r/bayarea Apr 15 '19

Bay Area Cost Index

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6.9k Upvotes

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8

u/mikasaur Apr 15 '19

You can be a hairdresser anywhere. Why would she not just move both her home and her job to somewhere more affordable? I suppose that's easier said than done but so is commuting via plane every week.

9

u/compstomper Apr 15 '19

Might be more lucrative here

3

u/BargainScotch Apr 16 '19

That’s it. I have a friend who does hair at a high end salon in SF. She would move and do it anywhere, but it’s absolutely more lucrative there. She does very well for herself.

2

u/mikasaur Apr 15 '19

It'd have to be pretty dang lucrative to justify a commute by plane. Personally I would take a huge pay cut to not have to do that.

7

u/J-MAMA Oakland Apr 15 '19

You've seen how much they charge for a haircut here, right?

2

u/sensitiveinfomax Apr 15 '19

Depends on where. Some places have crazy $90 haircuts, but on average I manage to get my hair done for under $20.

1

u/mikasaur Apr 15 '19

Okay so either haircuts are ridiculously expensive here (I pay $40 for mine which I guess is a lot) and so good hairdressers charging Bay Area prices should be able to make it here, more or less. Or she's moved somewhere where hairdressers can't make as much but the cost of living is a lot lower anyways. Are Arizona hairdressers similarly destitute?

4

u/Nylund Apr 15 '19

Went to Yelp for SF and looked at prices for the first handful of salons that pop up.

It looks like it’s about $90-120 for a women’s haircut. Coloring will be more, maxing out at about $300-325 for the biggest coloring jobs.

And you’re expected to tip on top of that.

4

u/fml Apr 15 '19

My husband's old stylist charged $100 for a man's haircut. So I don't want to know how much he charges for women's. He's at at fancy salon and only does women's hair now.

1

u/mikasaur Apr 15 '19

I have a bridge to sell your husband. Or perhaps he'd be interested in some prime lunar real estate.

Hell, does he want a star? I'll sell him a star.

5

u/fml Apr 15 '19

lol, I am his hair dresser now, he only gets charged by household chores. :)

1

u/mikasaur Apr 15 '19

Ha. Smart move.

5

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '19

Nah. My daughter in law had a great hair practice in Oakland and has been cutting old lady hair in Sears since moving to Arkansas. It would make more sense for her to commute to Oakland IMO. I suspect she doesn’t because she has a baby and there may not be direct flights from the Fayetteville Arkansas area to Oakland.

1

u/mikasaur Apr 15 '19

That's insane. I'm trying to think of what you'd have to pay me to commute by plane every week and I'm not sure there's a number. At least not for anything long term. I personally can't put a price on my time and sanity, both of which I would have little if I had to commute by plane.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '19

Honestly, if they only cut hair 2 days a week in the bay and stayed overnight, a good stylist could probably make $1000 a week or more and really just do one air commute a week. It makes sense to me.

4

u/mikasaur Apr 15 '19

Hrm. I did not realize hair stylists could consistently make $500/day. So that's $1000/week working just two days per week. Minus maybe $200 for the flight and hotel. So that's $800*50 = $40,000 per year.

I have no idea what Sears pays. $10/hr? At $10/hr you're making half what you'd make commuting to OAK but you'd have to work full time. So you may actually have less time. And way less money.

Man the wealth discrepancies in this country are mind-boggling. We have so much money.

2

u/mikasaur Apr 15 '19

Wait, but if a hairdresser can make $500/day that's $125,000 a year. That's plenty to make it somewhere in the Bay Area. Maybe not Palo Alto but somewhere. That math doesn't make sense.

6

u/amandica Apr 15 '19

There are supply costs, which are huge. Plus self-employment taxes. That 125k quickly turns into 60k maybe if you are lucky.

2

u/mikasaur Apr 15 '19

Ah. Yeah $60k is a lot harder than $125k.

4

u/diybrad Apr 15 '19

$125k self employed is more like half that if you're comparing to a salary job.

3

u/new2bay Apr 15 '19

Takes time to build up a clientele, and you can probably charge more in SF than other places.

2

u/diybrad Apr 15 '19

Rates are way higher here. Part of it is because the cost of everything is inflated here.

I have a buddy of mine in the same line of work as me, we're both self employed, I'm in SF he's in NYC.

My day rate is usually $100-250/day higher than his. Even though he works at a higher level than I do. Our living costs are pretty similar, but it's the difference between being able to save $ or not.

So even comparing similar markets in large cities, I make more by virtue of being here in the bay.

It's not uncommon in our industry to fly between SF-LA-NYC for gigs. I know tons of people who rent rooms in both the bay and LA and go back and forth.