Scraping By On Six Figures? Tech Workers Feel Poor in Silicon Valley's Wealth Bubble (theguardian.com) 805
Big tech companies pay some of the country's best salaries. But workers claim the high cost of living in the Bay Area has them feeling financially strained, reports The Guardian. One Twitter employee cited in the story, who earns a base salary of $160,000 a year, said his earnings are "pretty bad", adding that he pays $3000 rent for a two-bedroom house in San Francisco. From the article: Silicon Valley's latest tech boom has caused rents to soar over the last five years. The city's rents, by one measure, are now the highest in the world. The prohibitive costs have displaced teachers, city workers, firefighters and other members of the middle class, not to mention low-income residents. Now techies, many of whom are among the highest 1 percent of earners, are complaining that they, too, are being priced out. The Twitter employee said he hit a low point in early 2014 when the company changed its payroll schedule, leaving him with a hole in his budget. "I had to borrow money to make it through the month." He was one of several tech workers, earning between $100,000 and $700,000 a year, who vented to the Guardian about their financial situation.
Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:4, Interesting)
As a resident of the east bay, earning 100k and being able to own a house can be a problem so I sympathize with them.
But if your making 200k+ then you're just being jealous.
Re:Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
He makes 160k, with bonuses I make 80k. He pays $3k in rent, my Mortgage is $1500 a month. I'm not broke, somehow this guy is?
Re:Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
I was wondering this too.
160k, takes home about 10k/month.
after rent that leaves 7k for all other expenses? Unless everything else scales incredibly high (higher than the rent, which I doubt), that's a pretty comfortable life, even with some student debt.
Re:Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Informative)
From a tax perspective what sucks is you are considered "rich" by both the state and the IRS, but it is what it is. I wonder if the people who vote republican without a 6-figure income understand how disproportionately lower taxes will hurt them.
Re:Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Informative)
The "traditional limit" assumes all expenses scale across all income levels and that technology sits at a standstill forever.
Even in the Bay area, I can feed an individual human pretty decently for under $100/month (I can actually feed a human passably for $25/mo, but that's a grueling exercise in finances). This is because it still costs $5.83 for 50 pounds of bread flour at Sam's Club no matter what city you're in; the same goes for beans, various meats (although beef is cheap in Wisconsin--still expensive as all hell; pork is cheap everywhere), and a lot of other things. Vegetables are universally-expensive--even frozen--although I don't put much stock in vegetables; I put more vegetables in stock.
Food in home basically doesn't scale, while food out of home scales linearly: a 16-inch pizza will cost you $12 in Baltimore and $30 in Seattle. Chain fast food might hold about the same price--McDonalds doesn't charge $4 for a hamburger anywhere--and everything else tries to play up to the area's income spread. Likewise, you can get the same clothing (and you can order it online for the same price--size yourself in Sears if you want), electronics, and cars, at the same price, anywhere in the country; people like to use cars as a metric because the most commonly bought car in rich areas costs $38k, and the most commonly bought cars in poor areas costs $12k, and then they can say an "affordable" car in San Francisco is $28k and so people "can't afford a new car" and thus complain about rich people and salaries again.
With all that in mind, food has fallen from 40% of the median-income household spending in 1900 to 33% in 1950, and then to 12.5% today as agricultural technology advanced rapidly up to the 1980s (and continued more-moderately since). Clothing has fallen from 12% of expenses in 1950 to 3.5% today. We spend 6% to buy more and better healthcare than we got on the 4% we paid in 1950; and we spend an utter assload (about 40%) on entertainment, luxury, and other discretionary spending, versus about 25% in the 50s.
While that suggests that spending more than the traditionally-prescribed amount on housing is viable, your financial management plans may suggest it's less-sustainable than you'd like--you still have a smaller proportion of your income to pull from if you get into a pinch. That would be sound finances, but every single person in America has ignored that as the median new single-family home size increased from 978sqft in 1950 to 2,300sqft in 2010, and the percent of income spent on housing (shelter plus utilities, maintenance, etc.) increased from 28% to 33%. People can buy more stuff, so they spend a bigger proportion of their income to buy much larger houses in which to keep all this stuff; if they had just stayed with 978sqft homes and the 400sqft 1-bedroom apartments of the 1920s, they'd only spend 14% on housing today, as a national average--New York would still rape you for renting a 395sqft studio.
So yeah. Maybe grow up a little and get your head out of the 50s. Technical progress happens.
Don't forget about your government spending (Score:3)
Even in the Bay area, I can feed an individual human pretty decently for under $100/month
You can feed a person for that much. "Decently"? I would dispute that. They aren't going to starve if that's what you are saying but it won't be an ideal sort of diet.
