Ask HN: Any tips for living cheaply in SF? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Any tips for living cheaply in SF?

#81

Post by octane » Mon, May 04, 2009, 6:18 AM UTC

rms wrote: post #47

peterbraden wrote: post #34

you can get pretty cheap rent if you don't mind living in sketchy areas. I lived on treasure island for a few months, and besides feeling like the set of a zombie film, it was alright living for ~600pm I lived in the mission for a little more. Definitely try the east bay for cheap rent- if you don't mind getting the bus/bart into the city the rent is a lot cheaper.

The catch of treasure island is that in an earthquake, it is at very high risk of liquefaction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_liquefaction

That's not necessarily the catch of TI, the Marina also suffers from that unfortunate side effect during earthquakes. The real catch is that nobody knows how toxic the soil is.

Re: Ask HN: Any tips for living cheaply in SF?

#82

Post by octane » Mon, May 04, 2009, 6:21 AM UTC

My honest advice to you is go to college and do drugs and drink booze and have sex, 3 things you've probably never done before in your life. College is an excellent place to do all those things for the first time. The corner of Geary and Polk is not.

Get that shit (into and) out of your system before you move to SF or you'll never make it out alive. Trust me on this one.

SF is a fucking dangerous place if you go there without your adventure meter properly calibrated.

Re: Ask HN: Any tips for living cheaply in SF?

#83

Post by rmaccloy » Mon, May 04, 2009, 6:37 AM UTC

I moved here when I was 18 (in 2006) with $1500 in the bank (and no parents to fall back on.) It's tough but doable. I ended up taking a job with an existing startup, but at the time my first priority was being able to eat :)

If I were you, I would not move here to do the solo founder thing without having plenty of connections; you need a good support network (which will hook you up with contract gigs too.) Bring a co-founder or hook up with some people who are already here and can introduce you.

That said, just being young and having the balls to move out here and give it a shot will open doors for you. Network aggressively, who knows?

As far as tips go: You can get a room for $500-$700 a month with varying levels of sketchiness; there are enough hacker houses around that you might find something helpful if you trawl CL long enough. Food is a matter of how gnarly you're willing to get :)

Don't bring your car and don't bring a bunch of gear; parking will cost you upwards of $150/mo and it's never included, and gearwise there's a non-trivial possibility you'll need to move fast if you're doing a cheap sublet or hosteling it.

Re: Ask HN: Any tips for living cheaply in SF?

#84

Post by neilk » Mon, May 04, 2009, 7:38 AM UTC

I wish you well, and I don't think your plan is totally crazy, but I think $3K is not enough runway for SF. $5K is better. But at $3K, everything has to go right. A single disaster would ruin everything, like:

- Your freelance gigs not paying you in time - Finding that your new roommates are impossible to live with - Getting tossed out of your new place when your housemate wants his girlfriend to move in - Some unexpected expense (car accident, hospital visit)

Also, you will not believe what some people are offering for those $700/month apartments. On Craigslist at that price, you might find generally terrible places with sketchy roommates and your "room" may literally be a former closet. Believe me, I have seen them. I am very frugal about rent so I have investigated those sorts of listings. There are $700/month rooms that are halfway decent but those don't tend to pop up on Craigslist. Working your friend network in SF might be the best option.

And, your estimates of expenses are too low.

Still, if you are looking to just break even, it might be worth a try. Just be prepared to go home or try to get a parental loan (if that's possible) if it doesn't work out.

Ditto on the false economy of living in the peninsula. Unless you are trying to get a job at one of the Palo Alto or Mountain View area startups.

There are a lot of cool things going on in Oakland so I would consider that as a possibility, but it's also more complex for a newcomer to figure out a decent place to live, and transit is considerably more expensive.