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Scraping By On Six Figures? Tech Workers Feel Poor in Silicon Valley's Wealth Bubble (theguardian.com)
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.
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.
you're doing it wrong.
Seems that working in Silicon Valley has it's downside. Doesn't sound so attractive now, does it?
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."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm willing to bet that many genius level people are working for smaller companies for this reason.
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?
It's all out of whack. Salaries and housing prices are all in a bubble in the Bay Area. The whole economy there is artificially inflated. You can't fix one part without messing up another; I pity anyone tasked with trying to "fix" that mess.
It's not like there aren't any other metro areas with strong tech communities. California is a great place to visit, but I'd never live there again.
"$160,000 a year, said his earnings are "pretty bad", adding that he pays $3000 rent for a two-bedroom house in San Francisco"
Okay, let's take out the difference if he only had to pay $1000 a month for rent like in most areas.
2000 * 12 = 24,000.
160,000 - 24,000 = 136,000.
He's only making 136,000 a year! So poor!
Now sure, it's not enough when it comes to buying a house there, but that's a market that you had to have bought into beforehand. That doesn't make him poor though. He's making plenty of money and should have enough to outright buy a house in another city when he's had his fill of Silicon Valley.
Seriously. There are tech jobs else where. If it's too expensive to live there, then maybe it's time to not live there.
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.
I make $50K+ per year as a virtual ditch digger (IT Support) and live in Silicon Valley. I get by just fine by living a modest lifestyle. Never mind that everyone else thinks I'm poor because I don't have the big house, big cars, big wife and big kids.
So he is clearing $124,000 after housing and is crying poverty?
depressing salaries and pushing up rents
just another example of why we need to put America first again
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.
#DeleteFacebook
Landlords are parasites.
Tech companies are parasites. They're like the insects of Independance day.
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.
i remember when i rented. its nice to own.
There are over 50 Starbucks(alone) in San Francisco. Where do all the baristas live and how do they get by?
This is how things are in a free market. Maybe if SF had applied rent control in a significant way instead of paying $3k/month he simply would not have a place to live in SF and would have to commute further to work.
Computer Programmer/Analyst here making $38k per year... i could make more as an H1B employee.
You chose to live and work out there. Meanwhile, here in metro Atlanta (which has a pretty decent tech scene itself, although it's not my field), I own a house and have 2 paid off cars on a combined income of 90k between me and my wife. This even includes paying off student loans every month and putting money away into savings. My wife's sister's family makes it on my brother-in-law's $80-90k a year salary at Redstone with 3 kids. You can get by just fine on less than 100k in NC near the research triangle as well (and Charlotte is big with banking if working in the financial sector is your thing). There's more to the country than just SF/SV and NYC
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
If a house in X costs more than you can afford, don't get a house there. It's really that simple.
I recently paid $240,000 for a 3,500 square foot, five bedroom house with a pool, just outside a major city. So clearly there are other options.
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?
I can't help but ask the same question that was asked in the movie "Armed and Dangerous" - Where does the money go?
Assuming that these numbers are low end for the area and renting runs $3000 per month, that would mean landlords would be pulling in about $6 billion in rental fees alone for just the bay area (Using 2010 census data, average national renters of 33.1%).
The number is possibly much higher. Speaking as someone from a different state that doesn't have nearly as much means, I have to say that's one hell of a lot of sinks that can be installed/replaced for that kind of cash.
Lol maybe the lack of a Big wife is your saving grace.
There are plenty of places you can earn six figures. Plenty of places with vibrant urban areas where a house/condo can be had for less than $1800/mo. The vast majority of programming happens outside San Fransisco.
My household income was a few ticks below 160k last year. We also pay 3.2k / mo to rent a one bedroom apartment and two parking spaces. Somehow, we came out net positive last year. Both savings accounts increased in value. 401k contributions. Even a 4-5k vacation to Europe. Two cars. Not a lot of barhopping and artisanal cruelty-free organic tin-foil in the kitchen cupboard though.
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.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If you are making 160 000, lets say you make 100 000 after tax (tax in the US is not this high afaik).
Then you pay 36 000 in rent leaving you with 64 000. How are you not able to make this work?
I made 60.000 per year and made enough in half a year to pay for a car.
And I still had to pay rent, taxes, electricity, water, and internet.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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...
I'd guess the top 1% is even higher now.
Citation needed, as well as your definition of "a nice house"
I bet living in Asian versions of Silicon Valley (Shenzhen, Osaka, Daejon,...) has a stunningly lower cost of living.
I wonder if there are calculators that show cost of living in alternate nations. Perhaps in those locations could attract American talent by presenting cost of living vs. income comparisons. A decent relocation package, and some basic "if this doesn't work you don't suffer a net loss" terms in the contract might also go well.
They could say quote Robert Kiyosaki when he said "It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for." in their marketing.
Economics always drives a brain-drain. Perhaps the bay is ready to experience again for the first time, the power of Economics 101.
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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.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
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.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
omfg. i'm "scraping by" 10-15k a year (or less, sometimes) in flyover country, and have for over 20 years.
try that sometime you fucking whiny crybabies. you get absolutely no sympathy from here.
The sob stories are mostly laughable. Oh noes, I can't make it on $700k/year! No, your consumer-whore lifestyle has decided you can't make it on $700k/year. A 1700 sf house sold for 1.7 million! Yeah that's over 10x my (larger) house's value in the midwest. The real secret is to leave the bay area. Sure you'll make 80% of what they make, but when you drop your housing to 10-20% of theirs you're likely ahead. And if you aren't ahead, consider this: my commute is 6 minutes if I hit the lights green, 8 if I don't, or roughly 15-20 by bike.
Capicha is trying to help them: "consign"
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."
I've overheard one engineer at the bus stop complained about how heating his condo with 20-foot-high ceilings in the winter was putting a pinch on his lifestyle.
You're not getting the point, which is: don't live in the bay area unless you can afford it.
"..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...."
I really feel for this poor downtrodden guy, having to shell out a whopping $36,000 out of his $160K salary just for a lousy two-bedroom house in a fabulous neighborhood, leaving him a bare $124,000 dollars a year to live on.
Maybe he could apply for foodstamps to keep him from starving to death in case he can't pay for his next meal on those starvation wages.
El Paso is a 'major city'...so is Des Moines. If you ask people from there.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
However you cannot save fast enough for a down payment for a palce, as you can't afford a $1M condo without a $500K buy-in, and then you've got $1300/mo property tax + $400/mo hoa, so you're effectively back to renting anyway. 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.
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.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I once looked into taking work in San Francisco before it got this bad. My research indicated I could have a higher quality of living in Toronto than San Francisco at that time. Glad I made that decision because I would have been strained financially and been working like a dog to stay that way...like many people there now. Toronto will get to San Fran's level soon if we aren't careful, as we are already rated at the 13th more expensive city in the WORLD with Canadian tech job concentration here and foreign investment inflating real estate speculation which then in turn inflates the cost of everything else here. (as you have to reside somewhere...). The problem with a free reign economic system is that everyone is trying to charge everyone else more if they perceive opportunity. The result: Salaries that look really high until you look at what it costs to live there. Most people see 6 figures as upper class, and for most of the USA/Canada that is true, but in San Francisco, Vancouver and increasingly Toronto, it's middle class, AT BEST. The article has some interesting comments: People aren't indifferent, but they do feel helpless. If $100k+ is middle class, how is it for people making, say , $40-60k who can't afford to live there, or have to commute distances to the point where they work, travel and sleep..period. That is basically a form of economic slavery. We seem to be importing the quality of living of lower economic standing into high profile areas, pay higher numbers but give them lower quality of life. Salaries alone no longer seem to mean anything in such places. Unless you are at THE top of the food chain you are fodder. what people need to do is say "enough" and leave. If the tech people leave, the companies will have to take action, by either leaving or forcing land owners to come down to earth or lose their income from corporate tenants. The biggest problem is nobody wants to sacrifice ("should I leave my 6 figure job?"). Tech workers don't want to give up the high salaries, land owners don't want to give up crazy rent revenue, and the consequence is stores/retailers have to charge more to stay in the area. It's a classic scenario: when no one sacrifices, everyone does, and nobody is happy. The irony is that people are "financially stressed" with 6 figure salaries. It's true that some may be big spenders, but most of these I don't believe are the case. And that picture of the homeless woman....her clothes were not those of someone who has been on the street for a long duration and San Fran is not a huge city. It's at crisis levels. If enough talented tech people say "no" to this lifestyle, it will come back down to earth. Hopefully soon before it all comes crashing violently. (people trapped in a corner tend to get very vicious...)
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Damn, you must suck at it.
Why don't you move?
This year, one with a non-leaking roof would be sufficient. Or a contractor that can get back to me before 2018. I'd settle for either.
I've overheard one engineer at the bus stop complained about how heating his condo with 20-foot-high ceilings in the winter was putting a pinch on his lifestyle.
Software "engineer" right? No way was this guy a real engineering. ;)
I understand what the person is saying. The nature of the tech industry is that there is a large concentration of jobs is certain areas. Therefore, many of us who possess the skills have to make a decision. Work in our own communities and build them or bend to the economic draw of convenience to the industry. This hurts both sides. Not only is much of the talent outside of these areas but those who chose family and region are deprecated. Not a social statement, I just want the industry to realize it has to grow and expand beyond the familiar areas. :)
Sincerely,
https://www.zillow.com/homes/f...
you forget if you make about 10k a month than you clear about 6k after all taxes and medical etc...
For $150k, in the bay area? Not going to happen. For $150k you get a burnt out shell on a tiny lot in Antioch and get into a bidding war.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I remember when I owned. It's nice to own without liens.
it's almost like I took 160k and turned it into 120k after taxes, then used the words "takes home" which colloquially means money after taxes.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
No matter how much your paid, how much you manage your money, cut costs, etc..
LandLords are parasites,
I find it interesting how we in our society are set out to screw one and other. How the fuck can we survive like this??
Just because an individual makes an ass tonne amount of money for short time doesnt mean others are allowed to GOUGE against it, because its there..
Look @ wall street.. those mo-fo's have been making killings after killings for years, but yet, it seems they dont suffer the same issues.. Why is that??
Nearly every state has a "financial HUB" to some degree.. Why doesn't this stuff seem to surface in those areas..
I also thing the term " what the market will bear" is fucking total bullshit,, its a way to put a statement to the greed.
bottom line is, we as humans need to stop fucking up one and other..
If you said to a doctor: "It hurts when I do this!" and then he said: "THEN DON'T DO THAT!"
The same applies here. If it hurts to live in the bay area and you aren't magically getting some huge benefit from living there, why the hell are you living there? Live somewhere else. It's a desk job. You can have a desk in any state and do the same work...
state and federal tax on $160k works out to 34%. So he has $105k/year before spending anything on rent.
Let's say $12k/yr on rent somewhere (I'm not sure where you can get in the bay area for $1k/mo, but surely something must exist if you don't care about your children's education). You probably need 2 cars if you're going to live that far away from things, so that's another $1k/year/car for insurance and registration. More ($5k/year/car) if you have payments on those cars. Let's assume 1 car is paid off and 1 car has payments. And one of them is going to commute long enough to cost $50/week in fuel. (cars = 1k + 5k + 2.5k fuel = 8.5k) Children are easily $15k/year in costs (food, clothing, daycare, education, medical). So that's another $30k for him. So now he has $54.5k/year left over, and hasn't paid for any other bills yet.
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.
he said $150k per year
-I'm sure you can find a really nice place for around $12,000/mo!
You have fenced yourself into a small place. You don't think Boulder, or Austin, or Minneapolis, or Lawrence, or Bozeman, or... would be accepting of your deviance?
BA must be insane. $150k/yr will get you a $2M house, including taxes and insurance.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Let's see. My daughter and her boyfriend make a combined ~115k/year, both being just graduates in accounting and are paying $2000 for a single bedroom in Boston and are doing just fine. This guy pays a whopping extra $12k in rent yet it making an extra 45k a year. I'm not seeing a huge issue with SV.
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.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Students, educators, researchers, public sector make crap pay.
As others are saying, don't live in the Bay Area if you can't afford it. But, if you want housing that's affordable and not too far away, it's not impossible...
There's the whole Central Valley within driving distance of the Bay Area. Sure, a 1-2 hour commute isn't ideal, but with a flexible work schedule and work-from-home options some days the of the week, it's totally doable. You can get a nice house with a pool in a small CV town for less than $250k. Hell, in New England "bedroom communities" are all over the place and feature similar price differences/commute times. (you can even throw in a few nights each month for a hotel and still come out ahead)
Fwiw, I grew up in the Central Valley. Day in and day out it's really no different than living anywhere else - you eat, sleep, and work, lather/rinse/repeat. Oh, and you're much closer to the Sierras than you are in the Bay Area, if mountains are your thing. An hour and half to the slopes is much nicer than the 6-12 hours it takes to get to Tahoe on the weekends from the Bay Area.
-Chris
It's like the celebrity divorce settlements with one spouse claiming they can't live on less than $2M/month.
I pay less than 2/3 of that for mortgage on a house in Silicon Valley.. You could go even cheaper if you go slightly farther away.
Take-home would be closer to $6.5-7k in California. That makes $2,300 the traditional limit of affordable rent and $3.5k the "new normal" limit on affordability. I am in a similar boat; California can feel punitive, although I pay less rent for a smaller place.
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.
Really, this is just how housing cycles work. Rents go up, new housing developments get started, rents go down and eventually stabilize.
But really, first world problems.
The real tragedy is the sterilizing effect of any culture or community of gentrification/white cleansing. You see it happen over and over, first the artists move into an ethnic minority's neighborhood, area gets seen as "cool" through mixing of cultures. Then rich people want to move in, build a Starbucks, Lululemon, Outback Steakhouse, all while everything that was awesome about the area is destroyed and priced out. Safe, profitable and boring as hell.
Reach a different conclusion: If you're paying $1,000 more per month in rent, there better be a damned good reason for it. The streets between literally be made of gold and the beaches something that you use every day. Or else, just don't live there. Don't live anywhere close to there. Don't even commute. Just work remotely. It's a damned software engineering position, not a physical laborer that has to be located there to do the job.
