Los Angeles is not is as expensive as most people
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5/7/2011
I am retired and live near Downtown L.A. Most people think that this would be one of the worst places to retire in the world. Not true.
It is cheap to live here. I just bought 8 pints of strawberries for a dollar! I drink to that and get a potent greyhound cocktail at one of the local bars for $3. Too many, I sober up with a good huevos rancheros breakfast w coffee for under $5. Not that chain store crap, but good food. I use my heat and air conditioning rarely and my typical gas bill is less than $10 per month. My electric bill is around $50. The weather is free here and it's mostly room temperature. I wonder how much New Yorkers would be willing to pay for that?
The weather solves another problem. I get around town on a motor scooter which I couldn't do as easily in Omaha. It has solved 2 problems: parking and gasoline cost. I highly recommend 2 wheels in congested cities. Los Angeles is more like Florence, Italy than Florence, Kentucky. I wouldn't want one there or in some of the outlying exurbs of L.A. either. When gas went up to $4.50 per gallon, it cost me an extra $4 per month and blew away my budget! I never need change for parking meters.
So what does cost so much in L.A.? Housing so many say. Not true either. Entry to housing does. I bought my first house for $127,000 and sold it 10 years later for $330,000. I bought my second house for $174,000 and is worth around $350,000 even after the housing crash. I should have sold it for $575,000 two years ago:(. But if you consider that I profited $200k on the first home, wasn't the second home free? Of course it was. It was just the things that I had to sacrifice in the beginning to come up with that first down payment.
Finally, I would get bored quickly if I ever lived in any other city. Believe me, I can't imagine ever getting bored in L.A. Maybe that is why we generally out-live most other people. In spite of all the perceived threats to Angelenos from earthquakes to smog and wildfires, we tend to stay interested and alive.
May | Los Angeles, CA