Why not live in the suburbs of bay area (East Bay, for example), and quickly cut 30% of your housing costs? Obviously the commute sucks (I endure it daily), but it makes the numbers work. It boggles my mind that most software workers think that they have to live in SF. Bonus: There's Walmart and strip malls in the East Bay. :)

Agreed with your other points though. Not having staate income tax is a huge bonus.

> It boggles my mind that most software workers think that they have to live in SF

Because they don't want to spend 6 hours a day commuting?

6 hours is kind of an exaggeration, it's more like 2 hours total which could be well worth it

OOC, what's your daily commute in total hours spent on the road, and what does it cost you monthly?

I drive 22mi across hwy 92 to work.

44mi x $.535/mi[1] + $5 bridge toll = $28.54 per day to commute to work.

That's $~628/mo all-in to commute via car. My additional housing costs in the peninsula would easily be more than that for equivalent housing (2br SFH).

Commute is typically 40m-1:10 to work and 28m-1:10 back, depending on when I leave (and time of year). I normally head to the gym after work which means I skip the heaviest traffic on my way home.

Averaged, commutes are 40m each, which was my door-to-door time when I used to commute to the city via Bart (admittedly, not as pleasant).

[1] Based on IRS mileage rate.

Thank you for using IRS mileage rates. It's so intellectually dishonest when someone has a 60 mile commute and says, "Oh it only costs me $3 because my car gets really good mileage!"

Those mileage rates are very, very generous though. As a car owner who tracks the expenses pretty closely, I can tell you, driving 10,000 miles a year does not cost anything like $5350, inclusive of car payments (or depreciation if you've paid it off), gas, maintenance, tolls, parking, registration, inevitable tickets, etc. It might be about right if you drive an $80k car that gets 15MPG, though.

Its a reasonable rate to reimburse employees for driving their own vehicles for work by (I'd estimate its about 95%ile of expenses), but a poor rate to estimate general car ownership costs by.

Tell us more!

What's the breakdown for your actual all-in commute costs on a per-mile basis, and how have you arrived at those numbers?

Oh gosh, that's a cakewalk of a commute. Thanks for the details!

Nice! We're just a few hours away. Visited during the Stanley Cup madness, they love their Preds. Knoxville is also a very cool place, both possible spots for us as well.

I lived (edit: in SF) for about six months a few years ago. One thing I did find is that liquor at SafeWay is way cheaper than it is back home, lol.

Shoot me an email (in my profile), interested to chat.

My comment suffered from a contextual lobotomy. I lived in SF for ~six months, not Nashville, sorry. :/