"How much does it cost to move to LA?"
The answer to that is "More than $10,000."
I don't know HOW much more, but I can chronicle exactly what we spent our money on, and you can extrapolate from there, and determine how much you think you'll need for YOUR Epic Adventure.
So, without furthur ado, I humbly submit my Financial Guide to Completely Blowing $10,000...
MOVERS:
Way back in Spring of 2009, My husband Jay found a web site where we entered how much we had to move (estimated boxes, items of furniture, and distance,) and a moving company called us within a DAY with a bid to move us for only $1,200! Way too good to be true- and it was! But since we had to get 2 cars out there AND we wanted to ride together, a van seemed like the way to go. We wanted to have our Manifest Destiny adventure in a car so we could pull over and see the sights and explore our way across Rt. 66- this was a phenomenal luxury, and the one thing I'll never regret- driving together across America was an amazing journey, and you can read about it in my Manifest Destiny Journals that mark the beginning of my FB "notes."
We wanted to hire a moving van so we wouldn't have to worry. My Dad arranged to drive my car out for me once we'd settled, since he's a former pilot and can fly back for free, and wanted to drive 66 with his new wife as well. My Mom volunteered to keep our 2 cats for us until she could take them with her when she'd fly out to visit in September. This meant a trip free of yowling, miserable cats, sneaking pets in and out of "no pet" motels, and a happier stay with Jay's Aunt and Uncle, who let us live with them in Long Beach until we found an apartment. They are not cat people, but they are generous beyond belief and invited us to crash in the guest bedroom of their gorgeous condo for 5 weeks while we dealt with finding an apartment in LA.
Speaking of the generosity of others, I should also mention that if you're very lucky, a few Guardian Angels will help you along the way. Hopefully, you'll have some awesome people in your life who love you too. You'll find that love and support go a long, long, long way when you're in a new environment.
Since the bid on the moving truck was so great, we took the bait and hired the movers, who tacked on an additional $1,000 to their estimate after everything was loaded in the truck. They showed up 7 hours late, which made us miss my own farewell dinner after my Fringe play. Instead of the 5 guys they promised, two showed up. Only one spoke english- barely. A Florida downpour delayed them even furthur, and they wound us shoving paperwork in our hands saying sign, sign, while our stuff was getting soaked in the rain. We felt really uneasy. We felt trapped- but we felt like we had no choice- our stuff was either getting rained on or already on the truck, and it was 1:30 in the morning. We were exhausted. We signed. Big mistake. I came down with some sort of bizarre stomach flu and spent much of the next day barfing. I think my stomach knew we'd been cornholed.
The plan was for the Moving Company to store our stuff in a storage unit in Burbank until we found an apartment, then unload it for us when we found our new place.
Somehow, our stuff wound up being stored in Louisianna- or maybe Texas. They never did give us a straight answer, and stopped returning our calls when it was apparent that we were pissed.
HOUSE HUNTING:
Once we got to Long Beach, we'd drive the terrifying commute to LA and look for apartments, and I'd cry a lot. Apartment hunting is difficult- you have to drive around and call every posted "For Rent" sign you see, and make plans with the owner to see the unit. But hours go by in between viewings, and no one in LA will let you use their bathroom. So you sit, uncomfortably, looking at listings in a random McDonald's with WiFi, hoping that the few bucks you're spending to use their internet qualifies you to be a peeing customer. Plus, that stomach virus? Yeah, it kind of lingered, so anything I ate was a guaranteed horror-story in about 20 minutes. Being stuck in LA traffic with a belly full of rapidly-deteriorating Carl's Jr. is assuredly a lower level of Hell.
The apartments we found within our price range ($700-$900/month) were abysmal. Dark, squallid, depressing holes of depravity on shitty little streets full of barred windows and tipped over grocery carts. I would go inside, look at the hideous mouldering bathroom, the tiny windowless bedroom, and a kitchen the size of a shower stall. The owners would tell us, "oh, you'll have to buy a stove. And a refridgerator." The one window in the place inevitable featured a magnificent vista of a cinderblock wall. Each and every one we visited made me physically ill. I could clearly imagine myself living there, growing severely depressed, and hanging myself, but I doubted any of the structural support would be able to handle my dead weight. Yellowed, tumerous walls closed in on me at every turn. And I cried. I cried at McDonald's. I cried at the Chevron where we bought gas so I could pee. Pretty much anywhere I went to leak liquid, I leaked liquid. Also, since we had no jobs lined up, people were incredibly reluctant to let us rent, despite our offer to put down deposits and first AND last month's rent. They knew we weren't going to find jobs for a while. They were pretty smart.
