Redditors who live in cities with a high cost of living (i.e. San Francisco, London, New York, etc) what do you do for a living?

I live in Portland, OR, which is not officially on a list of high cost of living cities but it's fast approaching those numbers. A lot of people are looking to move to Portland lately so I want to be completely honest about my experience.

I'm an office manager (not THE office manager, but one of them, not the most senior) of a retirement community. I work outside of the city and commute with my own vehicle to work. I'm hoping to get more hours in the near future, but so far I only work 32 hours a week. It was difficult when I moved here to find full time work with benefits. The competition is high. My annual net income is about 22K.

When I first moved to Portland, I found a studio apartment for 700 in an honestly amazing community called St Johns in North Portland. This was considered a really, really good deal for a studio in the city, and it truly wasn't bad. This was in 2014. St Johns is not central and not near a MAX line, but does have buses. My rent only increased by 60 in the time I lived in that apartment.

Now, my partner and I live in a rental house in Kenton. It's 1700 a month. My partner has minimal income at the moment. We are receiving help from family to pay our bills and we're embarrassed about it. I wish my job paid more, I wish I had more hours, and my partner wishes his situation were different.

If we had a roommate, we'd be doing better, but we have our own reasons for not going that route.

If you want to live in this city, expect to have to cover some ground to get to work, expect to choose between outskirt community alone or central location with a lot of people, and seriously consider roommates as an option if you want a house with a yard.

/r/AskReddit Thread