Learning to Live in California for Under $50,000
What if I told you that you can live well in California with an income of less than $50,000 a year?
While many working professionals in California struggle with the ability of buying a home... In fact, if we look at a county like Los Angeles... 52.1% of households actually rent. This is significant given the population of this county is approximately 10,000,000 people.
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. This probably goes against the wide perception that most people in California are wealthy...this is a very tiny part of the population. This is not the reality...
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 families live on this amount. In fact, this works out to be about $11 per hour for 2 full-time workers or one worker pulling in $22 per hour.
The most expensive line item of any California resident is housing. With $46,000 you shouldn’t even consider buying a home since it will sink you...We are giving this person a $1,250 a month allocation for rent. Believe it or not there are many nice 1 bedroom apartments for this price...Now you have to manage your expectations. You won’t be renting a beach front home in Newport Coast but you also won’t be living in unsafe neighborhoods.
The next major line item we’ll look at is automobile costs...First, you need to realistic about what you can buy. For our example, we are looking at purchasing a 1993 Toyota Corolla. You can probably get a 1994 or go with a Honda Civic of the same year and still fall under your $3,000 budget...
http://www.mybudget360.com/the-perfect-46000-budget-learning-to-live-in-california-for-under-50000/
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