Vegetables are universally-expensive--even frozen--although I don't put much stock in vegetables; I put more vegetables in stock.
Maybe if you get them at Whole Foods. Vegetables can be very economical if one bothers to shop carefully. Better yet you can even grow them yourself with some effort and seeds are incredibly cheap if you are willing/able to trade some time and effort tending them.
and we spend an utter assload (about 40%) on entertainment, luxury, and other discretionary spending, versus about 25% in the 50s.
Don't forget about the $2000 EVERY person in America (on average) pays to ha
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I wish I could find a reasonable sized 960 sq foot home in a decent neighborhood. instead all you can find is giant oversized homes that really stupid people want because they hate their families.
When I go to Ikea I really love the 680sq ft apartment. The only place you can find those are NYC/ Chicago/LA and usually in a pretty shitty part of town.
and sadly the small home movement is not allowed to grow because of stupid laws that require houses be a certain size or worse, the scourge of humanity... t
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It's an entitlement problem. Everyone, myself included, feels entitled to kick back and relax while being entertained when they come home from work these days. The truth is you can spend a couple hours over the course of a week and save a bucket load of money on food. When you plan your meals, something else most people avoid these days, make most of it stuff you can make from cheap ingredients and that freezes well. For instance we might make lasagna or shepherds pie, instead of making a single pan we'll d
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That's strange, I don't feel hurt when I don't hit my thumb with a hammer, and I don't feel hurt when I don't pay taxes. That's why I left the Land of Fruits and Nuts.
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I live in mtn view, I rent (I have never owned; looks like it may be YEARS before I can even think of owning) and my rent is over $3300/mo for 2br/2ba
yes, its insane. I moved from a house in santa clara just a year ago; 3br/2ba, single fam home (no shared walls), full front and back yard, and yet the rent was $3k. $300 less for a HOUSE than for a stupid-assed apt!
its insane.
plus, employment is not stable. I can't count on constant income, else I would have had a house by now. when they let you go every
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The Social Security Wage Base is $118k, so someone making between about $38k and $118k actually pays 31%-34% on the upper portion of their income, and someone making $119k pays 28% on the upper portion of their income (the part above $118k) until they hit the $192k (33%) bracket (at which point they're still paying less). It isn't until you hit $417k that you enter a tax bracket (35%, with the 39.6% bracket at $419k) above the total Federal income tax (OASDI+general) imposed on the middle-class.
Note tha
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Re:Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
I am thinking what a pack of whiny shallow pricks. The taxes they pay are more than the wages of those on minimum wage and those fucking whiny arseholes do not give one fuck about how people on minimum wage are meant to live. They just demand those minimum wage workers serve their every single whiny demand. I wander how many of those ass hats support raising the minimum wage or demand it be reduced or eliminated because they can not afford to be served sufficiently by the 'not real job and hence do not deserve real pay, pay them even less class' on a wage of $150,000 per year.
From the corporate view point of course there is a shift, how to attract tech workers whilst paying them less. Obviously make it easier and more enjoyable for them to live near the point of employment, offering better lifestyle and living conditions, with relocation and home establishment support services, coupled with easier access to immigration services.
If it does not make a difference where you company is located is terms of production, distributions and sales, obviously it should be located to suit staffing requirements. So can the wage of those whiny pricks (they deserve that because many of them do not give one fuck about people on minimum wage and even go so far as to claim those minimum wage earners should be paid less to promote more employment), be effectively halved, so instead of $150,000 they are paid say $60,000 but they are offered a far better access to accommodation and lifestyle, for them and their families, even future citizenship in a more 'quality of life', focused country, as well as assurances of extended employment ie not fired the first second you are not required (problem in that part, who they fuck would believe future employment claims from any modern psychopathic styled corporation).
Re:Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Informative)
You are definitely not only paying 25% tax when you're earning 160k in CA.
To take home 10k a month in CA, you need to earn around 220k a year before taxes.
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So then the lone tech worker is stuck in an apartment forever effectively, without pairing up with someone else's income, and how do you fit kids into that picture, if both have to work, etc.
You don't fit kids into that picture. Kids are infeasible in today's society unless you're on welfare or extremely wealthy. Just leave raising the next generation to them.
Re:Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Not when they're (a) optional and (b) used to obscure the point, they're not! It is goddamn dishonest to pretend that Silicon Valley tech-worker take-home pay, with gold-plated health care, a maxed out 401k (and maybe exercised stock options), and a metric ass-ton of other fringe benefits is in any way comparable to normal-person take-home pay that includes taxes, basically zero retirement savings (outside of social security) and fuck-all else.
