http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+franc... Dallas, Houston and Austin are super cheap with fairly big tech cultures. Austin might even be worth living in too.
- rdl 16y agoAlso doesn't seem to take into account income and capgains tax rates; for a single person making >120k that is a substantial cost savings on its own.
- jackowayed 16y agoYeah, not sure which you were referring to, but it should both factor in the different tax rates in the different states/cities and the fact that when you're at that lower equivalent salary (the 90k instead of the 120k), you're paying a lower effective tax rate because a higher % of your income is in the lower brackets.
- _delirium 16y agoIt doesn't actually seem to take the salary you put in into account at all: it gives the same 24% cheaper for $30,000 salary and $120,000 salary, even though the ratios of expenses shouldn't be the same for those two cases. At the very least, the weightings should change: someone who makes $20,000 is probably spending more than 12% on groceries, while someone who makes $10m is probably not spending 12% on groceries (or 10% on utilities). And the ratio of housing prices isn't constant across all types of housing, either.
- jackowayed 16y agoNo, I'm pretty sure that means it's being stupid. It gives exactly 24% less regardless of what salaries you put in and not changing the "% of total" or anything. That means that it's figuring out the difference in average cost of living first, and then just reduces the salary you gave by 24% to get the equivalent.
- irons 16y agoSeattle could really use one of those Arizona-style harassment laws to keep Californian prop-13 refugees out.
- ck2 16y agoCheck out this accidental discovery, note how the graphs remain nearly parallel over years (!) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+seattle+vs+san+francisco http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+seattl... Weird coincidence?
- tzs 16y agoCrime is not zero sum.
- jarek 16y agoUm, for some values of "parallel."
- jrp 16y agoI would expect the crime levels to sort of coincide over the nation. In fact, they don't: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+seattle+vs+united+states http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+seattl... but it does seem that they do between these two cities. It is weird. Here's something else: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+washington+state+vs+seattle http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+washin... http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+washington+state+vs+united+states http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+washin... Hypothesis: the country at large has a crime rate. In addition there is a magic variable which only affects cities, but affects all cities: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+san+francisco+los+angeles+chicago+vs+seattle http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent+crime+in+san+fr...
- portlandFan12 16y agoI'd like to put in a good word for Portland (no sales tax, great food): http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+francisco+to+portland+with+a+salary+of+$120000&x=0&y=0 http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+franc...
- J3L2404 16y agoAnd a great music scene...
- MikeCapone 16y agoAlso one of the most bike-friendly cities in the US.
- grinich 16y agoFantastic beer too.
- sown 16y agoI originally wanted to move there but there doesn't seem to be many jobs. :( Correct me if I'm wrong.
- davidw 16y ago"There don't seem to be many jobs"
- pistoriusp 16y agoI know this doesn't add anything; and I shouldn't be meta commenting. But that was very funny! Almost spat out my tea.
- ovi256 16y agoWell done, sir, well done.
- cdr 16y agoCompared to SF, or even Seattle? Obviously not even close. There are jobs though if you're set on being there, not to mention the possibility of (tele)commuting.
- tzs 16y agoOK, Wolfram Alpha kicks ass. Here's the most interesting part: | San Francisco, California | Seattle, Washington total sales tax rate | 9.5% | 9.5% When people from California tell me it must be nice to live in a state like Washington, that doesn't have a state income tax, I like to torture them by pointing out that the lack of a state income tax is made up for by a high sales tax. Then they ask what the sales tax is, and I tell them.
- gvb 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_State... "At 8.25%, California has the highest state sales tax, which can total up to 10.75% with local sales tax included." "Washington has a 6.5% statewide sales tax." What am I missing???
- just_the_tip 16y agoKing County also levies a sales tax.
- tzs 16y agoThe point is that although our sales tax is high in Washington, partly because we do not have in income tax, it's still not as high as California, which DOES have an income tax--and a pretty hefty income tax at that. Hence when we tell Californians that not having an income tax is not as great as it sounds because it means we pay an outrageously high sales tax, and then they realize that our outrageously high sales tax is lower than theirs, it is funny. No ones pays as low as 6.5% here, though, because there are county and local taxes. The state is divided into a bunch of small regions for tax purposes (about 2.6 million locations), roughly corresponding to zip+5 regions, not not exactly. I've got a database giving the rate in each of these locations. Checking that database, the minimum actual sales tax is 7%, the maximum is 9.5%, and the average (giving equal weight to each location) is 8.6%. Here are all the rates, and how many locations have each rate: +---------+----------+ | rate | count(*) | +---------+----------+ | 0.07000 | 22526 | | 0.07500 | 12404 | | 0.07600 | 38365 | | 0.07700 | 172606 | | 0.07800 | 258871 | | 0.07900 | 174886 | | 0.08000 | 65948 | | 0.08100 | 118239 | | 0.08200 | 148568 | | 0.08300 | 43973 | | 0.08400 | 115138 | | 0.08500 | 131129 | | 0.08600 | 224180 | | 0.08700 | 210720 | | 0.09200 | 41020 | | 0.09300 | 282441 | | 0.09500 | 622649 | +---------+----------+
- jwecker 16y agoThe vast majority of the difference in that particular comparison is housing- which must apply to buying houses, because comparing rents certainly doesn't give 45% difference. So... this data is meaningless unless you own your house here and plan on buying there, from what I can tell, which probably excludes most of us. Edit: OK, I'm finding some cheaper rents, but I think my main analysis stands.
