If you are making $100K in Albany, GA then to have same standard of living in SFO you need to make $201K: http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/inde

If you are making $100K in Albany, GA then to have same standard of living in SFO you need to make $201K: http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/index.html http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/index.html So SFO/Bay area is that expensive. Most people don't think of that and assume that SFO requires modest 20% increase in cost of living. Absolutely not true. So before you get floored with these numbers you need to divide them by almost a factor of 2 for the corresponding standard of living.