Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Fountain Valley's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Fountain Valley?
Your $100,000 in Fountain Valley has the same purchasing power as $72,464 in the average US city. You'd need $27,536 more here to maintain that standard of living.
Demographics and workforce data from the US Census ACS 5-Year.
bachelor's or higher
Climate, safety, and walkability indicators.
See a side-by-side breakdown of cost of living, housing, and salaries.
Popular comparisons
Sorted by affordability — most affordable first.
Within 10 points of Fountain Valley's cost index of 138, sorted by closest match.
Fountain Valley has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. Solidly above-average earnings and safer than the typical us city are the headliners, plus 3 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
The typical household in Fountain Valley pulls in $108,860 — comfortably above the US median. Combined with the cost of living here, the income-to-expense ratio works out better than a quick look at either number in isolation would suggest.
Reported crime in Fountain Valley comes in around 2,394 per 100,000 — under the national baseline of about 3,500. Worth digging into specific neighborhoods before settling on one, but the city-level picture is on the safer side.
With a citywide Walk Score of 65/100, Fountain Valley sits firmly in the walkable-by-US-standards camp. Pick a central neighborhood and most daily errands happen without keys in your hand.
Bike Score of 71/100 in Fountain Valley. That puts it in the small group of US cities where you can do groceries, commute, and run errands on a bike without it being a feat of urban survival.
Fountain Valley has a college-educated share of about 44% among adults 25+, which is higher than the national norm. It shows up in the local job mix, in the school district's reputation, and in the kind of conversations you have at the coffee shop.
Reasons are pulled from Fountain Valley's actual data — Census ACS, BLS, BEA, NOAA, EPA AQS, FBI, and Walk Score. We don't list positives that aren't supported by the numbers, which is why different cities show different sections.
It's rare. Winters in Fountain Valley run about 50°F — cold-snap mornings happen, real snowfall doesn't, except maybe once a decade.
Not very. Average winter temperatures of about 50°F mean Fountain Valley skips the harsh-winter problem most of the country has. A handful of cold mornings, otherwise sweater weather at worst.
Warm without being brutal. Summer in Fountain Valley sits about 75°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Fountain Valley falls in roughly USDA Zone 10. The zone classification is based on average annual minimum temperatures, so it's the right lookup for whether perennials and trees will overwinter here. Note that this is approximate from our winter-temperature data — check the USDA map for the exact zone before betting an expensive plant on it.
Around 46 feet (14 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Fountain Valley's altitude shows up in daily life.
Middle of the pack. Fountain Valley comes in around 2,394 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Significantly. Fountain Valley's index of 138 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 38% above the national baseline. The pattern is familiar: housing eats a large share of incomes, and people earning median-equivalent jobs from cheaper metros feel the difference fast.
In parts, yes. With a citywide Walk Score of 65/100, Fountain Valley has genuinely walkable neighborhoods alongside more sprawled stretches. Transit Score is 33 out of 100. If walkability matters to you, the neighborhood choice will matter more than the city-level number.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $96,600 to live in Fountain Valley the way a $70,000 earner lives in a typical US city. The math gets less forgiving the lower you go below that. Median rent in Fountain Valley runs about $2,412/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.