Same story, but slightly different numbers.
$60k, 2100 sq.ft., $1400, $200k, 2014, $1800.
Coasties can bitch about "flyover country" all they want, but it has some perks.
San Francisco is full of crappy little houses 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.
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.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You move.
What the eff?
I'm not even a professional, but I could make more than that just doing odd jobs for people I know looking for random bits of HTML and PHP.
Works out to be a little less than 25% of his income. That's not so bad. Most people pay a much higher percentage. Maybe he should cut back a little on the coke and fancy beers
In my case, Dallas - which is much bigger than San Francisco. DFW is 50% more people than the Bay Area and Dallas itself is 50% larger than San Francisco.
Both the city itself and the metro area have about 50% more people than San Francisco.
You need reading comprehension.
$150k/year. It referred to salary, not the price of the house.
And you're eligible for free solar electric panels among other things.
Assuming $400,000 (20%) down on 2 Million, with taxes and insurance you're looking at ~$10K a month. Monthly take-home on $150,000 a month is roughly $7,800. So you're $1200 in the hold just on your mortgage.
Students, educators, researchers, public sector make crap pay.
$38k per year is about $19 per hour. My company pays interns more than that.
Simple solution, suck it up or move. I live about 30 minutes outside of a modest city that's not on the coast. I have access to all the city stuff I want. Bought a house for a $138k, that's a nice four bed, two bath, carport and small shop attached.. It also came with a one-bedroom apartment next door that I rent for $600 a month. I work remotely for a DC company and make $140k a year. That's the secret. Don't tip your nose up at the "fly-over" states, and keep working toward working remotely for a company on one of the coasts. That's how you make the big money with the small cost of living.
umm no. your asumption that one can just up and work from home in any location is incorrect. most employers want their employees in the office. period.
I get 9 at this site (I double checked because an effective tax rate of 50% seemed high).
I assume there's a sales tax too though that knocks that 9 down some depending what type of thing you buy (if it's one that has exceptions).
http://taxformcalculator.com/t...
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
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?
Except that $3K in rent gets him something like what you get for $700/mo. If he wanted to live in a house, it would be at least double, if not more.
Right. 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 and keep 30% more of their money for a minimal hit in salary. The great bay area exodus is right around the corner
Likely, you can buy a nice house with $150K/year on the mortgage :)
It is ok for a single tech employee with roomates. But, you will never own a home there. The guy making $700k and complaining, well, he's just an idiot. I wouldn't work in the Bay Area for $150k, but I will take a $700k job there any day. That's around $30k a month after taxes.
Is your company a public sector educational institution? Or are you completely missing the point?
In california once your income exceeds the subsidy thresholds you only get to keep ~40%. In round numbers, 40% goes to assorted federal taxes, 10% to state taxes, and 10% goes to sales taxes. There is also a big chunk of the population that doesn't understand that voting for bond measure that get paid for as a property tax is just a way of obfuscating that you're being asked to vote for a rent increase, so that stuff passes every single time.
This; working remotely allowed me to reduce my taxes & costs of living, and I went from a 2 bedroom apartment with my wife and kids in SF, to a full house (>4900 sqft) on a large lot, all of this while going from 500$ / month of available money to over 7K / month. Not going back there!
Move to a different part of the country. There are plenty of very well paying jobs to be had in the same industry, doing the exact same thing, and in parts of the country that are much more affordable while still being very nice to live in.
I have no sympathy for idiots that decide to work in silicon valley and then complain about how high the cost of living is. It's like choosing to live in New York City and then complaining about how high the rest is.
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.
>> 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.
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. Today, it is "we are going to shove our minority status down everyone's throat!". Hopefully you see why the Dems have lost massive amounts of support from their base.
If you are worried about people whispering behind your back because of bedroom habits, that happens in SF just like everywhere else. If you don't hear it, that is because you choose not to listen. As a straight living in SF I hear the same exact talk here as anywhere else in the country. It happens to be mostly "I wish those people would keep their sexual activities to themselves.
160k doesn't take home 10k a month. It takes home about 6.5k a month. That said, yes, he still has 3.5k a month for other expenses, and it's his own stupid fault for choosing to live in SF, rather than the south bay, where a 2 bed apartment can be had for 2k a month.
To take home 10k a month you need to earn about 220k a year before tax.
Why stay?
People can adapt to just about anything. If you live in a ditch, then a shack feels like a mansion. If the people around you live in mansions, a perfectly serviceable house seems like a shack.
It's the Red Queen's race:
And once you've adapted to running twice as fast, you'll have to run twice as fast yet again to feel like you're progressing.
That's why I say the most important thing in your profession, once you have achieved enough income to live modestly and set a little aside for the future, is to find work that is in itself rewarding.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
For me to relocate from where I live to SV AND keep my lifestyle, I demand $400K a year.
Recruiters try BSing me until I inform them that my home town was Berkeley and I visit once and look around and what costs are.
My uncle who is a landlord will not rent his one bedroom 700 sq/ft apartments to anyone making less than $200K a year.
Recruiter there finally stopped calling me. Annoying buggers.
Rule of thumb, if you're going relocate to SV and want to keep your lifestyle from say Greenville - quadruple your salary.
Don't let the recruiters or others BS you.
And since the government would subsidize the mortgage interest, even if 150k/year were his whole income, just the mortgage-interest rebate alone would be enough to live a comfortable lifestyle!
what a bunch of fucking sissies!
umm no. your asumption that one can just up and work from home in any location is incorrect. most employers want their employees in the office. period.
I know from experience, especially Google.
Agreed. General recommendations are 5-10 years salary to be spent on a house. So at $150k/year, he should spend no more than $1.5 million. Better to try to find something for a million dollars. Should be able to find something in that range. Assuming a $1 million mortgage at 4%, the government will subsidize that to the tune of about $13k/year which is more than some people make.
Is your retirement fund. Being working poor and earning $150k a year will be a bummer but if you've done it right you'll likely come out the other side with assets like a plump 401k, options and real estate. Putting in your time under those conditions, assuming the stress doesn't kill you first, makes for a pretty sweet retirement. Dump those assets and move somewhere cheap and spend the rest your days (maybe retire at 50) living liking a king.
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.
I can't find anywhere that says CA has an effective tax rate of 50%.
At at glance, without deductions, I see
9 (CA income)
6 (FICA)
27 (Federal income tax)
I get 42% there, I'm assuming that's high as it ignores all deductions (though it may leave some things out).
the calculator I used had a 103k takehome, so less than I estimated, but still well over 6.5k.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
LOL, only in Silicon Valley bizarro-world (or NYC, or DC). In sane parts of the country, the normal recommendation is three years' salary.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
700 sq foot studio condos go for 1800. 2 bedroom close to 3k. I work in Irvine no one on my team lives here.
This story is almost the definition of how not to live. People need to live within their means, not reach for unnecessary conspicuous consumption items. I live (comfortably) in bay area on much less than $160k. I have a wife who doesn't work and we live in a 1-bedroom apartment that costs $2200/month. *Before* all my expenses I put away about $25k/year for retirement/savings and have plenty left over for fun. I think a major theme you will find throughout America is that people put money into savings *after* expenses. That's backwards, you need to save first for retirement and unexpected costs, then make a budget to live on with the remainder. It sounds like this worker who feels "poor" on $160k needs a budget. Try cooking simple nutritious foods at home. Go to the library instead of the movies. Buy a high quality and versatile wardrobe. Leather shoes, pants, and a button shirt is an appropriate attire for just about anywhere in the bay area. Keep your current vehicle and maintain it. People who chase after luxury items like fancy cars and watches will *always* feel poor because there is always something bigger and better you cannot afford. Try living with what you have instead of beyond your means. You may find living your life more enjoyable than chasing after what others have.
No - it's an example of why raising minimum wage doesn't help.
Everything goes up based on the wealth and money available in an area.
I hear people trash Texas because of our low wages but they always leave out the low cost of living here.
my theory is the VC firms have bought up the property around these tech hubs and recoup their money easily via rent.
That's a fucking lie. Not even CA has >50% effective rate (not marginal rate) income taxes.
In order for take-home pay to be that low, there have to be a bunch of other deductions included: 401k, health insurance, etc.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
Candles $3,600
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying
We're all glad you left the wife and kids, gotta love the bachelor life style
The steam ain't all from cooking fires boy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I pay 1k a month in rent and only make 20k a year and im not bitching, he has 15 times my disposable income after rent, he is not poor, just poor with his money.
On what planet would he get to take home 10k a month? With Federal and state taxes he would be lucky to bring home $9600. I don't make that much but with my deductions I am down to seeing 61% of my pay after insurance, 401k, etc. Bonuses are taxed at 50%. So if he pays 3k a month in rent then he is still a whiner because he has $6600 a month to play with in the best base scenario.
This whole thing shows how stupidly overpriced housing and everything else is in San Francisco really is!! I scrape by on a low 4 figure income in the midwest. Even here rents and house prices have become ridiculously high over the last 10-15 years. I live in an 810 square foot apartment, and have to have two room mates just to get by!!!
Prices need to go up to reflect the growing demand and dwindling supply. That is how developers know to build more housing. There are tons of housing projects going on in the bay area and supply will rise steeply in the near-term. I think prices should fall after that. This is the market functioning as it's supposed to, right? Am I missing something here?
content://media/external/file/7809
My pay stub shows 54% take-home for a similar salary level.
So how long before tech companies start to move elsewhere so they don't have to pay employees high wadges to compensate for high cost of living? Its a global economy and telecommuting is easier than ever before... what is holding them back?
boofricking hoo, are we really supposed to feel bad for these people?
So the person in the story pays 36k a year for rent, they still make 124k a year.
they couldn't make their rent so they had to borrow money?
Well that to me says they can't manage their money and like to blow it as soon as they get it.
Oh you have loans to pay back. Too bad. I don't feel the least bit bad because they took that debt on.
They chose to live where they are and chose to take that job.
If you don't like your job, set your water bucket down as the song goes..
Suck it up you snowflake
If you believe junkies can do more harm to society than rich, influential, closed-minded people; you have not been paying attention to history.
its nicer to be a land lord.
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.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You have equity in your home. He doesn't because he's renting.
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?
Not in the Seattle area. With Microsoft paying a lot of contractors $12 per hour, like my roommate that works on Windows builds, there are a hell of a lot of people making less than $19 per hour. At my current job at a Microsoft vendor, I make $17 per hour but don't get anything towards benefits (to be fair, I do get the group rate which is much cheaper than I could get it on my own) or vacation time. I took two weeks unpaid vacation last year which was just painful, but considering I flew to Hong Kong for my brother's wedding and hadn't seen most of my family in over a decade and with the expensive plane ticket, I had to take two weeks off to make it count.
But apartments downtown are $2300 for a 2 bedroom here. Its creeping in. The train has wifi and its $435 a month for a pass. Then you would still have to pay for BART and to get to Meraki from the Sac AmTrak its 2 and a half hours. So five hours of commuting.
Bay Bridge is more of a temporary parking lot than a drive.
My wife was a teacher and her pay was even less when you factored in that she'd get in early to set up, stay late to help students, grade papers late into the night, and use breaks (yes, even summer vacation) to come up with more lesson plans. We figured out how many hours she worked once and she was earning less than minimum wage. She could literally have gone to McDonald's and have been paid more.
I'm not going to say "we need to throw more money at teachers and that will solve education," but one of the big problems in education is that good teachers often get burned out (dealing with kids, parents, administrators, politicians who think they know best, constantly being told that THEY are what's wrong with education today, etc) in their first few years and leave for other professions. More pay and more respect would definitely help the situation.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Then rich people want to move in, build a ... Outback Steakhouse
Patton Oswalt, Steak (NSFW)
The landlords here are among those same Californistan neo-liberals who denounce "corporate greed" and "putting profits before people". Yet they're content to be cut-throat capitalists when it's their turn. Do As I Say, Not As I Do. Meanwhile those same landlords continue voting for No Growth (*cough* "smart growth") legislators and laws, to artificially restrict housing supply. Wouldn't want the poor poor homeowners to suffer any free market competition when renting out their overpriced hovels and laughing all the way to the bank. And yet somehow "greed" is still seen as a whole and exclusively Republican sin out here. Blame the techies paying the rent. Blame the companies paying the salaries. Never talk about the mostly-liberal-voting landlords setting the sky-high cost of rent even while they're paying off a mortgage that's a mere 50% of the home's current market value, or even already own their home outright! It's always the other guys at fault here in the SF Bay. It's only "profiteering" or "excessive" or "windfall profits" when Republicans or corporations or Wall St does it. Liberals get a free pass.
When all the heteros are out yelling "support our sex life" and "Penis+Vagina=Happiness" then you can complain about people not supporting your parades. Heteros don't, so you are an idiot demanding special treatment. That's not equality, it's favoritism for your group. Exactly what I said before about cramming your status down people's throats. But hey, congrats on being a useful idiot repeating the propaganda your masters said was beneficial.
<sarcasm>Five hours of commuting and half a grand to save only a little over half a grand in rent.... Where do I sign up?</sarcasm>
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
People have it far worse. The rents too damn high, join the fucking club. People make far less and pay more of their income for housing. So fuck off. Put another way, you have the option of moving. You have the option of getting another job.
Made 155k, took home about 6k a month. Rent for 'one bedroom' loft in SOMA overlooking junkies was $3500/mo.
At 160K, in Bay area....
He is paying approximalty 30K in Federal INCOME TAX, 10K in Property tax (directly or indirectly), 10K in FICA, and 18K in state income tax. You however are paying about 8K in federal income tax and possibly no state income tax. Gotta look at all of the numbers. My Salary would have to over double to brake even in moving to the bay area.
Mid 6 figures in Providence, an hour south of Boston, for a family of 5 (single income) is very challenging. I can't imagine trying to do that in in East Bay. Nope.
Founder: OxbowSEO.com
See my subject: BOTH ends or abusers of the system (if not themselves in junkies) & it's always the middleclass & poor (what's left of it that is & I am FAR from that here in fact, low on totem pole by comparison) that gets shot to pieces in wars (both) + but on taxation home owners do MOST.!
