It is hard to get around California with no car. The next major line item we’ll look at is automobile costs. It will take some time to research but you will find something safe and comfortable for $1,250 a month. But with 88 Cities in Los Angeles County we do have some room for flexibility. Since our budget is sensitive to housing prices, it is important we first manage our expectations in regards to price. For example, let us take a quick look at some rentals in Seal Beach:Īfter running this quick query, we can determine the market price of homes in this immediate region. With this tool, you simply put the address of the potential rental and it will use Goolge maps to give you a rough estimate of other rentals in the area. The next tool you’ll be using to find out whether you are paying too much or getting a good deal is Rent-o-meter. Also, how close to your work would you like to be? Your quality of life will depend on whether you want a studio, 1 bedroom, or 2 bedrooms home. You won’t be renting a beach front home in Newport Coast but you also won’t be living in unsafe neighborhoods. Now you have to manage your expectations. Take a look at what I found with a quick query:Īs, you can see there are plenty of places in safe neighborhoods for this price range. Craigslist will be one of your tools for investigating rental properties. Believe it or not there are many nice 1 bedroom apartments for this price. We are giving this person a $1,250 a month allocation for rent. With this kind of budget you have small room for errors. In fact, many people did buy homes with this kind of budget and now find themselves part of the problems the state is facing. With $46,000 you shouldn’t even consider buying a home since it will sink you. The most expensive line item of any California resident is housing. With this budget, you are even saving! So if you find yourself in a situation like this, you may want to consider some of the items on the list. You won’t be buying a McMansion here but you won’t be drowning in debt either. Make no mistake, this is a minimalist budget here. After all, where do you find a fuel economical car for $3,000? Or where can you shop for groceries and pay $400 a month to take care of breakfast, lunch and dinner? We will go into the details of the budget above. Now I know there have been many budgets put out on various finance and housing sites yet they really do not point you in the right direction as to where to find information. First, let us provide the full monthly budget and discuss the line items in greater detail: In fact, this works out to be about $11 per hour for 2 full-time workers or one worker pulling in $22 per hour. In this article, we are going to provide a full monthly budget for either a single person or working couple that pulls in $46,000 a year. Many of these working families are simply getting by and have little way of accessing the media to discuss their struggles. This probably goes against the wide perception that most people in California are wealthy and live in Beverly Hills, Brentwood, or Laguna Beach but this is a very tiny part of the population. The median household income for Los Angeles County in 2004 was $43,518 so our hypothetical budget of $46,000 could apply to 5,000,000 people living in this highly populated area. The median household income for the entire United States is $46,326. This is not as far fetched as you would suspect. This is significant given the population of this county is approximately 10,000,000 people. In fact, if we look at a county like Los Angeles, the most populous county in Southern California 52.1% of households actually rent. While many working professionals in California struggle with the ability of buying a home, there is a large class of people who are simply dealing with the day to day items of life. California has one of the highest costs of living and if you can figure out how to live here making $46,000 a year, you can live anywhere in this country. What if I told you that you can live well in California with an income of less than $50,000 a year? A budget of this kind is not some sort of financial bait and switch but a realistic budget that many frugal people use on a daily basis.
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