Cost of living Los Angeles

[Emms86]

We are planning a move to the Conejo Valley/Ventura area this summer with our children 😁 I'd be really interested to hear from any other CA Mums re cost of living. We have already priced our monthly costs for school and rent, but I'm now trying to create a spreadsheet on things like grocery shopping, car insurance, health insurance, fuel, kids clothing/shoes etc.
I think we have decided to live in a cheaper area and pay for our children to attend private school as this isn't far off the cost of living in an area within a good school district. Any thoughts/advice would be very welcome!

I was living in Thousand Oaks until about a year ago. I know the area pretty well. Do you have a particular private school picked out? My experience was that there were no really good private schools out there (having come from LA where we used excellent private schools). The public schools are quite good, considering they're public schools in California. Many people move there just for the public schools. I'd be a bit leary of private out there unless you have a very specific one picked out that you've visited and researched thoroughly. I would say 97% of people in the Conejo valley use public schools, so not much incentive to have great privates. Usually done for religious reasons only. Please private message me if you'd like to know about cost of living stuff! Happy to help.

Feel free to PM me too. Ventura is prob fairly different to LA itself (I live just east of Venice beach) but happy to help

Hello, anybody any advice on schools in LA? Looking at both private and state options for 11 yr old girl who is currently at private girls school in London. Thinking of living in Santa Monica area

When will you be moving to LA? Admissions procedures for the 2017-2018 school year are beginning now. (For private schools) Do you want her to stay in a girl's school? There are only 3 girls schools in LA…and only one that starts at 11. (Archer) Marlborough School starts at 12, and Marymount starts at 14. Two of those (Archer and Marymount) are close to Santa Monica. There are other private schools that have middle schools, as well. Good privates in LA are very difficult to get into. You may be able to play the "moving from out of town" card to get special consideration though. The public schools in Santa Monica are pretty good. She would be going into either JAMS or Lincoln in the Santa Monica district. There's a book detailing all the private schools in LA by someone called Fiona Whitney. You can get it on Amazon in the US. It's quite comprehensive but lots of the descriptions are out of date. Still, a very good introduction.

Good place to start is greatschools.org

Santa Monica schools are all generally very good but worth looking at Magnet and Charter options not just public (afraid I know nothing about this as my two are much younger)