HOME AT LAST:
We finally took a friend's suggestion and looked into the "Artiste Apartments" collection of apartment buildings. They're all over LA, and initially catered specifically ti Industry folk. Now, pretty much anyone can live there. Even people without jobs. We found a building with a unit we LOVED, on Cherokee Avenue, just off Hollywood Blvd. The Walk of Fame. The Walk of Stars. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams. We figured it was the LA equivalent to living inside the Statue of Liberty. An iconic address, a historic neighborhood steeped in movie magic and lore. It was $1,300 a month, (more than we paid in Orlando for our 3-bedroom luxury condo) but it was the LA-version of HUGE. It was bright and airy inside, and it felt happy. I couldn't envision myself swinging from any closets- but I could imagine myself typing, looking out a window. A good sign. Jay loved it too- even the building had charm. Built in the 20's as a hotel, it had survived 90 years without Earthquake damage. I felt safe from Earthquakes there. We put down our first month's rent as a deposit and waited for a unit to open up.
It was going to be another 3 weeks, but Jay's Aunt and Uncle were so kind and let us stay in their super-comfortable, clean guest bedroom. They live in a million-dollar condominium, so it was going to be an adjustment once we moved to Hollywood, but we were ready. Our next task was to track down our movers, who were still dodging our calls. Finally, we used a fake name to get our contact back on the phone. Our stuff would arrive in COMPTON within a week. (Compton is not a nice part of the world, and you DON'T want stuff stored there overnight because it won't be there the next day.)
GETTING FULLY HOSED:
They'd agreed to place our things in a smaller truck so it would fit down our tiny street, but suddenly, that was no longer part of the deal. I had finally scored paying work for the first time on "Iron Man II," so Jaime and his friend Jenn were going to have to go put our life into a U-Haul while I was at work. If I cancelled my first day at Central Casting, there was a chance they'd blacklist me and we couldn't risk it. So Jaime and Jenn went alone to Compton to get our things, and it's a damn good thing I wasn't there to see the carnage: everything we owned was in shambles- entire boxes had ripped open, cubes were crushed into spheres, legs were snapped off of furniture, anything glass had shattered, anything wooden was scratched or gouged beyond repair. A brand new unopened IKEA entertainment center we'd packed was strewn about the storage unit. Our TV dangled at a precarious 44-degree angle. Jay and Jenn took photos of the disaster scene, then loaded it while the moving representative (who did not work for the company, he was just there to "supervise,") WATCHED. To make matters worse, they wouldn't release our stuff to us unless we gave them, you guessed it, another $1,000. The "Supervisor" suggested Jay and Jenn give him a tip of a couple hundred bucks, since he'd had to spend a few hours of his day watching Jay and Jenn loading a truck. They declined.
Once Jay and Jenn arrived at our new apartment, our friend Carlos met up with them, and helped unload. Another friend, Keith, also pitched in. More photos were taken as we realized the extent of the damage, and when Jay and I began unpacking, we realized that LOTS of stuff was missing. One of a kind, irreplacable stuff. Like a crystal elephant bank we'd been given by Jay's parents as an engagement gift. And my pega-mouse. A step-ladder. Whoever rifled through our stuff had been sloppy because I found my rare limited edition X-Men comic (well, at least part of the cover of it- it was mangled and torn) "repacked" in with our automotive supplies. 60% of our dishes, which had been packed by Ericka, who packs things professionally for traveling theatre companies, were shattered.
So our move cost us $3,400 to use this moving van company.
I'd say don't use them, but they get sued so often they have a different name every week. All I can suggest is please be more cautious then we were. Way, way more cautious.
