5 ms·

> If you’re trying to bootstrap, being based in San Francisco is awful. Especially if you have a family. I rented a four bedroom house in a great neighborhood

> If you’re trying to bootstrap, being based in San Francisco is awful. Especially if you have a family. I rented a four bedroom house in a great neighborhood in Sacramento that was a bike ride from Midtown for $2900/mo. We ended up buying a bigger house in the same neighborhood for even less per month. No commute, food is cheap, etc. The cost savings are enormous, and I'm sure it's more expensive than St. Louis... Yep: http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/sacramento-ca/st.-louis-mo/50000 http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/sacramento-ca/st.-l... The trick outside the Bay Area, if you are consult-strapping, is keeping the contracts coming in. Probably better in areas like St. Louis than in Sac.

jlgaddis 13y ago
I live in the Midwest. My monthly expenses are roughly half of your monthly rent. (And I have fiber coming into my house and can get 1 Gbps.)
- carsongross 13y ago
  Yeah, man. I'd move in a heartbeat if it weren't for family in the area.
  - mjn 13y ago
    Having grown up in the midwest, one of the main things keeping me from moving back (besides particularities of jobs/etc.) is the weather. Really really cold winters, hot & humid summers. Nice springs and autumns, though, if I could arrange to be somewhere else Dec-Feb and June-Aug. I'd pay a premium to live somewhere with a longer "nice to be outdoors" season, though how much of a premium is a good question. I actually live in Scandinavia now, and the winters here are warm in comparison!
    - SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
      I live near Boulder, one of the "hot" cities to create a start-up. In December Inc. magazine named it the top city for start-ups in fact. [1] Winters are only occasionally cold (it hit the 60s twice in the last week, and typically we get "warm" stretches throughout the winter, with only a couple of weeks of hard cold) and summers are dry. And a friend of mine just bought a 3-bedroom house near here for ~$90k (about 30 minutes from downtown Boulder). My neighborhood (not in Boulder) goes for 3x that, and Boulder proper goes from twice that up to SF-level prices ($4.3M for a condo [2]), depending on the exact part of Boulder. There's a crazy steep price gradient. On the other hand you can buy a 2 bedroom mobile home for less than $30k and live IN Boulder, if you want to really operate on a shoestring. [3] Depends on how you want to spend your money. :) [1] http://www.inc.com/magazine/201312/boulder-colorado-fast-growing-business.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/201312/boulder-colorado-fast-gro... [2] http://is.gd/MPZl88 http://is.gd/MPZl88 -- the most expensive condo in Boulder as of today, according to Zillow. You can get into the $10's of millions for a house. But you can also pay less than a half million for a house. Like I said above, crazy price gradient. [3] http://boulder.craigslist.org/reo/4275249378.html http://boulder.craigslist.org/reo/4275249378.html
    - nextos 13y ago
      Oh, really? I'm living in Scandinavia and looking to move elsewhere. Midwest was one of my options, and I had never thought winters were so bad over there!
      - doorhammer 13y ago
        Good idea of what it looks like in St Louis: http://weatherspark.com/averages/31697/St-Louis-Missouri-United-States http://weatherspark.com/averages/31697/St-Louis-Missouri-Uni... Humidity was always the killer for me. I remember flying from San Diego to St. Louis. It was 75 degrees and dry in San Diego, and 102 degrees with 94% humidity in St. Louis. I wanted to die, heh That said, I always liked the variety. It means that I have pretty strong, nostalgic feelings associated with the seasons changing.
