Hey @Leucrotta, are <$1000/month apartments in Oakland likely to be shitholes?
I'm trying to figure out how much we'd need to make to be able to not be homeless, so I'm looking up rents, and there's some $800-1000/month studio-apartment listings but I don't know if that's suspiciously cheap.
@Leucrotta Like, there's this random listing in Uptown Oakland for $825 a month. Which sounds, quite a bit lower than I was expecting, especially for as nice a neighborhood as Uptown Oakland is?
https://www.apartments.com/claridge-hotel-llc-oakland-ca/4lj644l/
It's a small place, but *snort* it's still like twice the size of the tiny-ass thing we're living in now, at least.
@Leucrotta And with that... if we do say $900 for rent...
A shitjob at Target looks to pay $17-18 an hour. If they give us 20 hours a week, that's $340 a week, or $1360 a month.
Transit, $5 a day is $150 a month. So we're up to 900 + 150 = $1050 in rent+transit...
that leaves $300 for other expenses like food. $75 a week? That's doable.
Of course, we don't know if landlords tend to have things like "rent must be less than x% of your income" requirements, which would absolutely fuck us over.
@Leucrotta ...and we have no guarantee Target would give us 20 hours a week, either. 🙃 When we worked at Food Lion that one summer, they hardly gave us any hours at all.
@Leucrotta (...Poo. I forgot taxes.)
@Ylfingr $800-$1000 for a room or a studio sounds doable. It might be worthwhile to check for downsides (eg, right next to the loudest chunk of BART, in the middle of a food desert, etc).
There's taxes to consider, and also, apartments might have utilities separated out. My place, they roll the water/sewer bill into my exorbitant rent, but electricity is a separate bimonthly bill and internet is monthly.
I think applying for Target or something comparatively bleah couldn't hurt.
@Leucrotta (We live about a 15 minute walk from BART, it's close enough that we can sort of vaguely hear it when a train pulls in. Barely.)
(There's also a more conventional railroad, Amtrak/freight. So yeah we've already got The Noise already, I think!)
@Leucrotta We're in the middle of a food desert /now/, so I don't think that's a huge concern either. Long as we can take the bus/BART to a grocery store.
The Uptown Oakland one is likely within walking distance of 19th St. BART! (Haven't actually made sure of that though.)
@Leucrotta Gonna try applying for Target, likely tomorrow – we'll need some new clean clothes for job interviewing. Gotta get chinos, and a new polo can't hurt.
This is gonna be slightly expensive, but I don't feel like dealing with thrift stores– [[Topaz] check out the Rockridge Crossroads where we got our coat!] Oh nice! Yeah it's used, and so probably somewhat cheaper, without being shitty-vibed.
Though honestly, it might not be much cheaper. Our coat was still $30.
@Leucrotta Target's basic chinos are $30 new. I bet that's comparable to Crossroads's prices, just with possibly fancier brands.
@Leucrotta Honestly, we actively /like/ BART noise, hehe! Whenever we hear a train coming in Frost internally squees. :3