* What makes me not feel so bad is what I said earlier (from experience that the more you make the bigger the toys you buy or debt you bury yourself in, the 'bigger dogs w/ bigger fleas' been there, done that - no thanks - I am glad to just exist in peace (for the most part) where my TIME is MY OWN, not selling my YOUTH & LIFE away as I used to (there are NO 'life factories' & the end goal = retirement, & hopefully, more freedom...)).
As far as history? I've LIVED the history I spoke of, both ends for 1/2 a century++ & KNOW from 1st hand experience HOW it REALLY all works (except junkie myself directly on heroin (this is the worst, devil's own drug) but I've had those as tenants too (no f'ing more - they ARE, the worst possible...)).
IF I were to write a book? I've told junkie roommates I had in the past I'd call it "The PROPER care & feeding of 'vampires'" - they ARE vampires. Normal, until it's "FEEDING TIME"... ugh!
The rich can CONTROL gov't (especially corporations) via classical fascism (lobbying (bribery & revolving door)).
APK
P.S.=> Next time you try "browbeat me"? Read instead of being illiterate as I cite TRUE parasites (corporation controlled) & their "gov't. continuity' @ OUR expense as taxpayers (the TRUE bulk of payees IS land owners, not sales or income tax (those only pay down the national debt interest, NOT infrastructure - landowners MOSTLY bear that as industry taxbase avoids it like mad))... apk
As an avionics tech working civil service for the US Air Force I made 28 dollars an hour. I was among the highest paid in a labor type of job. It was good, interesting work too, I loved it. I hated a lot of the idiots in charge that made my job more difficult than it needed to be but we managed to do a lot of good stuff despite them. One thing about Federal service as a civilian, 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.
With $80k a year on mortgage, you'll get to deduct about 50% of your income (plus more deductions, as per persona situation allows), and your tax rate will be closer to 20%, even in CA, so take home would be .8*160 = 128k per year.
Learn to love Alaska
There is also a big chunk of the population that doesn't understand that voting for bond measure that get paid for as a property tax is just a way of obfuscating that you're being asked to vote for a rent increase, so that stuff passes every single time.
That's because they are most likely renting.
My escrow cost more than my mortgage 3 years into my home loan. My monthly payments have gone up almost 200 from when I started. And I make about 58 before taxes, insurance, 401k, etc with 4 kids and a wife that no longer works.
$200 definitely makes a huge difference in our standard of living.
I don't make much more than that now at Microsoft, and my quality of life is better than when I lived in San Mateo until 2003. Comparing Redmond, WA to the Bay Area is comparing apples and oranges. I currently live on Union Hill to the east of Redmond, and have to walk about five miles each way to Microsoft since there's no good buses, but it isn't terrible. Yes, I spend almost four hours walking each day, but the shortest walk is through Sportsman Park and Marymoor Park. I've lost nearly forty pounds in the almost two years I've worked at Microsoft. Making $15 per hour (about $31k per year) sucks, but I have a place to myself with a garage where I can work on projects. I made over twice that in San Mateo, but had to deal with two roommates.
Ditto. I make 85k, rent 1700 a month, and I feel like I'm doing pretty well. Maybe he needs to learn to budget?
Agreed, I've always heard 2.5x current salary but 3 years of salary makes just as much sense as long as you don't have other major debts - student loans come to mind.
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.
Since I already own my home I'm going to say it. Living in the Bay Area is much nice then the Central Valley. Oh, and I grew up in the CV as well.
Oh please. Most of my friends are teachers and work so little that all of them have had second jobs at one time or another due to boredom. No state requires a teacher to teach more than 180 days a year. That is less than half of the year. Every tech job I've had required at least six and sometimes seven days a week. I worked 361 days last year while my wife that is a teacher only had to teach 175 days (5 days canceled due to snow). Other than when she has bus duty, she would leave home after me and would get home by 3pm which is usually about five hours before me. She still complains about pay since she just doesn't get the fact that she works about a 1/3 of the total time that I do.
The trick is to be happy with what you have. Roof fails to leak, floors keep out draft, electricity, water, sewage, functional kitchen and a separate bedroom for the kids - get all that and you're doing just fine.
Now if only I could convince my wife about this... she routinely sets her "normal" at whatever we have + 20%, seasonally adjusted. Now that might be a great way to run a business but it's a recipe for unhappiness when trying to run a life.
Captcha: enough. Couldn't have said it better.
Umm. He makes 160k and he's having trouble making ends meet? I don't care if rent really IS 3k a month. If you can't make $160,000 go around, you shouldn't be making $160,000.
12 times 361 is 4332. 8 times 180 is 1440. Your math works out. Teachers just don't appreciate how little they have to work.
I'm betting you have 401K, and health.
In the last few years, the fastest growing metro areas in the country have been Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston. Data that is seven years old is out of date.
Also, as you mentioned, there census areas are but one way to define a metro area. Other definitions have D/FW at 50% larger than the Bay Area.
The point being, it's by no means a podunk town in the middle of nowhere, it's one of the largest cities in the country - and I just bought a 3,500 square foot house here for $240K. At 3.8%, the Dallas unemployment rate is much lower than the national rate of 5%, meaning there are jobs here.
Yes, there are also specific policies and attitudes here that directly relate to having jobs - for example we think people *should* have a job, working is good. If that's a problem for you, you are welcome to stay in California and smoke weed all day under a bridge.
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.
you're !
Signed,
Grammar Nazi
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.
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.
Serious question time.
CS educated, graduated in 2000, I have been programming as a day job since then. How in the hell are these idiots making 160k+ starting out? I have been the go-to guy at every job I ever had. Hell one job I took over 5 other positions.
And up to 700k?? What in holy fuck am I missing here?
Not for Google though.
I work tech in the BA and telecommute. But I work for a non-descript Fortune 500 company that does a mix of private and government contracts. I get paid the industry avg for what I do and don't get stock options. But I'm also on the back half of my 40's so age discrimination is always a concern, just not w/ my employer (since they are not a tech company).
Troll ?
My comments reflect the majority of posts on this thread.
Pussy Mods.
That isn't bad pay for Microsoft. I have several friends that work as contractors there that make less.
I get hit up by recruiters all the time, asking if I would like to take a job in the valley making 150k-160k. So I send them the CNN's cost of living calculator and how much I currently make, plus 3% increase for my next position. They never respond after that, every single damn time. The recruiters are hoping to bring in new talent based on sticker shock of how much these jobs are offering but they fail to take into consideration, the higher cost of living. I'd need to make 183k per year for it to be an equal transition from where I currently live.
Title should be:
"Scraping By On Six Figures? Tech Workers Feel Poor in maintaining their lavish lifestyles in Silicon Valley's Wealth Bubble"
During a traditional news downturn (2014), a VP news director mentioned to me while complaining that all people live beyond their means regardless of how much they make. And he was complaining about some news anchor whining about possible decrease in pay from her normal $800K/yr salary.
All in relativity--that's where it's at.
But my take-home is a lot higher. Fuck states with income taxes.
I agree too! I actually work in the DC area, and unlike this character - I realized the mortgages and rent in DC is just astronomically high and not worth paying. So I decided to shop further out, buying a 2,200 sq. foot 2 story house with a nice yard and a 2 car garage, about an hour's drive away from the office. Sure, the commute sucks - but I was able to negotiate things so I can work from home 2 or 3 days out of each week, and the town we live in has a train station. So I can take the commuter train in to a station where I switch to metro-rail and go on in the last bit of the way to the office that way. It's not ideal, but I'll take it over handing over most of my paycheck to some landlord for a smaller apartment or condo and only on-street parking for our cars!
I was able to buy this house for around $225,000 total -- and if you were fine with something a bit smaller? You can easily find homes here for more like the $160K-180K range. It's kind of nice escaping from the "big city" madness to this relatively peaceful, more rural environment too. Last week, we pulled out the telescope and my daughter and I looked at some of the stars and the moon. Nice clear sky for it that we just wouldn't get if we lived much closer to DC itself.
Anyway, my point here is -- between my wife and I both working full-time, our combined income is a lot less than this guy out in CA (probably around $110K?). We manage to pay the $1500/mo. mortgage payment (and that has the homeowners' insurance and taxes rolled into it), as well as a total of 3 car payments. Sometimes we're out of money until the next payday and it's tough to juggle things -- but it's certainly "doable" since we've been doing it with a family of 5 for several years now.
All I can say is, if you have a decent income and job? You should be able to FIND a way to make yourself a decent living with what you're getting paid. It may require some lifestyle changes, including living further away and doing the commute -- but don't give me a sob story about being "financially strained". The statistical majority of Americans certainly have it a lot worse off than you do.
A single person doesn't even hit the 40% bracket until $400k in salary. For someone making just at $400k, they're paying $120k in taxes, which is 30%, assuming they have no deductions at all, which is unlikely. 25% is a better number.
Also, sales tax, while it does have an effect, doesn't get applied until after take-home, which is what most of the upstream conversation has been about. So a take-home percentage ought to be much closer to 65% than the 40% you quote.
Of course there are counter-balances, including deductions like retirement contributions, insurance, and possible child-care costs that many of the other people are glossing over in the list of likely expenses.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Well, $3000 * 12 = $36,000 so it doesn't really hurt that bad on 6 figures after all. That's why they live their; they're not actually complaining about it being too expensive for their pay, they're just bragging about how much money they make.
On that note - a barge can be picked up for a reasonable amount and floated in.
You could totally DIY an apartment on an empty barge and float it somewhere.
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So, you spend $3000 a month on rent ($36K) and are still left with $124,000. What in the hell do you have going on in your life to be "broke?" Even if you took the cost of living where I'm from and multiplied everything by 10, this still pisses me off. Smart enough to program but no damn common sense is what it sounds like. Everyone Dick and Janing each other.
I, too, grew up in the south SJ valley and now live and work in the south bay. I wouldn't go back there if the housing were free what with the summer heat and smog and the winter ground fog. Not to mention it's a cultural wasteland and redneck haven. BTW, what's the electric bill on running the air conditioner when it's 105 for 3 weeks straight in July and August?
All the SF/SV bashers blab on and on about how many square feet they have the big yards, so many car garages, etc. I don't make a ton of money, and I live in SF. Small place, and shocker...w/kids. We're fine. Better than fine. Our house, our material possessions are just enough. We have saved money over the years and spend wisely, such that when unanticipated expenses come up we are covered financially and with peace of mind.
We don't need a huge place, and while my kids have small rooms, it's not like they are 300 ft down a hallway zoned out on TV/Internet/videogames. The outdoors in the Bay Area stretching to the Sierra is fantastic. If you are couch potato, no not worth it for you to be here. If you like the outdoors & city/urban lifehard to beat
So yes to each their own, not everyone has to dig what I like, but the emphasis in the comments on all the 'stuff' people can buy...sad.
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 ....
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.
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.
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Assuming the big tech companies actually care about the well being of their employees,
the simple solution would be have them start new offices outside the bay area.
If they cared, they would keep paying the employees well in area where the cost of living is low.
There are lots of nice towns across the US where this is the case.
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.
The amount left over depends on a number of things. Are you participating in a 401(k)? Current legal max contribution is 18K/year; 24K/year if you're old enough to qualify for catch-up. If your employer does 401(k) matching, you're a fool not to go in for the maximum allowable. Do you contribute to the cost of health insurance? My employer kicks in 80%, but my share is not negligible at $450/month. Do you want to pay off the mortgage early? I'm paying an extra 2K/month so I can own the place free and clear when I retire. Fortunately I have no other debt; I can see where a student loan and a car payment or two could put you in a pinch.
[Citation Needed]
Unless you're factoring in a crappy little country town condemned property into the average that is part of your "normal".
Now admittedly I don't live in the USA. But I've not seen these recommendations play out in any country for anyone other than the very well paid.
Sounds like either your definition of "just outside" is anything within 400 miles, or to you Des Moines is a "major city". Chances are I'd rather live in a tiny studio in SF than live where you are, so it's not as simple as oyu make it out to be. You can probably also buy (or build) a 7,000 square foot house with TWO pools "just outside" Tashkent for $240,000. Doesn't mean you'd want to...
Just wait for the tech bubble to pop. It usually does.
There was a gaming bubble 1983-ish, Windows/aerospace bubble (1992-ish), Dot-com bubble (2001-ish), and we are due for the smart-phone bubble to pop.
The mortgage bubble arguably could be counted, but didn't affect Silicon Valley as much, probably because it just got super-charged by touch-screen smart-phones at the time.
Table-ized A.I.
If you do, then you deserve what you get because either:
You're a leftist who probably voted for the massive overbearing California government with its high taxes and the Bay Area local govt with its taxes planned communities, overactive zoning boards and rules, rhetoric about taxing the rich while actually only going after the middle- and upper-middle-class, etc
or
You're a non-leftist who's too stupid to move away from a place that despises you and is driving itself into a mess. Get out with your family, and shake the dust off your sandals on the way out. Don't look back. Get out and lead a happy life.
The largest income inequalities in America are all in places run by the political left - of course this could just be a gigantic cosmic accident cause by misaligned signs in the zodiac... or not. The places with all the gang violence and the gun violence also accidentally align with places run by the left. This also aligns with the places that voted Hillary, and the places where all the anti-Trump fascist protesters beat people up in the streets and burn stuff and break windows and shout-down opinions they do not agree with. Aint Utopia grand?
Oh please my ass. What the previous poster fits the reality as well. I too have a close relative who is a teacher. And besides what the previous poster correctly identified as annoyances, there is crappy peers who do the bare minimum and don't give two craps about their students and only bitch about money.
I live in the bay area...50 mins south of SF where MOST tech workers live in Silicon Valley....Although we don't work in high tech, my husband and I bring in plenty of money to pay rent for a 1/bed apt at $2800/mo in San Jose in a nice resort style complex with no worries....Just went Apt hunting this past weekend.....Could pay $2450 for a nice 1/BD near where I live now. I don't know what these people are talking about....They must live "like Kings" if they can't afford to live in the city on these obscene salaries. I am putting $18k in my 401k right off the top and we live off my net salary and put my husband's almost entirely in savings and investments...He makes double my salary. We live comfortably and vacation frequently.....We should both be able to retire at 50 yrs old thanks to these salaries..... the person saying they make $1M/yr and she cant buy a house is stupid. Save your dang monry up live thirty and retire early.....Buy a house here? Why??? If you're not born here why not make a ton of money for a decade or so and then leave like everyone else does? There are PLENTY of house on the market the could easily afford....They just want one in a super expense ritzy neighborhood with the best schools.....Los Altos and Los Gatos are Beverly Hills prices....They must have some serious money management issued...They need professional help and serious reality check.