We'd saved up $10,000.
We were out $3,400.
For those of you keeping score, that left us with $6,600.
BEDDING:
We'd left my 11-year-old mattress at home, which meant we had to buy a new mattress, which was $1,000, including delivery.
This left us with $5,600.
THE MYSTERY OF LOS ANGELES REFRIDGERATORS:
In LA, most places do NOT come with a fridge- surprise! I have no idea where they GO, but they're not in any apartments when you get there. Somewhere, perhaps the La Brea Tar Pits, millions of refridgerators lie in wait of they day they are discovered by Anthropologists of the Future. These Scientists will deduce what I already know: Los Angelinos are dicks, and take their fridge away just so you can't have one.
If you Craig's list it you can get one in "decent" condition for $500.
We were fortunate to have a friend in Jenn, who is loaning us her brand-new fridge. It's clean and large and cold and we love it.
We still had $5,600.
AIR CONDITIONING:
Most places we could afford did not come with Central Air, so plan on spending at least $100 for a window box unit. Or two. You'll want two. Plan on spending $200.
We bought one unit, but again, Jenn saved the day (actually the whole Summer!) and loaned us a second unit for our bedroom window. This has been a gift that keeps on giving, because during the day, the one in our living room keeps the desert heat of the city from killing us in our apartment. It's loud and imperfect, but it's soooo cold and a joy to have. At night, the one in our bedroom acts with dual-purpose: keeping us cool and creating white noise to drown out the sounds of the raving lunatics on the streets. Our windows are ground level, so we hear EVERYTHING on our street without these as sound buffers. Every arrest, every argument, every Schizophrenic freak out, every Ambulance Siren, every wailing drunk, every chatty whore, every whining Tranny. Everything.
$5,500.
RENT AND OTHER RAPINGS:
We moved into a 1-bedroom 1-bathroom place in the heart of Hollywood. This costs us a Deposit of $1,300 and then our first month's rent was (and is) $1,300.
Because we live in Hollywood, there is NO parking. If you want to give yourself a panic attack and try to parallel park on an incline while people are zooming around you into incoming traffic while you're backing up a hill, be my guest- if you're lucky enough to find a spot. Or, you can circle, like we did, for up to 45 minutes at a time before giving in and using the city parking garage adjacent to our building. This costs $10, whether you're in there 5 minutes or 12 hours. If you're parked for 12 hours AND 5 minutes, bam- another $10.
Because of the really high rate of vehicular theft and GTA in our neighborhood, (one car is broken into or stolen every single night within a mile of our apartment,) it's a numbers game. It's not a matter of IF we get broken into, it's WHEN. And if you leave ANYTHING in your car it's an open invitation for a busted window. This has happened to countless friends of mine out here. Even the suction mount of a GPS implies that the GPS unit might be hidden in the car, so strip it, buddy. Or pay an insurance deductible for a new window. Every week.
I parked on Franklin Street, near my street, once, and someone decided to drag their car key alllll along the side of every car on the street. Bastards.
Long story short, it got too disturbing to have to tiptoe past sleeping homeless people to get inside our cars. It's cold at night in LA, and it would be in their best interests to try and break a window- if they score something they can sell, awesome for them. If they get caught, they spend the night in jail where they can have a shower, a meal, and free butt-sex.
Plus, parking over shattered tempered glass was unsettleing- the person parked there right before you was robbed. So, we pay a monthly fee of $100 per car to park in the garage unlimited. This makes our monthly rent $1500 for a 1BD/1BTH.
For those of you keeping score,
$5,500 minus $1,300 minus $1,300 minus $200 for parking =
$2,700.
Now, if you don't become a California citizen and start paying state taxes, and getting your car emissions checks, you are taking a risk. If you're pulled over for any reason (tail light's out, you're black, etc.) then they can fine you $500 for flying under their radar. AND you have to get your car smog-checked, which is $60. Unless your car is older, and needs a new catalytic converter, which is also outrageously expensive. That times two for me and Jay... yikes.
PROVISIONS:
Groceries are cheap at Trader Joes and Target and expensive at Ralph's and Albertson's. You have to go to all four to get everything you need for a household.