Depends. (Score:3)
As a resident of the east bay, earning 100k and being able to own a house can be a problem so I sympathize with them.
But if your making 200k+ then you're just being jealous.
Depends on cost of living. COL is one thing for a single person and quite another for a family with kids. $160K is nothing in SV as far as I'm concerned, unless you want your kids to live in a shit hole.
See $160K for a family in SV is just barely scrapping by, if you want to feed your kids well and give them some room to live and to go to a decent school district. That's a nice-to-have for some. It is a must-have for me. I didn't work my ass through school and work long hours in the industry just to get a
Re: Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone makes $100k and spends $50k on the cost of living, then someone who earns $200k and spends $150k on the cost of living, you are both in the same boat.
You're getting a lot better living for the $150k, you're definitely not in the same boat. That's like the people who say, "Oh, my BMW payments are so high, they're forcing me to cut back on my quality of life." And even in the Bay Area, you can buy a nice house for $150k a year.
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Citation needed, as well as your definition of "a nice house"
Re: Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:4, Informative)
Buy some shingles and a ladder. It's not rocket science. Where I live you can hire 3 latinos to help you with it for 10 bucks an hour each plus a couple of six packs (at the end of the day). Anyone can put down shingles, my 60 year old sister did it on her house.
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You need reading comprehension.
$150k/year. It referred to salary, not the price of the house.
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Likely, you can buy a nice house with $150K/year on the mortgage :)
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For $150k, in the bay area? Not going to happen.
He said $150k per year. With a 4% mortgage, that would be a $3.75M house, which in the bay area could be a nice three or four bedroom house near good schools.
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This is not remotely accurate.
First, cut the 150k in half to account for taxes. Then, consider that in the bay area, property taxes and insurance can run 30-40% of your monthly nut.
A 150k income will allow you to comfortably afford a $500k or so house. Good luck finding that in the Bay Area.
Re: Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Informative)
LOL, only in Silicon Valley bizarro-world (or NYC, or DC). In sane parts of the country, the normal recommendation is three years' salary.
Re: Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny numbers from a mechanical engineer (Score:3, Informative)
Last year my taxable income was $190000. You can buy shares in my employer. I wouldn't.
So, 16 years ago I paid a year's pay at the time (85k) in cash for a solid, but unattractive, house in a working class, decent suburb.
Three years ago, after I got a lot of pay rises, because good real engineers are well paid, I paid 300k cash to have it knocked down and a new one built. That is now worth 600k.
So which of you dummies in the IT game can't figure out how to do that?
Meanwhile, I bought a weekender. For cash.
Re: Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah - gotta agree with sibling... 10 years' salary on a mortgage is friggin' insane, doubly so when you get a nice place outside of California for only 2 years' salary.
Not to mention that the figure also changes depending on how close you are to retirement. If you're younger and doing well, maybe get one priced at 3-5x annual salary, but once you get past 40, you may want to lower the sights a bit and be realistic.. that 30-year fixed is (barring early payoff) still going to be there demanding cash out of you for another decade when you turn 60.
Example? No problem - my wife and I just bought our new we're-retiring-here-dammit log cabin on six acres, in a gorgeous part of the Oregon Coastal Range. I paid exactly 2 years' salary to get it from the previous owner. Glopping a bit of extra principal on the mortgage payments will have the place entirely paid off in 10 years, leaving me a nice cushion of time before I retire for good... and by the way, the missus no longer has to work. Meanwhile, I still have a decent amount of extra dosh each month after the bills to put towards, well, anything. That's why you get realistic about it (besides, what the hell was I going to do with a 4-bdrm Victorian-style monster, what with the kids all grown up?)
You can say that I'm in no particular hurry to go get a $1.3m house that would cost me a mint in taxes, upkeep, labor, etc... the Joneses can go fsck themselves. YMMV, though.
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>You're getting a lot better living for the $150k, you're definitely not in the same boat. That's like the people who say, "Oh, my BMW payments are so high, they're forcing me to cut back on my quality of life."
You forget our wonderful progressive tax system. A person with $150k in income and $100k in expenses will also be paying $32,000 in federal income taxes a year, plus state taxes, plus medicare, medicaid, etc. Will effectively be poor.
A person with $200k in income and $150 in expenses will pay $46,
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Nobility used to die of pneumonia for this reason.
Quite a shitty deal, if the huge cold as fuck rooms and leaky roofs don't kill you, you get to sit at one of the fireplaces (wood supply is not unlimited either) and breath in fumes that are about as healthy as chain smoking.
