I moved from Pittsburgh, PA to the South Bay last summer. While the cost of living is somewhat higher in the Valley, in my experience it is not as much higher a

I moved from Pittsburgh, PA to the South Bay last summer. While the cost of living is somewhat higher in the Valley, in my experience it is not as much higher as it is usually made out to be (except for buying a house, as pg mentioned). * Housing: I'm renting a 4 bedroom / 3 bathroom house in a nice area of Sunnyvale with 2 friends. My share of the rent is about the same as the rent I was paying for a large 1 bedroom apartment in Pittsburgh. * Food: Restaurant prices seem to be about the same or a little bit higher. Groceries are definitely more expensive. The first time I went to the grocery store, all of the prices seemed 10-20% too high. However, with some careful shopping, you can stock up when items are on sale and not pay much more than I was paying in Pittsburgh. Buying fruits and veggies at a farmer's market also helps keep the cost down and the nutritional value up. * Car: I drive more often and further now. The Valley is not designed for pedestrians. With the rapid fall of gas prices, this hasn't been a big deal for me, but plan on spending more on gas and maintenance if you don't currently drive much. * Taxes: California's sales tax is very high. It's going up by another 1% on April 1, to 9.25% (or more, depending on where you live). California also has one of the highest personal income taxes in the country. I'm not happy with this state of affairs, but I think it is worth it to be in the Valley. In the long run, this could really hurt California, though. In short, it is more expensive for me to live in the Valley than in Pittsburgh, but it's not as bad as I was led to believe. Perhaps this is because I don't have much interest in buying house at this stage in my life. Most of the people who told me the cost of living was "insane" in the Valley were family men who already own a house and were factoring the cost of replacing that house into their calculations. For the rest of us, if you can get by in some other major U.S. city, you can probably get by in the Valley.