Music Manager Says It Cost Almost $300K a Year To Live in Los Angeles—So She Moved to Colorado

Music manager Liz Kamlet recently posted an Instagram video that went viral, detailing the astronomical living expenses she said she and her family of three incurred in Los Angeles before they made the move to Aspen, CO.

She claims they spent almost $300,000 a year to live in L.A.—and that was with a paid-off house in the Hollywood Hills. Kamlet said this was the amount they were spending "just to exist in L.A."

She broke down her expenses line by line to give people a look into what it really takes to live in Los Angeles.

Breakdown of living expenses

Kamlet said her living expenses in California were as follows:

-Mortgage: $0 (house was paid off)

-Home, car, and umbrella insurance: $3,400 a month

She said $2,500 a month of that was home and fire insurance alone. "We lived in the Hollywood Hills. It was a very expensive home, you know, that it appraised for. And there was a fire nearby in the Hollywood Hills at that time, and it was just insane. And, by the way, they were the only insurer in the area. We could not get anyone else to insure that home, unfortunately."

She also said the car insurance was over $600 a month. "No claims, no nothing, no accidents," she said. "That is really what it was."

She also noted that earthquake insurance was $300 a month.

-Property taxes: $650 a month—or $7,800 a year

She said this was low by California standards because her husband, singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop, bought the house in 1978. She said some of her neighbors were paying $30,000 to $50,000 a year in property taxes—since, in California, the cost of property taxes is tied to what you paid for the property, not how much it's worth.

-Property maintenance/maintenance man: $1,500 a month

-Security and monitoring: $1,000 a month

-Health insurance: $2,400 a month

-Groceries: $3,000 a month

-Takeout: $3,000 a month

-Toddler meal prep: $600 a month

-Amazon and household items: $2,000 to $3,000 a month

-Utilities: $1,250 to $2,000 a month (even with solar)

-Cellphone (three lines): $350 a month

That's $20,900 a month, or $250,8000 a year.

Kamlet said that monthly investments, including her son's college fund, brought that annual total closer to a whopping $300,000.

"The person in this Instagram reel is obviously living in a higher income bracket than most people, but she's spot on regarding the insurance, taxes, and other expenses needed to live in Los Angeles," Jameson Tyler Drew, president of Anubis Properties in the L.A. area, tells Realtor.com®.

Savings in Colorado

Kamlet said that so far, everything in Colorado is much less expensive.

"The taxes are a lot cheaper here—it's 4%, versus 13%, so we save around $11,000 to $12,000 a year," she said.

She also reported monthly savings of $3,525 on home insurance, $1,300 on home maintenance, $500 on security and monitoring, $1,000 on health insurance, $1,500 on takeout, and $1,500 on utilities.

"I'm just trying to share expenses and be transparent, because a lot of people don't really talk about this, and I want people to see what people are actually paying," she said. "And L.A. prices are insane and crazy."

People leaving California

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Los Angeles County lost about 54,000 residents from 2024 to 2025, the biggest county-level population drop in the U.S. that year.

"There are people continually moving out of L.A. in search of more affordability," California real estate agent Cara Ameer with Coldwell Banker tells Realtor.com.

Ameer says living in Southern California "has a 'lifestyle/weather tax' associated with it, in that all the area offers—from the beach, to the mountains, to the desert—is hard to beat compared to other places."

The median listing price in Los Angeles is $1,129,000, leaving homeownership out of reach for many.

"Los Angeles is just too expensive across the board for most homebuyers," says Drew. "To even start to consider a home in Los Angeles, you have to have an income of over $250,000 per year. And that's just to get yourself in the front door, so to speak."

Even some billionaires who can comfortably afford the Golden State's high cost of living are relocating, driven in part by concerns over California's proposed wealth tax that would effectively levy a one-time 5% tax on their assets.

Several high-profile billionaires, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, have been shifting portions of their assets out of California and into states such as Florida that are much more tax-favorable.