Cost of Living

The first cost you see when moving to a new area is rent. So seeing that rent in LA was significantly more expensive than in Ithaca I assumed the total cost of living would go up by a similar amount. So far as I can tell the opposite is true. Costs of most things here seem cheaper. For example when buying tires for my car I managed to get them for half what they were in Ithaca. Plane tickets are substantially cheaper. At a store of similar quality food is around the same price. There are however more low end stores that cater mostly to immigrants. These seem to be a lot cheaper and really aren't of that poor quality. Restaurants generally seem the same price, gas is more expensive but not by a stunning amount. Since my rent trippled I imagine I will spend more here, but it really isn't by a huge amount.