- modeless 16y agoThere's also the fact that Washington has no state income tax; that's 10% in Seattle's favor that isn't even accounted for (I looked up ACCRA cost of living indices and they are after-tax).
- _delirium 16y agoA shorter move: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+francisco+to+oakland+with+a+salary+of+$120000 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+fra...
- MikeCapone 16y agoI think it's the most useful thing that I've seen WA do so far. I just wish it worked for Canadian cities.
- tocomment 16y agoI'd love to see a list of 50 us cities or so with the lowest costs of living so i could pick one to move to. Alas I searched "Cities in us with lower cost of living than washington dc" but wa didn't understand.
- stretchwithme 16y agohmmm...this one's a little vaguer http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+portland+maine+to+portland+oregon+with+a+salary+of+$120000&x=0&y=0 http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+portland+...
- asnyder 16y agoCompare to New York, http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+francisco+to+new+york+city+with+a+salary+of+$120000 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+fra.... Amazing how much more expensive living in New York is.
- RK 16y agoI've been thinking about moving to Houston. Imaging the difference if you had been in NYC: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+new+york+city+to+houston+with+a+salary+of+$120000 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+new+yor...
- jfager 16y agoAnecdotally, I moved to NY from SF just over a year ago, and my cost of living went down quite a bit. I'm not in Manhattan, which is what that chart is for, but Brooklyn is at least as much 'city' as SF, plus Manhattan's just a short train ride away. Downsides: not as pretty (though plenty pretty in its own way), worse weather (hotter in the summer, colder in the winter), people seem a bit more high-strung.
- Keyframe 16y agohuh? link gives me: "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure how to compute an answer from your input"
- houseabsolute 16y agoEdit: totally responding to the wrong post. Tabs are confusing. Sorry guys.
- coryl 16y agoWrong post?
- houseabsolute 16y agoIndeed. Tabs are confusing! :'(
- teaspoon 16y agoA Microsoft recruiter sent me something very similar to this the spring before I graduated from college.
- dylanz 16y agoWeather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is supposed to make me feel better. The moral of my own personal story is... I'm moving back to California. I need sun. I'll pay a premium for the mental health of myself and my children. How many days of sun are there in San Francisco compared to Seattle? If you had to live in a place with awesome tech scenes but with no sun, you might as well choose Seattle... it's cheaper.
- _delirium 16y agoHere's some data, fwiw: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/pctposrank.txt http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/pctposrank.tx... Looks like SF is about 66% sunny, while Seattle is 43%. I imagine the bigger contrast is Seattle vs. Silicon Valley or East Bay, though, since SF itself isn't all that sunny (especially the western parts; I'd be surprised if the Sunset District were any sunnier than Seattle).
- MartinCron 16y agoThat chart doesn't take into account the difference in latitude, it gets dark pretty early up here in Seattle, and while it stays light later in the summer, it is more than some people can bear.
- dagw 16y agoHaving grown up in Norway and currently living in Sweden I have to say I find the short summer evenings in the southern part of the world really jarring. I cannot get used to it being pitch black outside by (what feels like) mid-afternoon during the summer.
- MartinCron 16y ago
- natrius 16y agoActual cost of living calculators give better results than this. This one tells you how much your disposable income would change by keeping the percentile of your current salary constant: http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_start.asp http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_... (Hint: Move to Austin.)
- piramida 16y agoAs usual in WA, only works with that exact input. Give it any international city - silent fail.
- badave 16y agoIt works for some of the bigger cities in the US though. I was comparing where I live now to where I lived before and it seemed pretty accurate.
- psyklic 16y agoThe largest reduction is in housing (45% less in Seattle). However, unless your goal in moving IS to save money, I bet that most people would pay the same -- either upgrade to a larger place or move to a more desirable part of town. Also, note that housing costs are based on housing sale prices. Rent is definitely higher in San Francisco, but it does not always follow housing sale prices.