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Maybe he fully understands the physics problem with trying to heat a condo with 20-foot ceilings, but his wife insists on cranking up the heat to 75-80, and getting a divorce means not being able to afford living there any more after paying her alimony.
Re: Poor on $100k? Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong.
I'm sure plenty of software engineers realize this, and have realized this for a very long time now.
The problem is that it's not up to them. It's up to managers and executives, who don't like remote workers. From what I've seen, telecommuting is becoming more and more rare; it was more common 10 years ago. Now the managers all want everyone on-site, and they want them working in noisy open-plan offices, sitting at open tables with no partitions whatsoever.
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The problem is that it's not up to them. It's up to managers and executives, who don't like remote workers. From what I've seen, telecommuting is becoming more and more rare; it was more common 10 years ago. Now the managers all want everyone on-site, and they want them working in noisy open-plan offices, sitting at open tables with no partitions whatsoever.
Yup. This trend is getting harder to escape, even in areas on the east coast with low cost of living. I work at a shop in central Florida where this is the case; the executive in charge wanted the place to feel like a trendy startup, so they tore out all the walls on the floor and built this space (at great expense) last year. We each get 60" of personal space along what amounts to a cafeteria table, with noise and distractions out the wazoo. Few of the developers like it, and productivity suffers. We g
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> The bay area bubble is about to explode big time as all those googlers get their head out of their ass and realize they can use all of their tools remotely
Except that it's not true. I've worked with many engineers remotely, and it can be effective. The hallway conversation, the cup of coffee with a colleague to discuss family and weekends, and most critically _face time with the management_ even if it's only in passing is a very valuable help to the workplace. A great deal of useful, even critical info
"borrow money to make it through the month" (Score:5, Insightful)
If getting paid slightly late forces you to take out a loan, you're a dumbass who doesn't know how to manage his money. This is true regardless of how much or how little money you make. Rule #1 of personal finance is "live below your means."
Re:"borrow money to make it through the month" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"borrow money to make it through the month" (Score:5, Insightful)
You obviously have never lived in the Bay Area.
Trying to live in the Bay Area on an inadequate salary is part of being "a dumbass who doesn't know how to manage his money".
Re:"borrow money to make it through the month" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"borrow money to make it through the month" (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I'm going to echo some of the other comments back to you, it's stupid to decide to live in the Bay Area in the first place. You yourself moved to Austin, which is a great idea.
I had a startup company in the Bay Area for about a year, discovered the financial black hole that is Bay Area housing, and moved to San Diego as soon as I could. I own a 3 bedroom house here for the same cost as a one room studio in monthly rent in the Bay Area. Two of my employees bought houses last year as well. I have easy access to Bay Area VCs, it takes me 3 hours to get from my door to the door of any VC in the Bay Area, and there are flights hourly (at least).
So why would you base yourself or base your company in the Bay Area? It's a bad idea. As an employer or an investor, you're wasting money paying people bigger salaries than you need to, and the quality of life is crummy. Investors who want you to base in the Bay Area are not looking out for the health of the business, and should be avoided. Anyone working in the Bay Area needs to understand that their location is no longer an asset, it's a liability.
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Re:Don't buy what you can't afford. 3,500feet, $24 (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not getting the point, which is: don't live in the bay area unless you can afford it.
Re:Don't buy what you can't afford. 3,500feet, $24 (Score:4, Insightful)
It really is that simple. You just have to tolerate a 2–3 hour commute from Elk Grove. The question is this: How much is your time worth?
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Plus Elk Grove...Before Sac grew out to Elk Grove it was upscale. Now it's almost as bad as Stockton. At least downtown Sac you get to Amtrak which gets you to BART. Better than driving the bay bridge.
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Also:
One Twitter employee cited in the story, who earns a base salary of $160,000 a year, said his earnings are "pretty bad", adding that he pays $3000 rent for a two-bedroom house in San Francisco.
Now maybe my math is bad, but $3k/month is $36k/year. He makes $160k/year. As a rough estimate, let's say he pays 1/3 of his income in taxes, which means he's left with $106k in take-home pay. $106k - $36k is still $70k to spend on living expenses. That's around $5,833/month, or around $194/day.
Now that's just an estimate, admittedly, but the assumptions I'm making aren't completely crazy. If he can't manage to pay his bills or had to borrow money to make it though the month, barring any big unac
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$4K/mo left over is still a lot of money. That's almost as much as I take home *before* taxes and before paying a mortgage, yet I can afford to run a light aircraft *and* save money each month. If you've got $4k left over after paying the rent and taxes, you're still doing well, and if you're struggling on that then you're living extravagently.