        nextos 13y ago
        Oh, variety is good. Weather here in Denmark is so plain and boring. The only remarkable season is May-July, thanks to the long days and relatively warm weather. I totally agree humidity is horrible. I've stayed a few summers in The Hamptons, Long Island---and humidity was a killer. I cannot imagine coping with 102 F / 94%.
        doorhammer 13y ago
        Yeah, 102 wasn't normal. It just stuck out most in my mind because it was pretty literally seared into my brain, and the contrast to cali didn't help :) I cycled twenty or thirty miles a day pretty consistently and it never ceased to amaze me how quickly my shirt would become a sopping wet rag the second I stopped
        fractalsea 13y ago
        That site is a brilliant resource. Thanks for sharing. One of my main considerations when moving somewhere is the climate. It would be cool if the site had links to places with similar climates (could be calculated with some kind of distance metric from all the variables). I loved the climate in Sydney, so it would be nice to see a list of places in the world where it's similar.
    - doorhammer 13y ago
      I moved from St. Louis to Atlanta and I kind of miss having a cold winter with snow (though Atlanta's gotten pretty frickin cold this winter) Humidity sucks though, heh. I actually really miss St. Louis
    - colanderman 13y ago
      To SomeCallMeTim: you useful comment shows up dead for me. Perhaps you have been unfairly hellbanned?
slm_HN 13y ago
I know this isn't exactly the best metric, but the demand for programmers in St. Louis seems very low. When I look at Craigslist I see a couple Java jobs, a couple PHP jobs and even one godforsaken VB.net job. Even Jeff Atwood doesn't use VB.net. So I'm doubtful that it would be easier to keep the contracts coming in while in St. Louis.
- excid3 13y ago
  Not quite. We've got about 5000 programming jobs or so available here. Of course they're not all with the latest technology, but things like http://launchcodestl.com http://launchcodestl.com are working to help fill these open positions.
- bzalasky 13y ago
  Craigslist doesn't hold the same clout outside of the Bay Area in my experience. Almost never the best place to look for anything.
  - icantthinkofone 13y ago
    This is true. Craigslist posters are typically looking to get someone dirt cheap here. The real job listings for here are on Monster.
- thecoffman 13y ago
  As a coder living in St. Louis, I can say that this hasn't been my experience at all. There is an exceptionally high demand for coders around here. Barely a week goes by without someone trying to poach good programmers. Its not necessarily all sexy startups, but there is an excellent market for programmers in general. We have a fairly good startup scene (though obviously nothing on SF) and a large number of more traditional corporate employers of programmers like Express Scripts, Monsanto, Wells Fargo, Scottrade, Ameren, Charter, Anheuser Busch, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman. There is also an exceptionally active biotechnology scene here.
  - doorhammer 13y ago
NDizzle 13y ago
I did the same thing but I skipped past Sac to Yuba City. 13% cheaper housing here according to the same site. I'm renting a 4/3 2500 sq ft house on an 8k sq ft lot 3 blocks away from an 8/10 greatschools.org K-8 (I have 3 kids.) for $1600/mo. I telecommute to my Bay Area job.
joshAg 13y ago
As someone who grew up in roseville, I am really, really glad for your kids' sake that you bought a house in midtown.