$160k gross income = $34,939 federal tax and $12,304 CA state tax. Take home pay is ~$112,700/year, which is $9,391/month.
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 that payroll also has to fork out an additional 6.2% of OASDI, meaning the price of products must factor in the employee's base wage as the stated wage plus 6.2% to include Federal income and OASDI taxes. Executives tend to make $20-$50 per employee, so those high-powered salaries represent $0.01-$0.025 per hour; whereas the hidden portion of the 12.4% OASDI tax represents $1.674/hr for the median $54,000 income worker.
You can deduct contributions to your 401(k), IRA, and HSA; you can't deduct OASDI, and you can't deduct from OASDI. You also pay for OASDI and income tax out of production--you work some labor hours, you make wage for those hours, that represents wealth (things are made), and a portion of those things (the buying power of your income is things made for that income, essentially) is taken to build roads or pay welfare. OASDI is itself also taxed as income, yet isn't tied to production; instead, that portion of income is double-taxed, once when a good or service is produced via labor (income on wages), and again when that money is handed out to retirees (income on money not applied to any productive work). The same is true of welfare. Money isn't magic, and is directly backed by the productive output of the labor for which wage is paid; that representation is distorted when welfare is taxed as income. Obviously, if you paid tax-free into 401(k), that wage came from labor but wasn't taxed (yet), so should be considered income when taken as distribution.
Tax systems and monetary policies are complex. I constantly argue for a Universal Social Security as an untaxed benefit fed by a dedicated flat tax in parallel to a general fund for the above reasons. Besides that such a system would necessarily take and distribute a percentage of the per-capita buying power (takes it as a USS tax alongside the general progressive income tax; redistributes it flat and untaxed), it also allows us to flatten out that middle-class tax peak without raising taxes on anyone.
The very-poor can't live the high life in NYC or SF on that, and they don't really do that today; they'd have a minimum income on which to live, and any work would dramatically improve their quality-of-life without the threat of losing their welfare income as in today's system. OASDI is easy to grandfather, easy to replace with savings (the people who can't save also don't receive OASDI today), and eventually overtaken by the growing purchasing power of the USS (trade and technical progress means it grows in buying power). Minimum wage loses its importance because everyone has an income which automatically adjusts for actual buying power--which means it grows faster than inflation--and can refuse to work for unfairly-low wages, since life sucks living in a tiny apartment with meager comforts, but life is also stable and doesn't involve freezing to death in the winter while fighting over trash with the rats.
By the by, sales tax is complete trash. Sales-taxable-income represents a smaller proportion of an individual's income when he buys services and securities than when he buys tangible goods; thus the rich pay the same tax rate on less of their income, thus pay what amounts to a lower proportion of their income in taxes. The poor pay a greater proportion of their income in sales taxes. That makes it analogous to an income tax in which the poorest pay the highest rates and the richest pay the lowest. On top of that, it directly raises the sale price of goods w
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Wow!! 2 - 3 years salary?!
Come to Australia. Nationwide our house prices are 10x - 12x salary.
It's actually quite true in many states in the middle of the country. Even in California as long as you don't need to live in a large metropolitan area, you can get reasonably priced housing. Shop Oklahoma City OK, Pensacola FL and similar places on zillow.com and see for yourself. You can get a nice, nice house for no more than two year's salary.
Only I can judge you.
Bull fucking shit. I'm quite certain she is paid more than twice minimum wage and is no where near working 80 hour weeks for her pay to be even half after factoring unpaid time. If she really is needing to put in an additional 40 hours to get by, she should be fired and find an easier job.
It's fucking over exaggeration like this from teachers that get no sympathy from me.
When I was in school, it was pretty easy to tell good teachers from shitty ones. Some used their time wisely, others sat around and gossiped and drank coffee. When writing tests where the teacher would have about 45 minutes of quiet time, theyâ(TM)d read a fucking novel instead of grading papers.
(disclosure: both parents were teachers and have 3 sisters who are teachers now. They bitch about asshole kids, asshole parents, and stupid policies, not money)
Yeah, because shore locations are infinite and tons of open boat slips are always available. Fractals, I guess...
Only I can judge you.
Yes, those also are taxes that get taken out of our salaries.
Only I can judge you.
This guy is a whiny bitch.
I was always told to keep your rent/mortgage below 1/3 of your take home pay. This guy isn't too far off, if he invests properly to reduce tax, etc.
In Vancouver, way more people are living with mortgages that are 60+% of their salary for a similar house.
In the suburbs of Vancouver, an average 1 bedroom is north of $1100 and salary less than half of the guy in the story, so gets no sympathy here.
You've forgotten that we need to pay for our health insurance, plow money into a 401K (it would be stupid not to, right?). So that is all money that is sucked away as essentially taxes.
Only I can judge you.
There are tons of housing available. Those making $160k / yr or more can definitely by a place. The problem is most of these ppl are picky about the school districts , and location so they choose to rent. Also this article doesn't talk about ppl who'd lived in the city for years earning high salary. I've already bought a 2nd property and looking for a third. My cost of living is low because I choose to buy early and planned for my future. Obviously if your coming in late to the game your gonna pay through the nose for rent.
And with high salaries and plenty of jobs, its going to attract a lot of ppl from around the world. Hopefully ppl will learn with the next housing crash to buy low (and not to buy right now where price is high). I know I'll be ready to scoop up a property or two in the next housing cycle.
At the end of the day, its not about the income, its all about the debt to income ratio.
I think you're doing it wrong. You could do better than that by going on welfare.
Only I can judge you.
The "Gay Pride" parade is not about gay marriage. The people parading up and down the Embarcadero wearing tinfoil over their genitals are not worried about marriage. The naked LGBT runners in the races in SF (like Bay to Breakers), or hanging out at Golden Gate park are not about marriage. It's about shoving their lifestyles onto everyone else. Half of the events in SF have parental warnings on them, so don't lie to people about it being "equal rights".
I don't see "straight" being celebrated anywhere in the country, so fuck off. You are not just a useful idiot, you have the mental capacity of a turnip!
Also, that's not including that everything else is more expensive too. All of the businesses around him and their employees have to make more than they normally would as well to pay their own rents. So guy in SF is paying $3k for less, has a higher tax rate, and everything around him is more expensive.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Banks typically want you to be in the 1/3 of your cost. So, as a super rough estimate, multiply your annual salary by 3x and that's the house you can afford. $300K is about all you can do on $100K salary without a huge down.
Seattle isn't far behind. Rents are increasing 20%-40% annually. As are housing prices;
Here’s a house pending sale on Zillow:. Look at the price history;
2/7/2017- sold $485K
2/18/2015 – sold $367K
10/27/14 - Sold: $240K
12/28/07 – Sold; $170K
https://www.zillow.com/homes/f...
The only way to get into real estate is buy some thing small and crappy and fix it, stay a few years, and move up - which is, by the way, exactly what we used to do. There were things called "starter" homes. You built equity then moved up.
I think your food analogy creates the assumption that this tech worker has the ability to spend time baking bread from flour. Many of these technical jobs are demanding in terms of hours and energy, and it's rare that individuals working 12 hour days would come home and bake their own bread, and otherwise do all their own cooking. Instead, they end up paying for the $30 pizzas; or use some startup like Munchery or Blue Apron to deliver similarly priced food. Yes, a luxury item; but due to the amount of time they spend working it may be necessary sometimes.
When are we going to stop talking about six figures as if inflation doesn't exist? $100K in 1980 is $300K in 2016 dollars. In that same time period the average salary has nearly quadrupled, so while your $100K in 1980 was 8x more than the average, $300K in 2016 is only 6x. You would have to earn $400K to be as rich compared to the average salary as $100K was in 1980. The tax rate for $300-$400K in 2016 is almost the same as $100K in 1980 so your after-tax dollars are also comparable.
I have no sympathy for people who won't move. I work in the tech industry (4yr B.S. in Computer Science) and make about $75,000 / yr with good benefits and bonuses that probably put me closer to $100,000 / yr. It sounds low by California standards. However my living standards are far higher than California. I moved from an expensive area of New Jersey to a similarly situated area of New Hampshire and my living standards greatly improved (not that I was doing bad in New Jersey). I'd probably be making $100,000-$120,000 out in California / Bay Area (maybe more, I probably wouldn't move out there for less than $200,000). The difference is I'm 32 and actually own my home, support a stay-at-home partner (and kids hopefully... soon...), have zero commute, and live in a really pretty community. I have two cars, a decent size 3 bedroom house, two car garage, etc. It has a family room, living room, dining room, kitchen, sun room, and huge partially finished basement. NH has no general purpose sales taxes, low property taxes, and decent schools. I moved for freedom (no victim no crime, no law should exist unless there is violence, theft, fraud, or threat of violence, Free State Project & Shire Society) and am enjoying a better quality of life as a result to New Hampshire to partake in the Free State Project for the pursuit of a free society. We're turning New Hampshire into a great place to live!
Lol, are you joking?
San Francisco is one of the most rent controlled cities in the entire world.
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?
He's paying somebody else's mortgage, cost of repairs, insurance, plus profit.
to bring them to and from work like the Googlers do, either....
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10 nuggets are only $1.50, even in the bay area. And everything is still a dollar, even in San Fran.
Just because you can pay $30 for a meal, overlooking the water, doesn't mean you should.
I don't make $80K, I am a Trump fascist and I have never been hurt by disproportionately lower taxes. I spend the free money on guns, Salvia and randy bitches .
Taxes, dude, taxes. You idiots.
It would be a nightmare, but it would be better than Elk Grove and driving over Livermore pass. People do it. Sleep on the trains.
Downtown proper is a strange place. $2300 rent and you have to guard an outdoor grill, or the food disappears. I don't get it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Yeah, but you have to live in Oklahoma.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
+1. Bay area is a a terribly unaffordable place. People are battling it out with dual incomes just to scrape by. Local culture guilts folks into keeping new-ish cars, putting their kids in tons of extra curriculars, etc. Insane stuff, stay out.
We lived in Sunnyvale about a decade ago and got the hell out of dodge once we got married. The identical next door 1970's town house sold for almost 600k. It was really crappy. We could not afford it on dual income (over 4x salary at the time). So we bailed out. It was a the right thing to do on all sorts of levels.
Is that your monthly income or you are dirt poor? Low 4 figures is kinda useless here without specific number.
Which are *totally* valid deductions to have prior to takehome pay, then you still have the rent issue.
In CA you generally see only 50% of your check after all deductions (at these wage levels).
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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).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
160k a year and 3k monthly rent. Ok worst case you still have 10k in take home pay after taxes and medical insurance and 401k.
After rent you still have 7k for a car and utilities.
Get real.
If you're struggling get married to someone who makes as much as you do. Hopefully someone can stand your narcissistic ass.
Rent control has been illegal in California since 1978. (Costa-Hawkings Act; It was not etroactive, so any building built before 1978 that was under rent control, would remain such) :|
Basically, landlords bought out the republican gov't. Made rent control illegal from that point onwards.
And we've been really screwed since.
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.
I would not consider Austin to be a low cost area anymore. One of the largest problems with high cost areas is fed (and state for Cal) are structured for average cost. So with that 150K+ salary in SJ, you lose a good bit of the schedule A deductions, end up in a higher tax bracket, and probably get nailed with AMT. All of this pushes up the effective cost of living even more because an extra dollar is only worth 60c in SJ whereas in Needles, its more like 85c.
Many of you are forgetting that people making $150-200k pay an enormous amount of taxes and are capped out of all of the child tax and tuition deduction benefits. The system really isn't fair.
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.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Taxes.
http://www.newgeography.com/content/001680-how-texas-avoided-great-recession
Part of why the cost of living in Texas is low is that they did not implement the same land use regulations that California did in the 1970s, and they belatedly learned their lessons during the S&L crisis of the late 1980s. The combination of vast supply and firmer limits on lending have kept prices in Texas low, and more money in your pocket.
By contrast, my beloved Golden State responded by crimping supply, rather than address the transit issues that sprawl creates or allowing for concentrated vertical development a la New York City in places like SF and LA. As a result, California turned into a speculator's paradise.
I am a Sanders-loving socialist, and think that the best way to undercut speculators is expanded public investment in housing and regional rapid mass transit systems. However, by pandering to NIMBYs and squandering the money we set aside for transit (here's looking at you, BART pension plans), California really screwed the pooch on this issue.
Three times annual gross pay for the price of a house, has been the standard for people who don't live wastefully for at least 60 years and probably much longer. This is merely prudent behavior, so that money can be set aside for emergencies and opportunities, etc..
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Geez, thought these people were smart.
I'm left worrying whether he actually meant that's what you get with $150k/year income anyway.
Another idea : for a one-time $150k purchase, buy a one-car garage near SF and live in there (semi-clandestinely).
If you have to spend that money within a specific geographic area and you have zero political control over that area (don't have the right to vote), you can't stop those who have more control over the area to overcharge you until you spend all the money you earn and all the money you are able to borrow. If you live in SF and can't vote in SF, you can't vote in politicians who would create policies which enable rapid urban sprawl (to reduce your housing expenses) and make it easier to bring in outside food and clothing (to reduce your daily living expenses). So the people who do have control over it (the home owners, the doctors, lawyers, local store owners) have a vice lock on your life.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
>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 $46,000 in taxes plus everything else, and will be running in the negatives every year.
>And even in the Bay Area, you can buy a nice house for $150k a year.
So a $600,000 house? There's exactly four 3 bedroom houses for sale at the $600k price point in San Francisco right now (on Zillow). The average is closer to a million for a single family home. There's a couple elsewhere on the penninsula and Marin, but pretty much everything with these specs is going to be Oakland, Richmond, Hayward, or Concord. I'd rather live in San Diego, thank you very much. (And I have indeed lived in both cities.)
if you can't save anything then even a 1 million dollar job is worthless.
