Average costs of utilities and entertainment in Los Angeles?

September 6, 2006 2:02 PM

Is there an information source that gives average costs for utilities, rent, and other necessary expenses, broken down into categories, in specific cities or areas?

I was offered a job 2500 miles away from my current home, but need to sit down and do some math to make sure I can afford to live in Los Angeles/metro area. I am hoping to find information about how much specific services or things cost in LA or California (things like high-speed internet service, average utility costs, car insurance rates, emissions testing costs, etc.).

I can find plenty of cost-of-living calculators, but they just tell me I need to make X dollars to live at my current lifestyle. My current lifestyle is "living below the federal poverty line," and is totally untenable for LA or any post-grad-school life (like, I ride my bicycle everywhere; grow my own food; buy everything used; share rent, utilities, and car payments.) As this new job will make my earnings well above the poverty line, I would like to have a higher standard of living than the one I have now. I just need to know things like if high-speed internet service will be closer to $50 a month or $100 a month. And if car insurance is $300/year or $1,000/year.

Does anyone know of anywhere to get this type of data, on or off-line? I feel stupid asking this because I just got hired as a librarian and should be able to find this stuff, but it is eluding me.

posted by holyrood to work & money (9 comments total)

You can call the ultilites supplier and ask for average cost for particular dwellings, so I imagine they would have an average overall.

You can call Geico and ask how much insurance would be.

You can look on the internet and see how much different DSL and cable providers charge.

You can probably get on the LA city website to see how much emissions testing costs and I am sure you can get on a CA website to find out how much it would cost to register a car, et al.
posted by sulaine at 2:16 PM on September 6, 2006

Holyrood: No, but I'm sure some of the LA denizens can provide information. You might instead have posted a question about living costs in LA. ;)

I've been told to not try living in the LA metro area unless I make over $50k/yr. LA is completely uncommutable by anything except a car or motorcycle. Rents are north of $1000/mo for the nicer areas of town, and you do NOT want to live in the less nice areas of town. (Not sure where you're living now, your profile is ... sparse ... on information.) I'm not sure about insurance, but cable, phone, and broadband costs are about the same as everywhere else. Cost to register a car ... well, if your car has ever been registered in california before, and you don't have cali emissions, you might be SOL. You also have to pay a HEFTY tax on any car that you bring into California, and a bunch of other fees. Budget at least $1000 for expenses relating to car and driver's license registration.

I would heartily suggest using the power of the internets to find some people to talk to who live in the specific part of LA that you'll be moving to. My parents live in Cypress and my father employs a number of younger professionals that live and work in the Torrance area, so if you want to email me I can drop him an email and have him poll his employees.
posted by SpecialK at 2:41 PM on September 6, 2006

Just to clarify: do not yet know where I will be living (which is why I am wondering if there is a city/cities/county average for costs). This makes it difficult to contact providers of utilities-- they want to know which address/area I am interested in, and I don't know yet! I've looked through all the other ask metafilters relating to LA so I have some ideas for neighborhoods and realtors/agencies to look into for housing, but no specific addresses yet.

Thanks for the info so far (and SpecialK, I may take you up on the offer of email discussions-- thanks).
posted by holyrood at 2:52 PM on September 6, 2006

(For perhaps helpful info— Holyrood's my girlfriend, so any data that you might have found in her profile can probably be found in mine).
posted by klangklangston at 2:59 PM on September 6, 2006

You might check this site out for a very general idea. I've used it to compare the area I live in and 3 cities I'm familiar with and it seemed fairly close.
posted by buggzzee23 at 3:19 PM on September 6, 2006

Sorry for adding another cost of living calculator to your collection, I should have paid more attention to your post and less attention to my sandwich.

DSL is dirt cheap in SoCal. You can get 1500/384 for $12.95/mo or 6000/768 for $27.95 if you live in AT&T territory. It's a little higher if you move into Verizon territory, but still very affordable. DSLExtreme is a great provider for either territory and I give them my highest reccommendation.

Utilities are also quite a bit lower here than in Michigan. I just paid my electric bill for my 1200 sq ft house and it was $78.00 for a month when I ran the swamp coolers almost 24/7. A well insulated house of the same size would cost between 2-3 times that if equipped with AC instead of coolers.

My gas bill runs around $20.00/mo except for the 2-3 cold months when it might peak at around 60 bucks.
posted by buggzzee23 at 3:37 PM on September 6, 2006

Come join us Michiganders in SoCal! :) (Although I am over an hour away.)

Money:
While LA is certainly much more expensive than either the 313, 734 or 517, there are ways to make it cheaper.

I have friends living in Koreatown and bussing it to UCLA that have found places that are more reasonable than the average place.

I also have friends in Glendale who find it significantly cheaper than Santa Monica, where they used to live.

Differences:

I've noticed that people in SoCal are much more inclined to do things like live in mother-in-law apartments than people in Michigan are. Keep an eye open on Craig's List to see what is out there.

Overall:

In my opinion, you can make it work out here if you're making $35k/year, but you'll have to live extremely frugally. If you're making $45k/year, it is possible to make it. And, you can always get a night/weekend job to make it all work.

I would first figure out where you are gonna work, then figure out how to take the bus there and from what neighborhoods you can do that reasonably.
posted by k8t at 4:46 PM on September 6, 2006

See if you know anyone with this software who could do a comparison for you. The price of the sofware is retardedly high, though, so don't even think about buying it. I would guess some real estate agents might have access to the software. Maybe you can convince the library to buy it? :-D
posted by shepd at 8:15 AM on September 7, 2006

Thanks for your responses and links (and shepd, I actually do have access to that software through a different library! Libraries are awesome.).
posted by holyrood at 11:45 AM on September 7, 2006