jlgaddis 13y ago

I live in the Midwest. My monthly expenses are roughly half of your monthly rent. (And I have fiber coming into my house and can get 1 Gbps.)

carsongross 13y ago
Yeah, man. I'd move in a heartbeat if it weren't for family in the area.
- mjn 13y ago
  Having grown up in the midwest, one of the main things keeping me from moving back (besides particularities of jobs/etc.) is the weather. Really really cold winters, hot & humid summers. Nice springs and autumns, though, if I could arrange to be somewhere else Dec-Feb and June-Aug. I'd pay a premium to live somewhere with a longer "nice to be outdoors" season, though how much of a premium is a good question. I actually live in Scandinavia now, and the winters here are warm in comparison!
  - SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
    I live near Boulder, one of the "hot" cities to create a start-up. In December Inc. magazine named it the top city for start-ups in fact. [1] Winters are only occasionally cold (it hit the 60s twice in the last week, and typically we get "warm" stretches throughout the winter, with only a couple of weeks of hard cold) and summers are dry. And a friend of mine just bought a 3-bedroom house near here for ~$90k (about 30 minutes from downtown Boulder). My neighborhood (not in Boulder) goes for 3x that, and Boulder proper goes from twice that up to SF-level prices ($4.3M for a condo [2]), depending on the exact part of Boulder. There's a crazy steep price gradient. On the other hand you can buy a 2 bedroom mobile home for less than $30k and live IN Boulder, if you want to really operate on a shoestring. [3] Depends on how you want to spend your money. :) [1] http://www.inc.com/magazine/201312/boulder-colorado-fast-growing-business.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/201312/boulder-colorado-fast-gro... [2] http://is.gd/MPZl88 http://is.gd/MPZl88 -- the most expensive condo in Boulder as of today, according to Zillow. You can get into the $10's of millions for a house. But you can also pay less than a half million for a house. Like I said above, crazy price gradient. [3] http://boulder.craigslist.org/reo/4275249378.html http://boulder.craigslist.org/reo/4275249378.html
  - nextos 13y ago
    Oh, really? I'm living in Scandinavia and looking to move elsewhere. Midwest was one of my options, and I had never thought winters were so bad over there!
    - doorhammer 13y ago
      Good idea of what it looks like in St Louis: http://weatherspark.com/averages/31697/St-Louis-Missouri-United-States http://weatherspark.com/averages/31697/St-Louis-Missouri-Uni... Humidity was always the killer for me. I remember flying from San Diego to St. Louis. It was 75 degrees and dry in San Diego, and 102 degrees with 94% humidity in St. Louis. I wanted to die, heh That said, I always liked the variety. It means that I have pretty strong, nostalgic feelings associated with the seasons changing.
      - nextos 13y ago
        Oh, variety is good. Weather here in Denmark is so plain and boring. The only remarkable season is May-July, thanks to the long days and relatively warm weather. I totally agree humidity is horrible. I've stayed a few summers in The Hamptons, Long Island---and humidity was a killer. I cannot imagine coping with 102 F / 94%.
        doorhammer 13y ago
        Yeah, 102 wasn't normal. It just stuck out most in my mind because it was pretty literally seared into my brain, and the contrast to cali didn't help :) I cycled twenty or thirty miles a day pretty consistently and it never ceased to amaze me how quickly my shirt would become a sopping wet rag the second I stopped
      - fractalsea 13y ago
        That site is a brilliant resource. Thanks for sharing. One of my main considerations when moving somewhere is the climate. It would be cool if the site had links to places with similar climates (could be calculated with some kind of distance metric from all the variables). I loved the climate in Sydney, so it would be nice to see a list of places in the world where it's similar.
  - doorhammer 13y ago
    I moved from St. Louis to Atlanta and I kind of miss having a cold winter with snow (though Atlanta's gotten pretty frickin cold this winter) Humidity sucks though, heh. I actually really miss St. Louis
  - colanderman 13y ago
    To SomeCallMeTim: you useful comment shows up dead for me. Perhaps you have been unfairly hellbanned?

slm_HN 13y ago

I know this isn't exactly the best metric, but the demand for programmers in St. Louis seems very low. When I look at Craigslist I see a couple Java jobs, a couple PHP jobs and even one godforsaken VB.net job. Even Jeff Atwood doesn't use VB.net. So I'm doubtful that it would be easier to keep the contracts coming in while in St. Louis.

excid3 13y ago
Not quite. We've got about 5000 programming jobs or so available here. Of course they're not all with the latest technology, but things like http://launchcodestl.com http://launchcodestl.com are working to help fill these open positions.
bzalasky 13y ago
Craigslist doesn't hold the same clout outside of the Bay Area in my experience. Almost never the best place to look for anything.
- icantthinkofone 13y ago
  This is true. Craigslist posters are typically looking to get someone dirt cheap here. The real job listings for here are on Monster.
thecoffman 13y ago
As a coder living in St. Louis, I can say that this hasn't been my experience at all. There is an exceptionally high demand for coders around here. Barely a week goes by without someone trying to poach good programmers. Its not necessarily all sexy startups, but there is an excellent market for programmers in general. We have a fairly good startup scene (though obviously nothing on SF) and a large number of more traditional corporate employers of programmers like Express Scripts, Monsanto, Wells Fargo, Scottrade, Ameren, Charter, Anheuser Busch, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman. There is also an exceptionally active biotechnology scene here.
- doorhammer 13y ago

NDizzle 13y ago

I did the same thing but I skipped past Sac to Yuba City. 13% cheaper housing here according to the same site. I'm renting a 4/3 2500 sq ft house on an 8k sq ft lot 3 blocks away from an 8/10 greatschools.org K-8 (I have 3 kids.) for $1600/mo. I telecommute to my Bay Area job.

joshAg 13y ago

As someone who grew up in roseville, I am really, really glad for your kids' sake that you bought a house in midtown.