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 year or so, you just cannot depend on your income! ;(
the 'disposable older employee' is my curse. they keep letting us go, no matter how good we are. we are 'expensive' and so we don't tend to stay years at places. THAT is the main problem.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Look at that dude who bought the old stern wheel steam ship last summer.
Oh wait, it capsized and sank in the channel. Paid $1000, now has a million dollar cleanup bill. Oops.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
$1.15 million is (according to your link) the _average_ income among the top 1% of earners. From the second paragraph: "The minimum income to be in the top 1 percent was $389,436, the EPI study said".
A 401K is not a tax.
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>"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?"
His second $80k is all taxed at his marginal rate, so he gets less of it. You get a tax deduction for your mortgage interest and property taxes. He has to pay more for just about everything - food, gas, car, clothes, and entertainment. He might be a little more broke than you are.
I'm in that situation. because the apt. complex I live in has 'vaulted ceilings' on the top floor, its VERY expensive to heat or cool those units.
you pick them for lower noise levels; but you end up paying a lot more in heat/ac.
and fwiw, my heat has been broken the last 3 weeks and while the bay area is not super cold, usually, with no heat for weeks and high ceilings, its COLD, man!
(and even with my high rent, building mgmt has taken their nice sweet time fixing it. they have my rent money; they could really not care less what condition I'm in. sigh..)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Shhhh
Another tech worker feeling excluded from the real estate market was 41-year-old Michael, who works at a networking firm in Silicon Valley and last year earned $700,000. Sick of his 22-mile commute to work, which can sometimes take up to two and half hours, he explored buying a property nearer work.
“We went to an open house in Los Gatos that would shorten my commute by eight miles. It was 1,700 sq ft and listed at $1.4m. It sold in 24 hours for $1.7m,” he said.
Something is missing here... if you're making 700k, a 1.7M home is well within reach.
The California State income tax is 9.3% on taxable income between $51,531 and $263,222.
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Add also SDI (state disability insurance), not optional.
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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.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Uhh FYI Jerry Brown has always been a Democrat. Can't pass any without the Governor...
I suppose an oil and gas boom had nothing to do with....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
It is if you don't want to be destitute in the future. If we had a strong social safety net and our future in our later years were assured then we wouldn't _need_ to set aside a portion of our income for future needs. Given that this is a cold, harsh country where we are each left to fend for ourselves, it is very much a tax that we all have to voluntarily set aside. Think of the converse, wouldn't you tell someone who's not setting money in a 401K how stupid they are for not planning for the future?
Only I can judge you.
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.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
and fwiw, my heat has been broken the last 3 weeks and while the bay area is not super cold, usually, with no heat for weeks and high ceilings, its COLD, man!
I'm at the bus stop at 6AM to start work at 7AM. It was 44F in San Jose.
This is why so many tech people are moving to Seattle. Housing is way cheaper than SF, major tech companies are here, and there's no state income tax in Washington.
Lol, so you are a vendor at MS making $15 an hour...what group...i can't believe that...not in Seattle
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 get one day a week at home and it's generally the most productive.
You can buy fancy pizza anywhere. Getting a pizza in Little Italy in Baltimore won't be $12. You can get generic pizza anywhere too. Dominos runs their two two-topping pizza deals for $5.99 here just outside Seattle the same as many other areas.
How much bread do you eat? :)
I'm pretty sure you can make enough on the weekend to last all week.
401 k:
* you choose to invest or not
* you defer taxation
* money is in your account
* you choose how the money is invested
* your employer throws free bonus matching money in for free
Tax:
* you are forced to give up the money
* money goes to the state
* you have no direct say in what the money is used for
* failure to comply results in jail
Please tell me in what way a 401 is 'essentially taxes'?
I suppose what I was really trying to say is $100/mo for food might be possible, but in practice, it really doesn't happen.
$3,000 a month rent for a 2 bedroom house? He should have moved to Port Headland in Western Australia, where you could have paid up to $2,000 a WEEK to live in a seatainer.
No, I consider budgeting for healthcare and budgeting for retirement part of living.
They can be skipped here and there.
I'm an adult that figured out how to live and budget my money.
I do it somewhere cheaper than San Francisco, but I do it with a whole lot less than a 100k/year after taxes. Including budgeting for retirement with the same annual income as I have now inflation protected.
If I lived in San Francisco, I could budget less as a percent, and plan on moving somewhere cheaper at 60-65.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I live pretty well too, and could easily weather a couple months without pay, especially if it was simply a pay date change and no missed income.
I have a line of credit that could cover that and cost me nothing, because I could pay it before interest accrued.
But that's because I've been responsible(ish not even that responsible) with money, rather than live paycheck to paycheck.
I make about median income in a median cost of living area, it's, I have less disposable income than someone making 160k/year in that area, especially if they're getting away with 3k for rent (which actually seems super low for a two bedroom there).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Yes, you listed all of the nice things you're able to afford.
Also, I suspect you're not crying poor like the focus of this article.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
absolute bullshit. IT is only that situation in the major centres. country towns and even a lot of inland cities the prices are actually very reasonable. people in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and a few other desirable coastal areas have an understandably warped view of prices but they are NOT representative of the rest of the country.
I love hearing the the precious little libertarian snowflakes living in SV crying about money, their tears are just so delicious.
$160k in SV is like making $83k in Columbus, OH. This is approaching 3x the median individual income ($30k in 2015).
But if you don't like the cost of living adjusted wage at your job, find a new job. In many cases, this might (gasp) mean leaving SV and taking a job at another tech hub where a 10'x10' closet isn't $2000/mo.
Except Austin. Don't move here. It's terrible. Horrible traffic. Rattlesnakes everywhere. Gun duels daily over who's to blame for broken builds. And some Republicans roaming. Plenty of good spots elsewhere, but not here. No need to even verify for yourselves.
Lots of foreign investment in silicon valley. Chinese only sell to chinese.
so? you buy/rent where you can afford, if that is the Bay Area then great, if not then DON'T live beyond your means. It would be great if everyone could have what they want but that simply isn't reality, we get what we can afford and going beyond that only leverages your own future.
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.
Be seeing you...
Oh, the poor little person who can't survive on $160k a year. Maybe he'd like to join many of us who went from that level to below $40k because our company outsourced our job to India. I don't have much sympathy for people like that. Maybe the poor snowflake needs to get a dose of reality the way most of us in the USA have to live today - underemployed, abused by corporate and generally crapped on by the 1% on both coasts.
I'd be sympathetic if he had to try to survive on what my whole household makes.
You're doing it wrong!
Not putting anything into retirement I see, typical millennial.
You need to take 36k off that 160 gross for 401k/457
Spot fucking on sir.
Your base compensation is going to be pretty much the same at whatever tech company you join. Where the real money can be made is in long term incentives, basically restricted stock or cash bonuses that pay out over time. Since not every tech company performs well on Wall street not all compensation packages are equal even if base salaries are the same, and not all tech companies are perpetually profitable enough to fund bonus pools. Caveat emptor.
Basically this.
Also 3k for a 2BR in SF right now is unheard of. I have friends paying nearly $5k for a 1BR, though $3700 is more common for 1BR.
A room share is typically about 2000-2500 unless you have multiple roommates.
From the perspective of the state and IRS you're paying 9.3% to the state and many if not most tech workers are also paying AMT instead of regular income tax which hits you hard but even even harder if you ever find yourself in the position to be a property owner.
Entry-level homes are costing folks between 12k (SF) and 20k (Alameda County) for the same home per year in property taxes as well, and thanks to prop 13 that won't automatically adjust when the housing market finally tanks.
Fled the then-desiccated (but now waterlogged) carcass of CA for the midwest, and I've never been happier.
I have seasons, Gandalf, seasons. I have actual outdoors without the need to spend two hours in California traffic to get to it. I get gas for ~$2/gallon. And what I'm not paying for beef is absurd.
Oh, and the people are friendly. Friendliest freaking people I have ever encountered, and I've been to every region of the country. Supposedly, they're not really friendly, but I suspect that's a lie told by either the people - who don't want Californians coming in and wrecking up the place with broken ass government ideas; or by Californians who are bitter that their utopia isn't.
Is it just me, or does this read more like The Onion than Slashdot?
This article is so much fake...
Moved to NorCal is '92 with $1500 in hand, an AS and Vet.
Worked lowly Security for $10/hr while commuting from Hayward to South San Francisco.
Barely made kept my head above water while attending CSU-Hayward.
Finally gave up pipe dream of Int. Studies/Foreign Service, and got back into IT, my passion.
Knocked out an MCSE in 1998, and got a 30-40% pay raise from my then $15/hr salary while on 30 day probation.
Got another 10-20% raise off Probation, and then by '99 got taken on full time for $50K+, and its kept going on up.
Bought a house in Vallejo, South of Napa in 2003 for $380K, 4 bedroom, in the hills, and right now its probably valued at $430-440K.
The problem with the Bay Area is proximity. You wanna live in the big Cities, you're gonna pay.
The further out you're willing to look, the lower your housing, and higher commute time/aggravation.
We just left CA last year to return to NY (State).
I have CA house with~60-65% equity, with excellent renters (wife's family) that were letting them have at mortgage cost of ~1600-1700 for 2000 sqf fully furnished (mid-highend) completely renovated.
Bought a nice house in NY in a small yuppy-ish town near birthplace for $230K, acre and a half, mid-size barn, 50' dia. pond, smack next to a regional park.
I lucked out and switched to major international company that has a prof srvcs group that all telecommute for F500 work, so some of my story is atypical.
However, a lot of the stories of 'woe is me' are from fuckwads complaining they can't live downtown on their salary.
The Coastal CA areas are rife with this sort of entitled snowflake types. Thats a big reasons why I and many others have left. How Moonbeam expects encouraging illegals in is going to somehow replace the tax remittances I and others were paying is beyond me.
Even though I expect the economy to continue to go up, up and up, I think the risk on the ground in CA is great enough to get rid of my property now before CA goes full dot.bomb v2, with all out anarchy potentially setting in.
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. But that was mainly to annoy you lot.
As a Londoner, I don't really get what the whinging is all about. At least the person in the story has a house. I have a 680 sq. ft. flat (apartment) in zone 3 our near the zone 4 because our prices are comparable and salaries lower, and between myself and my wife we're probably in higher income percentile in the UK than this person.
Growing up in the midwest, the rule of thumb was house is 2x salary for 30 year mortgage, no bonus or overtime included) car was 1/3 of salary for 5 year loan
My Dad, an aircraft machinist, managed to get ten acres, large three bedroom house (large rooms), barn, shop, and 1/2 dozen sheds with that rule if thumb. Also a 30 minute commute.
Knowing his salary then, adjusting for inflation its roughly 140k today. No student debt, no wife working, was a union job, with all the death threats that come with not being a member.
Now its both parents work to have a smaller house, nicer cars, and a much lower quality of life just to advoid three seasons
The problem is that 60 years ago, triple the median salary would buy a decent middle-class home in a decent middle-class neighborhood. That hasn't been true in 20+ years in a lot of places.
In 1955, typical pay was $4400 a year according to the Census Bureau. A typical house was $15,000, slightly more than triple the "target" price (about $140,000 in today's money, and less than half today's ACTUAL median home price in the US).
Today, average pay is up about 1100%. Food is up about 1500%. Car prices are up 1600%. Housing prices are up ***2000%***.
The gap between median pay and median house price has expanded from slightly more than triple to a factor of six. Even more so in places like the Bay Area. "Prudent behavior" doesn't cover the issue anymore. 5-10 times annual income is indeed the realistic range these days. Places affordable on triple annual income are increasingly few and far between.
Someone please mod this way the hell up!
different students learn at different rates, there might be a fire drill during a lesson which now puts you a lesson behind so you need to adjust to keep up, new syllabuses mean the content you are teaching might change, kids might work slower than expected, might not understand a topic the previous group understood perfectly well, some specific kids might not be confident to speak up in class, other kids might want to always answer every question..... .....just off the top of my head why I can't just use the same plan for every lesson.
I'm 20 miles from work. The commute from San Jose to Mountain View takes an hour.
The commute from the central valley is probably closer to 3 hours.
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.
Perhaps ignorant executives who refuse to support remote work can enjoy the rather obscene payroll costs, being forced to pay a base salary of six figures for any employee due to location demands, along with creating an employee retention span of about 17 minutes due to the shitty work environment.
Let them get what they fucking all want, in spades.
Well, $3000 * 12 = $36,000 so it doesn't really hurt that bad on 6 figures after all. That's why they live their; they're not actually complaining about it being too expensive for their pay, they're just bragging about how much money they make.
Let's not sit here and assume that obscene rent prices are the only cost that's increased considerably in the area.
If rent is that high, then I can't imagine what home ownership might cost you, for those who may not to want to stay permanently enslaved. As if the average cost of a house isn't high enough, the properly taxes and insurance are equally fucked.
Bottom line is even those pay rates don't afford much bragging rights in various parts of the country, this being one of them.
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?
Given the housing market, I'd say the key difference between you and him is that you obviously can afford to own something.
Pay rates are not just about income. It's about creating options and a future as well.
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
Oh fuck of you fat useless turd.
They have these things called bicycles that you could ride to work.
At an annual salary of say $150,000, making 3X $450,000, you won't find a house anywhere for that little. At 4X, or $600,000, you might find a small house in someplace like Hollister - an hour and a half commute one way, with times of two and a half hours one way not uncommon. And yes, I used to do this commute daily.
I spent $100,000 more on my boat, trust me it's way nicer than yours.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
I live in Munich, Germany now and the cost to OWN a home here is ridiculous. Then again, Germans tend to rent -- a statistic is saw had ~36% of Germans owning their own home while in the US it's ~65%. My rent is reasonable for what I have compared to where I moved from (Boston area). However, home prices are quite a bit higher. AND Munich is going through a hell of a housing boom -- they're building like mad.
It gets frustrating as hell when I see a forum full of people assuming that things like home ownership, saving for retirement, and raising a family are somehow not life goals that are very much alive and well today for many people.
Start taking those into account that add up and can truly enrich your life in the long run, and it quickly justifies the entire point of this discussion.
"Getting by" is not the life goal of everyone.
