When I was exploring the considerations that I needed to take in before moving to Los Angeles, it dawned on me that I was never going to have an apartment again where I could get away with paying some relatively paltry sum like I did in Pittsburgh. To put it bluntly: cheap wasn’t likely to happen again.
Since moving out here more than a month ago, I can effectively report that my rent is double what I last paid as a tenant of a four-bedroom apartment…and I still live in a four-bedroom place. And where I thought the quality of the neighborhood might go up with the added cost, yeah, that didn’t happen, either. But at least it’s sunny all the time, and that has to count for something.
Here, I have mariachi music, dogs that bark at ungodly hours, two roosters that cockadoodledoo right at the crack of dawn, and no one who speaks English in addition to an area that’s no cleaner than the last college ghetto where I lived. But at least the neighbors are fairly friendly, and I feel safe here. There is something to be said for that.
And with moving 2,500 miles west, taxes went up, too, from 7 percent to 9.75 percent on store items. It’s an extra $2.75 per $100 spent, so it doesn’t hurt like you’d think a torturous maiming ought to feel. I compare it more to keeping a wound open and letting a slowly intruding infection of gangrene do all of the work. Sorry if you’ve not yet had dinner. The metaphor worked, and I’m sticking with it.
But, like Pittsburgh, the city and state do not incur taxes upon groceries, and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to buy a loaf of bread. There are more impoverished people out here than not, lest you believe that there are no poor people out here as the movies portray. People need cheap places to grab food. I shop at Food4Less where the parking lot is always a mess, I’ve had people beg me for change, the clientele makes Walmart’s look wholesome, and did I mention it’s cheap?
I could go to Ralphs (no apostrophe), which is akin to Giant Eagle for all of you Easterners (Geeze, is it bad I consider Ohio east now?), but it’s a little more expensive. Demographically, it’s much younger and more affluent, and it seems to be the place where the USC students shop, so it might pose a place where I may be able to meet people around my same general demographic a little easier…but it’s expensive. And seriously, as I find my travel receipts (which are all tax-deductible as moving expenses — even Taco Bell), I realize I spent a whole lot to get out here. I’m in saving mode before the festering plague of creditors and student loan officers hunt me down, so I think I’d rather save a buck or two where I can.
That’s not to say the food quality at any one place is any better, either. On the contrary, while bananas are about 20 cents per pound more expensive out here than they were in Pennsylvania and Ohio, almost everything is cheaper in the store, and it’s the same level of quality. I can buy real steaks out here for $4 per pound, which is unheard of back east. And, weirdly enough, ground beef is quite expensive out here, so I’ve substituted ground turkey in its place.
As for shopping here and there, that 10 percent thing gets in the way a little, but it’s not unbearable at first glance. And bars are similarly priced to how they were back home. While I’ve not gone to a whole lot of places yet, I went to a piano bar the other weekend whose clientele looked to have a median age of around 35. Other than some 24-ounce cans of PBR (oh yes, I went there), most of their beers were high quality stuff, and not overpriced particularly.
It gives me hope that this place becomes just as livable the further up the socioeconomic ladder I am able to move in these parts. ‘Cause honestly, this place isn’t New York City expensive. It’s not Washington DC expensive. It’s not just a tourist town; real people live here. And in saying that, at least from the perspective of one of Los Angeles’ lowest common denominators, it’s not a terribly overpriced place to live with me, my 50 cents more expensive per gallon gasoline (I just paid $3.799 per gallon tonight), and I.
To sum everything up, Los Angeles isn’t a terribly overpriced place to live, so I dub that notion pure fiction. It sure as hell ain’t cheap and I still believe California might be run by socialists, but it’s definitely doable on a right-outta-college salary. Did I mention it’s always sunny and warm out here, too?
Things That Rhyme with 'Cars' 