Re:"borrow money to make it through the month" (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't have kids, if you can't afford them.
Re:"borrow money to make it through the month" (Score:5, Informative)
If you wait until you're sure you can afford to have kids, you'd never have them. Though I will agree that, if you have one kid are are struggling financially, you need to think twice before having a second. And the same goes exponentially more after 2 kids. On the positive side, there are ways to "afford" to have kids by cutting back on other expenses that might have seemed "totally necessary" before you had children. On the negative side, kids have a way of causing budget-breaking expenses like illnesses and injuries. My second son fell on his head more times than I can count and had multiple febrile seizures where he stopped breathing. All of those ER trips are expensive and are really hard to factor into a budget.
So how do others manage to stay? (Score:5, Interesting)
Serious question, how are people working in retail or supermarkets or places like that manage to live there?
How do people with kids make it work?
Re:So how do others manage to stay? (Score:5, Informative)
Serious question, how are people working in retail or supermarkets or places like that manage to live there?
They don't. Generally, anyone working a blue-collar job in San Francisco is commuting from far out of town.
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The serious answer is that they take the BART in from East Bay.
All these discussions have a subtext of only being willing to live in high class or trendy neighborhoods.
Blue collar workers who want to live in SF have to have good roommates, and some luck. Otherwise they can live fairly close in Oakland with roommates. Or way out east by themselves.
One limiting factor for the rich is that they demand secure private parking. So they wouldn't even apply at the places that the workers rent, where there is no par
Living Illegally beneath you (Score:5, Funny)
There are over 50 Starbucks(alone) in San Francisco. Where do all the baristas live and how do they get by?
Some have said that people live far away and commute for hours.
But that can't be true. Who would do that before moving within a year to someplace you could commute by bus within a half hour?
Quite obviously what is really going on, is that there is a large Demolition Man style underground city below SF, populated almost entirely by baristas and where no mans law applies. Only the "Law of the Bean" as the lower denizens refer to the code they live by. It is a stricter but simpler life.
If you look carefully the proof of this is obvious. Why would steam be coming from vents in the street in a place where it hardly ever rains? Obviously cooking fires from those who live below. Also of course there is the incredible pale skin that is the hallmark of the barista, in a state known for its generous sunshine.
Are they ever (Score:3)
The steam ain't all from cooking fires boy.
Re:So how do others manage to stay? (Score:5, Funny)
This reminds me of one crowded family I know living together in San Francisco- A motherless family with the dad, three daughters, 2 mulleted uncles and eventually one of the uncles married and the wife moved in too. I'm not sure how they split up the costs, but one of the uncles was just a comedian and ventriloquist, so I can't imagine he could contribute much. The other uncle had some sort of wedding band, but some how they always pulled everything together in neatly packaged 30 minute episodes.
So leave (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So leave (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really what it comes down to. You have to make a decision on employment not just based on the size of your paycheck. Quality of life, proximity to activities/transportation, cost of housing, general cost of living all play into the equation.
It's as if nobody every taught these kids any sort of financial management or business skills, or even analytical thinking to work out the finances themselves. This is not, as they say, rocket science.
Simply bad at budgeting? (Score:5, Informative)
I live in Oakland, and make exactly 100k. Last year the rent on my 1 bedroom apartment was $2,800 a month and I split that with my partner. I still managed to travel, eat out, and save $25k. Just learn to budget and stop spending money on useless shit. I have no sympathy for the person making $700k that was complaining. Fuck that guy.
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Last year the rent on my 1 bedroom apartment was $2,800 a month [...]
I paid half of that for a studio apartment in San Jose. The only difference between my studio and a one-bedroom is a wall that cost an extra $300 per month.
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I have no sympathy for the person making $700k that was complaining. Fuck that guy.
I am sure some one is making good money doing exactly that. How else do you blow 700K?
You don't need six figures in Silicon Valley... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: You don't need six figures in Silicon Valley.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Lol maybe the lack of a Big wife is your saving grace.
Let me get this right... (Score:3)
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You're doing it extremely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Rent is usually the biggest expense of a budget. So that's $36K for rent, leaving $124K for every other expenses. Saying it's "pretty bad" to have $10333 left to live after paying rent every month is why people around the world hate Americans. You fuckers are rich and you're still complaining.
Re:You're doing it extremely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that 160K is before taxes, right. You can easily pay 35% of that between Fed, state and local taxes, include company provided healthcare insurance that can easily bring it to 40%. Drop that 124K for OTHER expenses down to 60K. Depending on what the other expenses are, you can easily spend 5K for utilities, 5K for having a car, and another 8% in sales taxes. Now you are easily down to 46K and you have not eaten or clothed yourself yet.