It's even nicer to be a nice landlord. I'm finding that it's a hell of a lot of work, though. Between the rent control board, regulation that more or less leaves landlords with zero rights, asshole tenants that break shit and pay late, contractors that need constant babysitting, caretaker companies that cannot be trusted and try to rob me, dealing with leaks and broken heating, and keeping the damn wifi going, I can well understand why there are so many bad landlords operating flophouses. Keeping things neat and tidy, playing by the rules and maintaining a good relationship with tenants, neighbours and the council is hard, but it does mean that agencies send us the best tenants, and even more often those tenants refer their friends and colleagues. And if we want to sell a property, investors pay top euro since they know what they're getting.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
If we set aside a portion of our income for future needs, we wouldn't need a strong social safety need and our future in our later years would be assured.
BTW where do you think that safety net money comes from? You're taking it from someone else who should have had the option of setting it aside for their OWN future needs.
in the SF Bay Area, you can not buy a house for $150K a year in salary. Housing start around $900K to $1.2M in Santa Clara alone.
If you've got a small, detached bungalow and wooden shingles, and want to do a strict like-for-like replacement then sure. Anything else, such as a taller building, heavier tiles and fixing things like roof insulation to a modern standard rather than what it as at the time the house was built and you're inviting trouble not getting a contractor, or more likely team of contractors in to do it.
I have a tile roof which was recently redone, a pretty common roof type over here at least. The first job was to lay protective floor covering and then put a decent set of scaffolding back and front (it's a terrace house). Floor covering because everything for the back has to go through the house. Scaffolding because with the pitch of the roof and height of the house (2 floors) it's both unsafe and slow. There's also a *lot* to carry up there, something like 20 tons of tiles if I recall my calculations correctly.
Then it was 2 guys working for most of the time (a good number of weeks full time), with specialist contractors at various times: a plasterer to do the rendering work on the parapet wall and chimneys and a roofer to do the lead work. And I think then 5 general labourers for the grunt work of actually placing the tiles.
But now I have a modern, well insulated roof which doesn't leak. The old roof was the original one, so the new one will likely last not only longer than my life, but still be be good for decades when I sell up (even if that happens post mortem).
SJW n. One who posts facts.
so, your genius level analysis is that "if you spend more than you make, then you won't have any money left". Fantastic. I'm sure someone who is smart enough to attract a $150k per year price tag should be smart enough to manage their finances a little better. But then again, if we're talking about software engineers I don't expect any level of problem solving skills.
has been the standard for people who don't live wastefully for at least 60 years
And nothing of significance has happened in economics in the past 60 years right?
No seriously. What you said WAS true. I'm asking for a citation showing that it IS true.
Rich bastard is getting off on easy street.
I don't think poor is the correct term. I think the less politically correct term living below their class is more apt.
At 160k 3k a month should afford a good 4 bedroom house over 2000 square feet, with some land.
But he is living in a starter home from with a professional salary that people in other areas would dream of.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Plus your $1500 plus maintenance is going into an asset so you're not throwing that money away like he is.
Don't forget the progressive income tax.
Cost of living may be higher but he is wealthy in terms of the tax man. So take 4K every month for federal state and local tax. Leaving him 3k a month. So he is being responsible only putting 1/2 of his salary into mortgage. But with 3k per month with other inflated prices. He can get by but why with working for the money where you can move to a different area get paid less and have more spending money.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Buy a bread machine. It takes about 1-2 minutes to load it, wait a couple of hours and you have a loaf of bread that will last about a week and is about a quarter of the price in ingredients of an equally nice store-bought one. The bread machine has some capital costs, but mine is about 10 years old and still works fine, so it amortises well.
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It depends a bit. There's a trade for the management between salary costs and control. You can give someone a 20-50% pay cut when they move out of the bay area and they'll still have more take-home pay and a higher standard of living. It's increasingly hard for middle management to justify to senior management why they're not doing that. That said, the bay area situation is great for consultants living in places with a sane cost of living. When I was doing that, my contracting rate was lower than a salaried employee in the bay area, yet I was able to cover my cost of living and pay off my mortgage quickly if I worked two days a month. Anything beyond that built up a buffer in savings in case I wasn't able to get work for an extended period.
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And the important corollary: look at cost of living before you negotiate a salary. If the employer isn't willing to pay you what you need for a comfortable cost of living, then run. You're obviously not valuable to them, so you'll likely be the first to be let go and you'll find it hard to get the next job after that.
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Apparently guys with those salaries aren't as smart as their employer perceives them to be.
Please login to access my lawn
I worked 361 days last year
Moron
And even in the Bay Area, you can buy a nice house for $150k a year
Citation needed, as well as your definition of "a nice house"
A tool shed.
Why is this a troll, he's exactly right. Significantly raising the median income has the effects that the grandparent is complaining about, but raising the minimum wage typically doesn't do that much. It does increase the costs of anything labour intensive, but we're already living in a world where the vast majority of things where labour costs are a significant fraction of the total price are luxury goods and services.
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I worked in one of the lower paying, smaller universities in Michigan and I still made like 50% more than that (with awesome benefits too). I now work in one of the larger and better paying Michigan universities and make over double that (again, with awesome benefits). Which universities are paying as poorly as OP is being paid?
Come to Australia. Nationwide our house prices are 10x - 12x salary.
You've got the same problem we have in Canada, huge numbers of foreign investors buying up property which then sites vacant. In the west of Canada and Toronto(east), the big problems with this are due directly to chinese "new money" buying up. Same as in AUS. But in Canada? 2-3 years if you're not in a big city is still mostly normal if you're not in Southern Ontario or Southern BC.
Om, nomnomnom...
You have to factor in the time cost of preparing food vs. buying pre-prepared food which usually costs more. Generally available time for food preparation increases with wealth, i.e. people who are poor have less time to do it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's not the fault of the tax system. If they made allowances for expenses, everyone would just create fake expenses that actually funnel money back to them in a round-about way, the same as corporations do by paying bullshit royalties to some company incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
But ... yeah. I'm now making twice of what I expected to make back in university, and I still feel I'm unable to save substantial amounts (~$1000/month). Something's wrong here.
A sane ratio of yearly income to house price for a mortgage us about 3-4x. So $150k should be good for a $350-$500k house.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Germans tend to rent because a house can easily be worth a decade of salary even in the less expensive areas, partly because the wages aren't as high as they used to be. Germany is doing fine on paper, but only a third of the population actually profits, the rest has as much, or less than 20 years ago.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
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 have a ludicrously oversized military, the $750 every person pays for interest on our national debt, the $1500 or so the government "borrows" from you from you every year to fund our government (none of which is in any danger of being paid back - and yes most US debt is borrowed from US citizens, not China) thanks to certain groups being unwilling to raise taxes to cover the bill, the $3000 that goes to social security, and another $3000 or so that goes to Medicare/Medicaid. Oh and those safety net programs the conservatives hate so much? They cost around $1000 per person every year per person - curiously barely more than the interest on the debt we pay every year to finance their aversion to taxes. Total those up and it works out to around $11-12,000 for every man, woman and child in the US on average (with a population of just over 300million). Pretty close to the total gross annual earnings of someone making minimum wage.
And in case you were wondering, NASA costs each of us approximately $60/year.
As others are saying, don't live in the Bay Area if you can't afford it.
So when are you planning to start paying all the people that have to work in the Bay Area salaries high enough to live there? You know like restaurant workers, garbage collectors, police and fire, school teachers, etc. Or did you just arrogantly forget about them and assume they should spend their every free hour commuting from somewhere near Nevada?
But, if you want housing that's affordable and not too far away, it's not impossible...There's the whole Central Valley within driving distance of the Bay Area. Sure, a 1-2 hour commute isn't ideal,
So you are saying there isn't affordable housing within a reasonable distance. Spending 4 hours per day in a car "isn't ideal"? That's one way to put it if you are incredibly out of touch with reality. Your salary had better WELL into six figures to justify spending that much of your life commuting. Any commute longer than an hour is just evidence of an incredibly broken and unfair urban planning system.
Better yet, why not just record one really good teacher and broadcast that to every classroom in the country? Half of teachers are below average, anyway - students shouldn't have to suffer through such poor performance. I mean, why sit through your local theater troupe's production of Streetcar Named Desire when you can watch the awesome movie with Marlon Brando?
Family of 5? Learn how to use a condom.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Broke as in "cant afford 2 teslas and other rich guy things he thinks he deserves"
$200K should EASILY handle a $3000 a month rent/mortgage and living decently while putting away cash.
What he is whining about is that he thinks he deserves a 4 bedroom mc mansion. he doesnt.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I see a similar effect in my life and the society I live in (Germany, NRW State Capital of Duesseldorf, Germany).
I earn a neat salary for working part-time as sole web developmer in an agency, but I can only live comfortably and feel safe with a small 1-room apartment. Given, I have a daughter I support, but the truth is, jobs in IT and in these times are just to precarious and unstable to rely on steady income. That reflects on the size of the footprint I choose my every-day life to have. Basically I'm living like a well situated student, ready to move somewhere else in the republic on relatively short notice, should the need to take up a job 700km away arise.
I presume that this sort of lifestyle will only become more and more common in the future. The only people I see escaping it are my peers and friends basically going all-out alternative and setting up microhouses and organic farming collectives somewhere in cheap communities in easter Germany. Parallel to that, cultural borders are in full tilt, from vertical to horizontal, mingling and mixing in the ever growing mega-cities of the world.
If I right now had to move to some super-expensive globalized alphacity to get a job, I'd probably live in a coffin hotel or something - Neuromancer-style. Just to be able to save and have some leeway if things turn south. We're seeing what William Gibson and Neal Stephenson describe in their novels happening all over the place.
We're moving into the Age of Cyberpunk, plain and simple.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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... the HOA.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That is federal only. add on 10%-15% state tax and $1% to 3% local tax, and you start paying 25% at 100K and approaching 40% at 250K.
It's why I cant understand why we dont have free healthcare like canada. we already pay the very high taxes to cover it. instead I have to pay $600 a month to have health insurance. which is also basically a Tax.
It's why I ignore all republicrats as simpletons. They cant even do basic math.
Huh? I had a 160K mortgage was was unable to even meet the minimum deduction to itemize. Where the hell are you getting that you can deduct 50% of your income?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
> 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 information never makes it to support tickets or flow charts or chat sessions. Like using a mouse with only one button, it can be done but it's a definite deficit.
And sometimes kids just happen... It'd be nice if you could return them to the store and get your money back but...
From TFA:
Sam, 40, lives with his wife and three kids in San Jose, earning around $120,000 a year at a multinational software company. "I get paid a very good wage, but I have three kids, childcare is ridiculously expensive so my wife mostly takes care of them," he said.
He feels pressure being the sole breadwinner. "I've got no safety net,: he said. "I have credit cards, but this is not sustainable. If something bad happened I'd be out of the house in a month."
Article covers several cases.
Couples who "make over $1m between us, but we can't afford a house", people with health issues, people living a 20-something coder's life paying 2k for a room in a house they are renting with roommates, people cramming in ""studio-like closets" in a basement", people who can't move out of San Francisco for fear that a Lunatic in Chief might send national guard to round them up and deport them when they set a foot outside a "sanctuary city"...
It helps to read the articles... and linked articles too...
Like "'Tech tax': San Francisco mulls plan for taxing the rich to house the poor"
San Francisco is suffering from its own form of "resource curse".
It brought in tech companies by giving them tax breaks, which brought in money, which skyrocketed the cost of living, which created a whole set of problems for whole sets of people - homelessness being one of them.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If you find it "challenging" to make it on $500,000, you've made some bad choices to get into that situation. Correcting those bad choices will make your life a lot more comfortable. First of those would seem to be to get out of Providence - if your income is only in the mid-six-figs, then you shouldn't try to live next door to people earning in the mid-seven figures. Live your reality, not your aspirations.
See my subject: Says it ALL about you the "ne'er-do-well" loser 'FalconDouche' (hiding behind a phantasyland FAKE NAME for your FAKE LIE of a LIFE, lol)... hahahaha!
APK
P.S.=> The SHEER "intellectual prowess" (lmao, not), of "FalconDOUCHE!!!!"... APK
"Michelle, a 28-year-old tech worker who earns a six-figure salary at a data science startup said her only chance of buying a home would be if she combined income with a partner."
This is *real* poverty, people!
See my subject: R o T f L m A o @ U today over that "Falcon'ere-do-well" hahahahahaha...
APK
P.S.=> What's it like being a skulking little WORM hiding behind your FAKE NAME for your FAKE LIE of a life, worm? Hahahaha... apk
Whatever idiot. I just spent half an hour looking for houses in Tasmania with two bedrooms less that $200k. The only ones available are in places where there haven't been jobs in 20 years. What do you think the average wage is in the towns where these houses are? $25k I'm guessing. Forget about finding a technical job.
Please enlighten me where all these country towns with jobs and cheap housing are.
I am shocked, shocked, that some things now need two salaries to buy when most families now have two wage earners rather than just one.
absolute bullshit. IT is only that situation in the major centres. country towns and even a lot of inland cities the prices are actually very reasonable. people in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and a few other desirable coastal areas have an understandably warped view of prices but they are NOT representative of the rest of the country.
Irrelevant. Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane represent 50% of the population between them.
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.
I wouldn't, he makes 60% more than you. At 100K, I can sort of understand your plight with such high housing costs. At 160K and more? Nope. Yes, I'm sorry the multiple lattes a day, subscription to blue apron, freshly pressed juices, student loans, the loan on their Audi A3, and all the other daily and monthly expenses are difficult to balance with their 160K+ salaries. 1st world problems. Those salaries are no where near what the average US Joe&Jane make, likewise I doubt their lifestyles are anything like what an average Joe&Jane is.
I started at 36K in 1998.
Nowhere near 160K now, but a lot closer to it than 36K.
Also it helps to work in the Mid-Atlantic region and not bay area. The dollar goes quite a bit farther.
I often think about what working in the Bay area would be like. I may make more, but at what cost.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is not quite true, unless you're adding in something else. For *NEXT* year here's the federal rates
Assuming 200k before taxes - Standard deduction is 6350, so 193,650
Fed is 46,643+33% of amount over 191,650 = 47,303
CA is 2269+ 9.3% of amount over 51,530= 15,486
FICA is 7886, Medicare is 2808
So, total taxes is 73,483 or about 36%
Takehome is 128k, or 10.67k/month.
