Part 1/3 -- Should I move to a new city?

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Candidate,

"How was I going to afford this?"

Let's go back in time … I had just graduated from college, and I desperately wanted to move to San Francisco.

See, I was living near Palo Alto at the time, running a startup with a couple of friends. We weren't making much money yet, so we paid ourselves a paltry salary (I think I made $11,000 one year) and worked from home. I would visit my friends at Google 2 or 3 times a week so I could eat their free lunches.

After a while, we started growing and raised some money. Business was getting better, we were making more, but we were still small and scrappy.

After work, I found myself going to San Francisco 4x/week to go out and hang with my friends. Who the hell wants to drive 2 hours a day … just to hang out? After a while, I told myself, "Why am I driving so much? I should just move to SF."

The problem was, it wasn't a financially great move.

PROS of moving:

SF = meet more cool people, eat at cooler restaurants, go out to cooler places. Oh yeah and art/culture/blah blah.
Why was I working so hard? So I could have an awesome lifestyle and hang out with my friends.
Less driving time = I could do the things I wanted to do (work, hang out) instead of wasting hours every day.

CONS of moving:

My expenses were ultra-low and I lived in a good place. It was an awesome deal.
Moving to SF would DOUBLE my expenses, including going out, eating out, parking, a more expensive apartment...

QUESTION FOR YOU: What would you do?

You want to move to a cooler city to meet new people and live a richer life. But from a strictly financial perspective, it's not the right move.

What would you do?

Reply to this email and tell me what you'd do (and WHY). I read every response.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you what I did.