You can probably save enough to get 15K in savings. That is not a lot if you have kids and want to send them to college, and retiring, please!
Re:You're doing it extremely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Sample Bay area budget for family of 4 with 1 income
125K a year = 10400 pm
-401K 1000
-FICA taxes 900
- Fed Taxes 700
- Health Insurance 600
-CA Taxes/SDI 300
6900 Take Home
-3000 Rent for 2 BR Apt
-550 Utilities (150 PGE, 125 Water&Garbage,80 Internet, 150 2 Cellphones+Vonage, Netflix+Hulu+Amazon 30 )
-350 Gas, insurance,maintenance,registration for 2 paid off used cars
3000 Flexible income
-2000 For Food and non food Groceries for family of 4 including clothes, shoes, school supplies,sports equipment
1000 Disposable income
-1000 Paying medical copays/Saving for a downpayment/saving for college/Maxing out 401K/Vacation/Paying down student debt if any etc
0
This is living very frugallly. If you start having coffees and eating out or sending your kids to piano lessons than suddenly 125K is not enough.
Re:You're doing it extremely wrong (Score:4, Informative)
This is living very frugallly.
I would say 2 kids and a homemaker wife are quite the luxury
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For many in the valley who are on work visas the spouse is not allowed to work legally and since software engineers are educated folks with respect for the law the spouse doesn't work illegally. And once you have a kid, the second kid is kind of necessary as an only child grows up to be self centered and spoilt unless you want software engineers to not have kids at all.
Even if the wife did work all her income would be taxed at the highest bracket so the effective taxation on the wifes income would be 50%(FI
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Leave. (Score:5, Interesting)
Do it. I did. I thought I was banishing myself to a life of dreariness when I decided to leave the startup bubble in the Bay Area where I worked for the better part of 12 years. I worked for 2 very successful startups which are no longer startups but long term viable businesses now. I took a job in the midwest and I really thought I was actually doing it as sort of a lark or social experiment. I knew I would have a much better quality of life in terms of traffic, home I could afford, etc... I figured I would be comfortable but have no one to date, no one to hang out with, nothing to do. What I discovered was such an epic drop off in general douchiness, not just among the tech crowd but SFers in general and where I moved to. What I also found was a dating life that was amazingly more real and fulfilling that it ever was out there. People who were just much more substantial, even if not so well versed in all 12 kinds of Moroccan coffee presses. I think I was desensitized to the sheer amount of douchebags and vapid women in my every day life in the bay, both professionally and casual social circles.
The amazingly more affordable lifestyle was the was the only improvement I thought I would see, but it turned out to the be the least of the improvements I saw in my life.
Yep! SO much, THIS .... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was born and raised in the midwest, and while everyone around me was convinced it was a dead-end hellhole, lacking in any sense of "style" or appreciation for the arts -- the time I spent in California convinced me that was so untrue.
I mean, one thing you will find in the midwest is a larger percentage of folks who aren't highly educated by formal institutions. If you're used to living in an area with far more college grads running around, it can be off-putting. But if you get to know these people better -- they're often far more substantial folks with real concerns and aspirations. They may laugh at the idea of ordering a coffee being more than deciding if you want cream and sugar or not -- but chances are good they have real skills doing useful things the CA crowd has to pay someone else to do for them.
But IMO, it's really nice living someplace where people don't *care* if your clothing choices are just practical and reasonably priced, vs. spending 5x more to chase after trends, and it's something you grow to really appreciate when your neighbors want to look out for each other and volunteer to help you when they see you working on something.
In CA, I just ran into a lot of people who invested WAY too much time in superficial stuff they collectively deemed important. My friends from CA who came to visit me in the midwest couldn't stop complaining about such things as stores that closed by 9 or 10PM instead of being open 24 hours a day. You know? These things really aren't a big problem for everyone who gets used to the concept of things having schedules that don't just cater to your whims ....
Re:Leave. (Score:4, Funny)
People who were just much more substantial
It's okay to say "fat."
In other words (Score:3, Insightful)
You have never been to a 'red zones' area. People in the majority of the country, red or blue, could care less about your bedroom habits. What they may care about is that you bring your "accept my status" message out in public. As amazing as it may sound, people in Texas are not out having "hetero pride parades", because it's not anyone's business what they do in the bedroom either. Prior to the communist takeover of the "Left" in the US, the motto "live and let live" was normal in the democratic party.