The traditional guideline for rent was 30% of gross.. that's 66k/yr -> a whole lot more than the $36k the whiner is talking about.
Heck, 3k/month is 30% of the whiner's *net*
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?
I've worked with many people especially early in my career who made a good bit more than me - who lived paycheck to paycheck, and whined about how poor they were. It was amusing as well to hear them whine about how it was worse for them than people making less. One guy rambled on about how if you make more, you have to have higher expectations.
When in fact, they just suck at managing money. If you suck at managing money, you'll always be in financial deep yogurt no matter how much you make. If you have to have a new car every two years, and you have to live in a house that the bank was getting skittish about lending you the money for it, and you have to refi it in order to take the entire neighborhood to Disney World, you'll always have money problems. Oh yeah, several children by 2-3 wives can empty your pockets pretty quickly.
I retired on what I was bringing home 12 years early, With less taxes to pay and less suits to buy, and no more mortgage, it was a hellava raise. Yet the people who can't manage their money couldn't understand that at all. Even when I laid out the figures for them.
And if a person gets upset at the message, well, welcome to the world of always having money problems. It isn't bragging, its a conceptual alternative to a life of debt. Plan and manage well, kids.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I know if both are offered by an employer you are allowed the full 18k amount for each account type tax free, however I have never had an employer that provided access to both. For most of us it's 18k for the 401/403 + up to 5k for a ROTH (or whatever the max is now).
its insane
Not it people put up with it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You've forgotten that we need to pay for our health insurance, plow money into a 401K (it would be stupid not to, right?). So that is all money that is sucked away as essentially taxes.
In that case you might as well define rent, utilities, food, transportation and clothing as "taxes" as they're all things you pay for privately for instead of being provided by government and funded through actual taxes.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
* California can feel punitive*
Who elected your representatives? Elections have consequences. Just don't come here with your tax-hungry *values* because you'll ruin it for everyone here too. You built it, you live with it, Jack. Or just do the rest of the nation a favor-fav and secede - get out.
If the tech industry put as much effort into hiring remote workers as they did into outsourcing or H1B workers this wouldn't be a problem.
Having lived in silicon valley for a while, my perception is that the biggest issue is not the paycheck to housing ratio, it's the people.
There's still a culture of one-ups-man-ship, of style over substance. When I worked for a large company there, the mail boy - we had several large buildings on our campus and an honest to goodness mail department - had a 90,000 dollar car. He couldn't _afford_ a 90,000 dollar car, but he knew he HAD to have it.
What I saw was that everyone in the 20's to 40's were living paycheck to paycheck by choice. They'd blow $40 cover charge to get into a slightly more trendy place with $15 dollar shots and an (overpriced) oyster bar, go to all the trendy restaurants, and spare no expense on clothing, electronics, or entertainment. Whereas I had a small cadre of folks that played dungeons and dragons and went to the 24 hour bowling place and played $5 lanes and drank cheap beer.
I haven't seen much change in that attitude. Take young people with no real obligations or life experience, give them a paycheck with lots of zeros at the end, and yeah, they're going to blow it all. No surprise.
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?
He's paying somebody else's mortgage, cost of repairs, insurance, plus profit.
The point is that the guy earning 160k still has a higher disposable income than OP and yet he's whining that he's poor.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I have zero fucks nor sympathies to give.
Agreed. I have recently decided that if your life savings does not exceed the cumulative amount of state and federal taxes you have paid in your lifetime to the present, then you are fucking up and playing the fool for society. Pay yourself first!
Also, that's not including that everything else is more expensive too. All of the businesses around him and their employees have to make more than they normally would as well to pay their own rents. So guy in SF is paying $3k for less, has a higher tax rate, and everything around him is more expensive.
Even if $3K is half his take home pay (which seems unlikely) he's still got $3K a month to spend. He might not be in the yacht-and-Ferrari class but he's hardly struggling.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Move! Wow. If there are no teachers, firefighters, police, etc. in the area then rent and home prices should drop.
Man I'm glad I live in New England. I live close enough to the bay where I can walk my kayak to the beach, yet my house is on a hill and no flood insurance required. no flooding even during the flood of 2009. My house is on an acre of land . I won't trade with anyone in San Francisco. no way.
Zillow says it's worth $280k. I paid $127k 18 years ago.
BA must be insane. $150k/yr will get you a $2M house, including taxes and insurance.
I'm pretty sure parent meant that you could afford an reasonable mortgage on a reasonable house if you're earning $150k/year, not that you would be spending $150k/year on your mortgage...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
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 salary that gets my kids to live in a shitty hole in a wall.
I did the numbers on SV COL myself a while ago, which sort of settled the question of whether to move my family from South Florida to the Valley.
A $3K a month to rent a 2-bedroom house? Fuck that! My mortgage in South Florida is $2200/month for a 3-bedroom home with a large patio and a lake view, in a gated community across one of the best public schools in the whole South Florida tri-county area.
There are other areas in the country where COL is a lot cheaper, where I could get a ranch for less of what I'm paying. But then my kids wouldn't have access to all the educational and infrastructure amenities I get in a large metropolis, and I wouldn't have access to the large pool of career opportunities that I have where I am.
Going back to SV cost of living: Unless it is a sign-in bonus, even if you get a bonus, there is the whole cash flow at the start of a gig. I can totally see why $160K feels like scrapping by in SV.
My suggestion to anyone in that situation is to move to another metropolis where the COL is lower, but that has a decent tech job market. Seattle, Austin, Denver, Dallas, South Florida (somewhat). Or do the sacrifice to live in a small but nice metropolis (like Naples, FL) and do consulting (which gets you to travel a lot away from family but with great and beautiful, upscale options for housing, education and other amenities.)
I wouldn't fucking move to SV on a $160K unless with a good sign-in bonus upfront. Anything else would cause a drop in the standard of living that I currently give my family (which is, after all, the whole fucking reason to work one's ass in a financially rewarding career in tech/software.)
Wow!! 2 - 3 years salary?!
Come to Australia. Nationwide our house prices are 10x - 12x salary.
Something in the same range here in the UK, but I thought our excuse was that we were a crowded little island, they're not making land any more, and so on.
What's the explanation in Oz? Is it just that most of the country is actually uninhabitable due to flying venomous spiders, drop bears, etc?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
On $150K if you're single you will only get about $8,125 a month after taxes.
F you, he got his, now he wants yours too.
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.
Yeah, and the simple solution was to swap places with the wonderfully healthy lives led by the peasantry, right?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
you pick them for lower noise levels; but you end up paying a lot more in heat/ac.
Similarly, the gold plated seats in my Bentley get a bit chilly in January. My life is a nightmare.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Wait you guys are like fresh grads or something? Or help desk/data entry type of jobs?
You must be joking.... H1-Bs are earning more than you.
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.
They are optional if you if you think preparing for a rainy day in your waning years are optional. It's fucking not. And that's a testament of our crooked and out of control COL projected into the future and shitty health care system.
We have a "choose your poison situation", all of us. Put money into your retirement and suffer from cash flow issues today, or don't have a cash flow issue today, but ensure you will eat cat food when you cannot work anymore.
And that's a reality for most households making 6 figures. Imagine what's like for blue collar workers or poor people.
If we can to argue that retirement is optional, we might as well also argue that engaging in protein–energy malnutrition as a cost-savings measure is also optional. I'm being facetious obviously, but you get the point (or so I hope.)
This Subway janitor makes more than you.... way more ....
https://www.google.com.sg/amp/www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/01/bart-janitor-grossed-270k-in-pay-and-benefits-last-year/amp/
And the average school janitor earns more than you...
https://www.google.com.sg/amp/nypost.com/2015/09/20/average-nyc-school-janitor-makes-109k-a-year/amp/
BA must be insane. $150k/yr will get you a $2M house, including taxes and insurance.
WTF? That'd put you way out of solvency. Responsible and manageable borrowing should put you at $450K-500K mortage tops with a $150k/year income. You are an idiot if you go above 3.5-4 your annual salary (and I highly doubt a bank will lend you that much unless you have boatloads of money in savings.)
Yeah, they're getting all that, and they don't care, or they refuse to believe it's because of their shitty policies. It doesn't really affect them personally anyway; they get to walk away with giant golden parachutes, while blaming the failure of their company on "market conditions". Just look at shitty executives like Carly Fiorina, Bob Nardelli, Jack Welch, and countless others: they're not hurting. Carly ran HP straight into the ground (and helped destroy Lucent before that), and she's quite wealthy and even made a (somewhat lame) run for the Presidency. So obviously, having to pay higher salaries and having poor retention isn't hurting these executives any; it's probably hurting the shareholders and investors, but that's not the executives' problem.
LOL, only in Silicon Valley bizarro-world (or NYC, or DC). In sane parts of the country, the normal recommendation is three years' salary.
Exactly. And I doubt a sane bank would lend anyone for a house above 3-4 times one's salary unless a person has substantial savings (way above 1 years of GROSS salary.)
It's increasingly hard for middle management to justify to senior management why they're not doing that.
What are you talking about? It's not middle management's decision about where to base their company and operations; that comes straight from senior management.
That said, the bay area situation is great for consultants living in places with a sane cost of living. When I was doing that, my contracting rate was lower than a salaried employee in the bay area, yet I was able to cover my cost of living and pay off my mortgage quickly if I worked two days a month.
How so? If you're an on-site consultant, you have to pay the living costs in that area, unless you're living in your car or something. If you're talking about being a remote consultant, then sure that works out great but how many people are able to get a gig like that? This whole thread is about management not wanting remote workers.
If you earn 160k what's the big deal with 3k rent per month? Why do you need to just scrap by?
Time to stop blowing money on other shit.... no way you could be struggling financially unless you are trying to live at a $250k level with a $160k paycheck.
In Atlanta, my wife (fiance at the time) and I bought a $100k house, qualifying for the loan based only on her ~$30K income as an artist (I had just graduated and was not yet working). Although it took longer than anticipated to get there due to the recession, our house price:income ratio is now more like 1:1.
The house in question, by the way, is a normal 3 bedroom/2 bath detached house in a decent urban neighborhood. Granted, it's increased in value a lot since we bought it (because we bought during the recession), but still.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's actually quite true in many states in the middle of the country. Even in California as long as you don't need to live in a large metropolitan area, you can get reasonably priced housing. Shop Oklahoma City OK, Pensacola FL and similar places on zillow.com and see for yourself. You can get a nice, nice house for no more than two year's salary.
And a completely barren job market for when shit hits the fan (which always does.) I live 9 hours away from Pensacola. I wouldn't move there at all, even if I earned the lottery. There is barely anything there in terms of jobs or education for my children. There are costs associated to living in flyover country that most people do not realize.
I'm left worrying whether he actually meant that's what you get with $150k/year income anyway. Another idea : for a one-time $150k purchase, buy a one-car garage near SF and live in there (semi-clandestinely).
^^^^ No family with kids, I presume :)
I don't know where it was (haven't made it in a few years), but there's a really good ciabatta-style bread that I made where you literally dump the ingredients in a bowl, mix them for a bit, let them sit for a while, and then dump it on a pan to bake.
It was good enough for anything you'd use bread for.
Peeling potatoes? It's better and more nutritious with the skin on. Cleaning dishes? Dishwasher. So that leaves just a few pots and pans at most.
What it really takes is planning - if you don't have the food at home at the right time, that's where it becomes a real time sink.
If that is your thinking, I applaud you for being financially prudent.
But bitching about cost when a house cost 6X annual salary is like complaining that water is too wet.
I would think a house for 6X annual salary is considered very affordable.
What are you talking about? It's not middle management's decision about where to base their company and operations; that comes straight from senior management.
It's generally middle management's decision whether to hire people who will work remotely, whether to hire full-time employees or consultants, and so on.
How so? If you're an on-site consultant, you have to pay the living costs in that area, unless you're living in your car or something. If you're talking about being a remote consultant, then sure that works out great but how many people are able to get a gig like that?
I found no shortage of companies willing to have me work remotely, even back when I was starting out and had little reputation. I almost never worked for someone closer than 3 time zones and often for people 6+ time zones away (in both directions). I was cheaper than anyone living in SV, about the same price as people in the mid-west, and a lot more expensive than people in Russia, India, and China (I had a few contracts doing design work that would then be implemented by cheaper teams because of this).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
He's an engineer, pop that thermostat open and have it say its 90 when its 78.
DFW is in Texas.
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.
You are missing the point. It sucks and no matter which sector it sucks. Even Social workers get higher pay.
Oh and Janitors in NYC earn average over 100k so get some reality check. Educators, Researchers do not get paid that badly. Unless you are talking about "infant care" educators and Government rubbed Call Centers and lab assistant "Researchers".
Add in property tax and sales tax (which is pushing 10% in most of CA) and you are about at 50%. Hell, my property tax is about 8% of my total income (pretax). Toss in all the "fees" tacked on to things like phone service, cable service and the like and you can easily break losing 50% of your income to taxes in CA.
My lease (in SF proper) goes so far as to say you can't even bring a portable dishwasher into the apartment.
but is it realistic to imagine Bay area tech workers spending their weekends baking bread, peeling potatoes, cleaning resulting dishes and doing whatever else it takes to minimize food costs?
As others have said, there are "no knead" bread recipes which are well-known which literally take a couple minutes of measuring ingredients and stirring. With some recipes, you can even store the resulting dough in the fridge, cut off a piece for a weekday dinner, take 30 seconds to shape let sit on the counter for an hour, and bake for fresh bread any day of the week. Bread is one of those things that CAN take hours of attention if you want, but it can also be done with minimal time and attention.
Peeling potatoes? First, as someone else said, just leave the skin on. And don't these people with disposable incomes to get takeout every day have dishwashers?
There are lots of ways to make cooking and food prep more efficient, and plenty of books that can tell you how. The simplest thing to do for an exceptionally busy person is to learn several slow-cooker recipes. Many of these things can literally be dumped into a slow-cooker on the weekend in a matter of a few minutes, and then 8 hours later, you have a complete dish that can be frozen in portions for later use. Near instant "TV dinner," and generally for a tiny fraction of the cost. Do a different dish in bulk every weekend, and pretty soon you have a freezer of dinner options for the weekdays.
