Hi Sars,

I just read your advice to Laurel in Cleveland. I can shed some light on this, being from there as well, and knowing where she’s coming from and moving to. (Also, since I’ve been doing a bit of research on it as well, but enough about me.)

If she’s in theatre, fund-raising, a non-profit, or some sort of writing (generally, low paying fields in general), a lot of times these companies will send out help-wanted ads out of state to snare unsuspecting saps who have no idea of the difference in the cost of living.They’ll offer only few thousand more, and of course the candidate will think it’s a great raise, and end up with a rude awakening. I’ve seen this happen in NYC and Chicago in particular, with some good friends of mine, as well as myself, before I got into my current field.

The cost of living is more than 100 percent higher than in Cleveland. She’ll also need to take into account that she’ll have to give up her car, or store it. Not to mention her car insurance will DOUBLE. I just compared my current insurance, which I thought was astronomical at $1,600 per year – to the NYC rate of $2,300!

Coming from experience, I know you can scrape out a decent living in Cleveland with a high twenties salary, depending on where you’re living, but it’s likely she’ll probably doesn’t have a great deal of savings. (The average one-bedroom apartment in Cleveland = $550 a month.) At least, I really didn’t when I was making about 20K and living there.

Tell her to check out www.homefair.com. It has all sorts of salary conversion calculators and demographic information.I think it also has rental rate comparison. I got my auto insurance comparison there. I also saw a television show last night about New York, which said the average rent of a one-bedroom on the Upper West Side is $2,300 per month.

Just wanted to help. Lord knows I don’t want a fellow Clevelander to starve to death in the Naked City.

Best,
Sbeet

Dear Sbeet,

Thanks for the tip.I know how expensive it gets to live here, but since graduating from college, I haven’t lived anywhere else, so I don’t have much basis of comparison.

Another thing to keep in mind: whatever you pay for the one-bedroom, you won’t get much space.We live in our own asses around here, so if the thought of living on top of yourself and paying around half your monthly salary for the privilege makes you cringe, you’d do better to stay put.

Share!