Tough luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Not top 1% of earners (Score:4, Informative)
Now techies, many of whom are among the highest 1 percent of earners, are complaining that they, too, are being priced out. The Twitter employee said he hit a low point in early 2014 when the company changed its payroll schedule, leaving him with a hole in his budget. "I had to borrow money to make it through the month." He was one of several tech workers, earning between $100,000 and $700,000 a year, who vented to the Guardian about their financial situation.
In 2013 to be in the top 1% of US earners you had to earn over $1.15 million per year. That's quite a bit more than $100,000 and even $700,000 a year. See here:
http://www.mlive.com/news/inde... [mlive.com]
I'd guess the top 1% is even higher now.
I must be missing something (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's round it up and say you are paying $40K/year for housing and say $40K for taxes. If you are burning through $80K a year on food, clothing, transport and entertainment, then you are doing something very wrong.
Stop eating at restaurants for every meal.
Stop buying expensive coffee.
Stop using uber for everything.
Stop subscribing to every stupid service.
Stop spending real money to buy fake money in video games.
Re:I must be missing something (Score:4, Informative)
If single, $4-6k per year healthcare, $4k for parking, $5k for car and insurance... things add up. Hopefully you are putting $18k in your 401k as well. Student loans can easily be $10k per year. You could end up with just under $2k per month for all other expenses, which can get tight without being extravagant. Throw in an unforeseen expense, and it can turn to ruin quickly... just as it does for anyone else living paycheck to paycheck.
Poor thing... (Score:4)
He's paying just less than 23% if his gross income for housing. Not may Americans can pay less than 30% of their gross.
Take job for half the pay where you can get a 40% cut in housing costs. Because that's the alternative for most of us.
Why the mystique? (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in metro New York, another very high cost-of-living place, but slightly less insane than SV or LA. I can understand wanting to live in places where the cost is high. California has really great weather. Metro DC has a combination of extremely stable federal jobs and gov't contractor jobs that are basically like pulling money out of an unlimited ATM. New York has a very good public education system, access to a large, diverse pool of jobs and the city itself. But, I've never had the desire to move to Silicon Valley or San Francisco despite my interest in the computer field. Especially now, there's no justifying the huge cost of owning a house there or throwing away thousands a month to rent a bedroom.
Maybe I'm just not enough of a hipster to "get" startup culture -- but why would anyone other than a new college graduate want to sign up for paying a million plus for a tiny starter home that they're never in because their "all inclusive" company provides all their meals and 16 hours of work a day? Worse yet, why would anyone pay _more_ to live in San Francisco, then let their all inclusive company bus them out to the suburbs 2 hours each way?
I can definitely sympathize with the "scraping by on 6 figures" sentiment -- but the keys to living in a high cost area are living below your means, and not living where everyone else wants to live. I don't care how gentrified and hip some of the former industrial sites in Brooklyn are; there's no way I'm paying $2 million for an apartment there...I live further away where house prices are still way high but not bubble-esque. Plenty of New Yorkers pull up stakes and move to North Carolina or Texas all the time; they hate paying taxes and (IMO) don't take full advantage of the place they live in. If you're childless and don't care where your house is as long as it's huge and on 2 acres of land, then there's no reason to pay the premium. I know plenty of people that have gone from a starter home with $10K in taxes to a McMansion out in the country in a gated community with $3K in taxes. They're happy and that's fine, everyone's entitled to do what makes them happy.
I do feel like you get what you pay for though - I have 2 kids who are going to get a decent public education without paying tuition to a private school. I was asked by a former company to relocate to Florida a while back, and even the real estate agents trying to sell me on the idea agreed that I wouldn't get the same educational experience unless I shelled out for expensive private schooling.
Building restrictions (Score:4, Insightful)
San Francisco is full of crappy little houses [redfin.com] that sell for $1 million because there is so much demand for so little supply. The obvious thing to do in such a situation, of course, is to let people build higher. The owner of this house is selling for $1 million, but they would much prefer to build a 10-unit tower on the spot and sell each of the units for $500k. They would make an extra $4 million minus building costs, and the buyers would get the same footage for half the price. Since much of San Francisco is walking distance to a rail line, this wouldn't create unsolvable parking problems. It would be a win-win situation for everyone.
But because San Francisco (and the whole Bay Area) think that everyone should have a veto on what everyone else does with their property, rebuilding doesn't happen, demand continues to rise, and the city becomes affordable only by the rich.
No sympathy here (Score:4, Funny)
>> He was one of several tech workers, earning between $100,000 and $700,000 a year, who vented to the Guardian about their financial situation.
I could imagine the 100k guy might be feeling the burn, but I have zero sympathy for the 700k guy. It must be a bitch playing your pity violin in the cramped space of your Lamborghini.