We spent about $300 on cleaning supplies and restocking all our food.
This brings our total to: $2,400
You might get free cable, water and power with your building, but you'll also get a monthly gas bill in the cold months.. It's around 7 to 15 bucks each month.
INCOME:
Sign up with Central Casting so you can do background work! This costs $25 per person, but you can start work right away if you speak fluent Farsi, are old with your own poodle, a size 4 with your own stenograph machine, or have a ferrari from 1982-1987.
It's so hard to get work because so little is being made in LA, but if you call the lines at just the right time, you can get on a crowd scene or a "passerby" and be OK. Here's how the pay rate for that goes:
Extra work nets you $8/hr, if you're not in SAG. You come home with $80/day after a long day and taxes. And you don't have to pay to eat that day.
If you ARE in SAG, congratulations! (You will never work.) If you do get lucky and score a day, which will be rare, you'll get $140 or so.
Jay decided to join a Calling Service, which calls him instead of him calling an automated help line. This service charges $60 per month. Jay thinks he'll need new headshots before he goes soliciting any agents. Those will be expensive too.
So, subtract $25, $25, and $60, and that leaves us with:
$2,590.
JOBS?
I did a ton of volunteering, and worked three internships at the same time for free for three months, trying to make ANY connections which would lead to a paying job. They only lead to other non-paying jobs, because they knew I was a chump.
Occasionally, my friend Launa would hire me on (and pay me!) as a personal assistant, and a little bit of cash would float our way. This is what we used for rent, which could only be paid in cash.
I worked Halloween Horror Nights and Grinchmas while Jay took a job as a living statue in New York to try and help make ends meet. We'd been in town 6 months- we couldn't run out of money yet!
I took a job I knew I'd loathe (pornceptioning) because we needed the money. We also needed the insurance benefits, badly. So I sucked it up (metaphorically) for as long as I could, then after my insurance kicked in it was time to go. I thought I might have to travel home for some peak summer hours just to make enough money to pay rent for an empty apartment in LA. Jay was traveling as a Production Assistant, and the pay isn't terrific but it's getting us by while I'm temping and picking up the odd job around town, cleaning spiderwebs out of shoes, mopping up semen, etc.
PENNY-SAVER!
Other penny-pinching methods come in to play, too, if you get creative- visiting Planned Parenthood (a free clinic) for your lady-part needs is scary, but helpful. Food stamps are also an exciting, morale-destroying way of saving on the grocery budget. Eating bunless hot dogs- and nothing but bunless hot dogs- for a few days will surely make you smile next time you go to balance the ol' pocketbook. Fruit and meat are luxuries of the past. Forget them- you can get everything you need from a generic supplement vitamin! I've saved dozens of dollars by not shaving my legs when Jay's out of town! In fact, spending an entire day in bed, with the curtains drawn and the air conditioner mercifully blocking out the world, not eating or bathing for days on end has been a really economical way of life!
CREDIT CARDS
We'd LIVED off our remaining credit cards, which vanished FAST. I used my card to fly to and from Florida so I could stay current at Universal in case we flame out here and have no choice but to move back. I had to fly home to meet their attendance requirements, and keep a job waiting for me just in case.
Despite the fact that we'd scratched just enough work up to barely pay our rent in cash and buy food, we have been unable to create any savings. Plus, shit happens:
You will break an axle. You will be attacked by hostile natives. You will get dysentary and die. But for real- You'll get sick and have to go to the doctor. I did. ($100.) I also popped a tire on LA's swiss-cheese pot-hole streets. ($140.) My cat got really, really sick and it cost us $2,300 to save his life.
At a certain point, your credit card companies will catch on that your debt-to-income ratio has changed, and they will reduce your credit limit to practically nothing without warning. This happened to us last week.
GRAND TALLY:
This brings our Grand Total tooooo:
$290 remaining.
So, after parking passes ($200) and groceries, there goes the last of our "savings" and the last of our credit.
We're both working, and we made rent again this time, but it's slow-going to find temp work, and Jay's traveling show wraps at the end of this month.
It's been a year and two months.
And that, friends, is $10,000 worth of Los Angeles.
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