This is actually a GOOD thing. (Score:3)
LOL Wut (Score:4, Funny)
Soo this guy clears $105k after tax, pays rent of $36k (some of which he could offset by having a roommate) and yet somehow has a problem in that his $70k of disposable income a year - nearly 1500 bucks a week... is not enough? Perhaps he needs to learn how to cook and get off the coke and hookers?
Try living on disability. (Score:5, Interesting)
I get $11k a year because I'm disabled.
So when I hear someone that make $160k a year complaining it sort of pisses me off.
You can have it a lot worse, so serious, fuck off.
financial management skills (Score:3)
let's see... My crude rule of thumb, that kept me out of IRS trouble when I was self employed was set aside 28% for taxes. Call it 45,000/year out of 160,000. Leaving 115,000. Rent of 3000/month... 36000/year and now I see 76,000/year or 6500/month.
Oh the poor baby!
I'd say he needs to learn how to manage his money. From the looks of his complaint, he's a windows or Mac weenie... Quicken will help him a lot
Re:Landlords (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
my theory is the VC firms have bought up the property around these tech hubs and recoup their money easily via rent.
Seriously, according to the articles about the housing situation up here in Seattle, it's foreign investors. All that money that was able to get pulled out of the housing loan bubble looked for a new bubble and went into actually owning the real estate. They go for hot housing markets which causes things to get even more hot. Add in developers and house flippers and it drives up prices all that much more.
Re: Landlords (Score:4, Interesting)
Computer Programmer/Analyst here making $38k per year... i could make more as an H1B employee.
Re: Landlords (Score:5, Informative)
Sometimes moving takes you to a higher salary but also a higher cost of living.
I'm making $73k per year myself, but I also have a 1700 sqft house in a nice suburb that I pay $710 per month for (total purchase price was $115k back in 2013). While I could potentially make more if I moved I'd not necessarily have any more disposable income. As it is right now even after all of my bills are paid I've still got around $2000 per month in "open" income to do with as I wish.
Plus there's the fact that my friends and family are here, so truthfully I'm not sure I'd be willing to move for anything short of an obscene amount of money anyways.
Re: (Score:3)
use breaks (yes, even summer vacation) to come up with more lesson plans.
This is something that has never made sense to me. If there are 100,000 teachers teaching the same subject, why don't they all use the SAME lesson plan rather than reinventing the wheel 100,000 times? Maybe there should be a wiki site for lesson plans.
Re: (Score:3)
There are resources, but teachers like to customize it rather than use the same cookie-cutter approach. It's especially important if you have any special needs kids in your class who might not learn well in a "One Size Fits All" approach but who might excel if a different approach is taken.
Re: (Score:3)
One thing about the private sector, you learn quickly that about 80 percent of management is at best incompetent and care about little except their next promotion. The higher you go the bigger the idiots until you get to the top where at the executive level you have some really smart people and a lot of people that only know how to kiss ass and baffle people with bullshit.
I've worked for both and I didn't see much of a difference. Except that the private sector had more money to waste.
Re: (Score:3)
They have these things called bicycles that you could ride to work.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comparing raising minimum wages ($10/hr) to a tech worker complaining when he makes $80/hr is a bit of a stretch.
His rent isn't high because the burger flipper at McDonald's and his barista is getting paid $10/hr instead of $8/hr.
Re: (Score:3)
Raising minimum wage may affect the mean, but it's unlikely to affect the median.
Re: Landlords (Score:5, Informative)
Rents go up, new housing developments get started, rents go down and eventually stabilize.
You've left out an important piece in the middle of the saga, and frequently the one with the loudest explosions. I like to call it "Gentrification II: The Wrath of NIMBY".
I live down the street from a cute little 1,700 square foot ranch house with a yard in Lafayette, just east of Oakland and Berkeley. It went for $1.7 million. In my native San Diego, no slouch when it comes to overpricing, it wouldn't command even a third of the price. Should the cities in the Bay Area do the sane thing and allow for concentrated vertical development near BART and other transit lines, the value of that place would plummet. Do you think the idiot who bought that house is going to let a real estate developer undercut the value of his investment without a fight?
Instead, like his aging hippie brethren in SF, he will make all sorts of arguments about preserving the "character" (translation: affluent whiteness) of the neighborhood, and fret loudly about the quality of life issues that increased density would bring.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
adding that he pays $3000 rent for a two-bedroom house in San Francisco"
That's a pretty good deal for two bedrooms, actually.
Re:It's all out of whack... (Score:4, Insightful)
... and new housing is blocked, don't forget that one.