But that's for the person who literally has no time on weekdays. If you even have 10-15 minutes for prep, you can do a lot more variety and interesting (and fresher) stuff once you know how to be efficient with your time. It can often be faster than running out to the local take-out joint if you know what you're doing.
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 do three or four and freeze the extras. One 9x13 will last two or three meals easily for my family of four. The amount of extra work to go from fixing a single pan to many is very minimal. Then when we realize we don't feel like fixing dinner at the end of a busy day you pull out a freezer pan and put it in the oven, steam some frozen veggies when the oven is nearly done and you're set. Get a large crockpot and learn to use it to fix meals you like with minimal effort. Use a rice cooker to make all the rice dishes you could ever want with minimal effort.
As someone else pointed out you can make bread in a bread maker with only a few minutes of your time. Why are you peeling potatoes? The skin has useful nutrient and fiber value, just cut it up small enough that it's not frustrating to try and eat. Cleaning dishes is a never ending chore just like laundry, and it's just part of adulting. You can minimize the time or pain in doing dishes by using a dishwasher, buying dishes that fit the dishwasher well, run the dishwasher before food gets calcified onto dishes, and cooking one pot meals.
Maybe it's asking too much for adults to act like adults. But they're unlikely to find pity when they are making far higher salaries than their neighbors but trying to live like trust fund kids or people on sitcoms. My father 30 years ago was making double my current salary and we ate out or had delivery once a week if that. So these people can either grow up and realize they're throwing away money trying to live a lifestyle they can't support or continue spending themselves into abject poverty because they're too good to fix their own meals.
My rent is the same but I only make half of that, and I'm fine.
The guy is just mismanaging his money.
Raising minimum wage raises the median income. It also has the added perks of making the cost of business higher which is usually transferred to the customer by raising prices of products - which then gets rid of the advantage of the minimum wage increase - but hurts those who were making above minimum wage tat did not get an increase.
Was supposed to be 150k for total cost of living, not just mortgage And I assume you are treating that 150k as post-tax.
What things are worth is fairly consistent geographically but the value of the money varies from place to place.
A person with $200k in income and $150 in expenses will pay $46,000 in taxes plus everything else, and will be running in the negatives every year.
Yes, it's a crying shame that the $150K is all in fixed costs that you can do nothing about.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Uh, kind of true, if you count federal taxes. California, at a 9.3% income tax bracket for single filers between $51k-$263k, isn't really making much of a dent in that $220k. Instead of being in the top 95.3rd percentile nationally making that in some income-tax-free utopia like Plano, Texas, California state income taxes would drop you all the way down to the top 93.9th percentile.
I, for one, am absolutely aghast that two guys waaaaaaaay at the front of the line would have to switch places like that. Freaking fucking Taxifornia Communists!
If a house in X costs more than you can afford, don't get a house there. It's really that simple.
I recently paid $240,000 for a 3,500 square foot, five bedroom house with a pool, just outside a major city. So clearly there are other options.
More to the point, you are not entitled to a fabulous house any more than you are entitled to a Lamborghini.
If you are the sort of person who wants/needs fabulously expensive things, then go out and work or marry for the money and stop pretending that life's unfair because someone's got a better yacht than you, or that you're poor because you can only afford a $100 instead of a $500/bottle champagne.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
3 kids is not a large family. Do you have kids?
"you can't afford a $1M condo without a $500K buy-in,"
BZZZZT. You don't need to put 50% down on any home. 20% gets you by the mortgage insurance cost, and many people purchase with less than that.
Just another day in Paradise
Sales tax that is pretty universal to everybody budgeting.
In CA, it doesn't apply to food or utilities, and rent (?), doesn't apply to savings or other taxes, it does appear to apply to clothes shop though, some people don't need to worry about that.
Pretending the effective tax rate of sales tax is anything approaching the nominal rate is pretty dishonest.
Just like pretending struggling to cover a month with a 160k/year salary is a failure of basic home economics.
It's not unlimited money or anything, but it certainly is enough to live comfortable and have money for a rainy month.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
You're really paying 45% in taxes?
The post state and federal tax is about 8.5k/month (103k).
The 10k was a napkin math that was a little off estimate of post taxes.
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Only if he's salary. If he's contract then he's hourly and he got paid for every single one of those hours.
If you're working 80 hours a week, bread flour and vegetables do you no good.
I left the Bay Area last year because I couldn't afford to buy a house with enough room for my family of 4 in a good school district. I just did my taxes, cleared just over 200k last year. Sad that's not enough
A big issue is schools. If you have kids who you want to attend a reasonably highly rated school without paying for private that restricts you to MUCH higher priced areas
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.
Yeah, it's a society thing, and a market thing. Low-demand goods have higher margins because the market is high barrier to entry (easy to supply, but if you try to supply it you'll be trying to grab for a very small spread of customers, and competing with highly-experienced businesses with wide margins and stronger negotiating power with suppliers). If you want a small house, you have to pay for a custom job--and it's not going to save you much now, oops.
Basically, nearly 100% of Americans decided or accepted that houses are just big. The middle-class moved out of small houses as the generations rolled around, and now that shit gets handed off to the poor--ghettos full of 1300sqft houses inhabited by two-worker minimum-wage families pulling $30k/year. As a result, neighborhoods where people with actual money want to live have big ass houses; if you want to live in a small house, you can live in a slum. Don't like it? Pony up an enormous amount of money to have a tiny house built on your own tract of land.
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Simple solution: revisit building codes to allow construction of high occupancy residential buildings. Lots of them. Everywhere. An economically strong area that spans from San Francisco to San Jose, it should be brimming with high rises and apartment buildings.
But that won't happen because ZOMG we have to maintain the city character and shit. In other words, selfishness and ego.
In the UK, there is now a legal cap of 4.5 times the annual salary for the loan amount, as part of the regulations brought in after the financial crash. 10 times really only makes sense if you are flipping houses and you and the bank are really confident that the market will keep going up, so you'll pay off the mortgage (plus interest) by selling the house at a higher rate. This works well until the market collapses...
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and it's rare that individuals working 12 hour days would come home and bake their own bread
Lulz, I did it. It's faster than shopping, except you usually shop in bulk for things. Honestly, though, making a couple loaves of bread takes half an hour. Also, "working 12 hour days" isn't a thing; if it is, your $170,000 salary is $54/hr, while a 40-hour worker making $110k is getting paid a better wage. Yes, I've been 24-hours on-call before; and I worked 9-5 doing it.
The food analogy and bread baking thing was actually more interesting because it shows we can solve things like poverty by new types of welfare because those things became cheaper. Otherwise it was an extreme; you can still spend $100-$120 on pre-packaged meals and cook them in the microwave, you slob. I make sandwiches for the week in 20 minutes. I used to make my own sushi for lunch in the morning and then bicycle 7 miles to my IT Security job--it took me 20 minutes to cook breakfast while making sushi, and then I spent 15 minutes eating, and in that time managed to also prep everything else to leave for work including doing 15 minutes of Wii Fit. Cooked half a cornish hen or whatever else for dinner. Spent about 90% of my not-at-work time playing around on the Internet.
Maybe you're just slow.
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Yes but he had claimed that a person making $120k is paying about 25% to the Federal government. The problem is you're paying 21% to the Federal government by the time you hit $38k, and then above that you're paying 31% or more. That's more than what was claimed to come out of taxes excluding State taxes.
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What are you paying in taxes? Take home would be around $9k and that's after a 401(k) contribution. Change your tax man if you only take home $6.5-7k in cali.
I choose to plan for my own future through private retirement plans rather than requiring the government to do it for me. A private account is explicitly not a tax. Feel free to look up the definition of 'tax' (particularly the part about "obligation") for further education.
Technically, it was 2.5 to 3x of gross!
The Bay Area and other high cost of living areas only work out if you move up the ladder or in the top 10-20% of engineers. The guy is in his 40s and makes 160k. I know companies that pay 160k to new college grads after base + liquid equity. People that do well quickly (5 years) move up to about 300k which makes living in the Bay Area tolerable. Director, 500k, Vice president 1 mil. Otherwise you can play the start up lottery and sometimes do well. If you work for bottom feeder companies or switch jobs frequently because you aren't a good engineer, you will struggle heavily in the Bay Area. It is only expensive because of the competition. Plenty of people are making the 300k+ needed to afford a house there if it isn't you and you are 40+, you should move.
What I don't get is how all the normal jobs (teacher, police man, etc.) get filled. No one in their right mind accepts a job that can't pay rent for a studio.
Same difference.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So you're comparing a janitor in SF and a janitor in NYC to him. :"oh, you're dumb, you don't make much, idiot". I hate you just on principle.
Talk about apples and oranges.
Plus, it's idiots like you that ruin everything
I don't buy that. Teachers, depending where they are, are well paid. Hell, they're running ads on the radio here ( in Los Angeles) talking about hiring teachers in Clark County ( Las Vegas), with a guarantee of a raise if you make less than 78K a year, and 28% of your income as retirement contribution.
Burnout is another issue, but not directly related to salary.
We're talking about people making $170k here; and I find that driving to the McDonalds 2 blocks from my house, getting food, and coming back takes around 25-35 minutes. I can actually prepare meals in 25-35 minutes; Jacques Pepin is better at this than I.
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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.
Sorry, I have been in construction my entire life. and you have some holes in your story. First off, unsafe pitch on a roof.. and a parapit wall. Never will you see the 2 of those on the same building unless its a building. Second If there is a parapit wall its a semi-flat roof And they would not use roof "tiles" it would be either originally tar and sand shingles. But most likely a thick vinyl layer that is a reflective white. So which one is it?
Never will you see the 2 of those on the same building unless its a building.
Unless its a Business. Sorry.
It's federal, state, plus medicare/medicaid.
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding of how much people with higher incomes actually take home.
I lived a good chunk of my life in flyover country and made way less than 100k/year. I lived very comfortably. Then I lived a long time in NYC and made well north of 100k, then north of 200k. The money doesn't go as far, but more importantly, you're taxed as if you were still in flyover country and actually rich, but you're not. You're barely making ends meet. And so many tax deductions (almost all of them) no longer apply to you because you're so "rich." Meanwhile, all of your take home pay is going to rent. But, you know, you got to go where you can get the work.
>preserving the "character" (translation: affluent whiteness)
Chip on the shoulder much? self-victimize much? Character can be architecture, doors, paint jobs, landscaping, and yes especially the continued maintenance of same. You consider those qualities cornered by affluent whites?
Race has nothing to do with it. Putting time & money into your neighborhood does. If any people, race, religion, gender, etc move in the expectation is that they can continue keeping the place nice. That's it, no race issue at all.
Matter of fact Home Owners Associations are created to force people to do that. Because, unfortunately, not everyone is on the same page. And yes there are times when people do need to be on the same page, and that's not discrimination- it's part of being a team. In this case a neighborhood.
That's the problem here, nobody builds--too many legal impediments and NIMBY folk.
Hell, In Los Angeles, an AIDS advocacy group is the primary sponsor on a building measure, simply because the guy in charge doesn't want to ruin his office view.
If you can explain to me how slow growth helps aids patients, I'll eat a horse.
Sorry, I have been in construction my entire life.
Well, clearly your experience isn't as broad as you think.
First off, unsafe pitch on a roof.. and a parapit wall. Never will you see the 2 of those on the same building unless its a building.
(I know you said business).
No, you are mistaken.
Second If there is a parapit wall its a semi-flat roof
Again, you are mistaken.
Observe the many parapet walls on these archetypal Victorian houses:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...
None of those are my house, and mine is not in fact Victorian, but you can see the parapet walls separating the houses on pitched rooves. You can see the parapet walls from street view and you can see from the aerial view that there are no flat rooves. My house has a steeper roof than those, with a longer pitch as well.
And they would not use roof "tiles" it would be either originally tar and sand shingles.
There are many roofing materials, and your reasoning only applies for the wood (or tar+sand) ones. My house (as are most of the ones in the picture) are tiled with actual ceramic tiles. Some in the street view you can see artificial slates, some you can see what I suspect are concrete tiles which are heavier still than ceramic tiles and if you noodle round a while in that area, you'll probably enconuter some rooved with real slate. The victorian houses are the ones with the distinctive side return in the aerial view. You can see rows and rows and rows and rows of them all over the place with many parapet walls.
So which one is it?
Ceramic. We considered this brand, which for some reason i remember, but not the one we actually went with:
http://wienerberger.co.uk/prod...
As you can see they are actual ceramic and weigh 1.3 kilos each.
My guess is that you've been in construction in a relatively restricted area where a certain style of roof and building dominates.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
55%, mofo. I work freelance.
Good grief you're dense.
OK from the first link, I see what you mean, Those are Duplex's Not Single Family Dwellings. And in all honesty that is a Demising Wall. Completely different. A Parapit wall is used to hide things on the roof like an A/C unit. A Demising Wall separates 2 areas of a building for Fire Safety and Noise. Obviously You don't do construction for a living. therefor misunderstanding will happen. But I believe we both learned something today. And as far as your tiles go, since i will rescind my comment of basically calling you a liar, Are heavy as hell but it can still be done by a homeowner with a little skill and patience. Also I'm an Electrician in Las Vegas, NV so you're correct in assuming one type(2 actually) dominate here. Most residential is pitched roof with ceramic tile(i guess it keeps the house cooler? and weather better.). And then the Flat roof parapit style i was talking about, and in older downtown areas its almost all flat roof with white vinyl if its newer or tar shingles. As we dont get alot of rain or snow. Its mostly wind erosion that does the damage and heat. Once again sorry for the misunderstanding.
Some cultures love to brag about how much the stuff they buy costs.
At my old job we had an ethic of being cheapass idiots, and would generally brag about how we managed to score a deal. two or three different cultures represented.
Two women were soon hired, and they immediately started bragging about how much they paid for various things ( car, house,etc. ). The both came from the same culture. It was obvious that to them it was a matter of pride to pay full price/no deal on things. To us it was a matter of stupidity.
That's 180 weekdays, which means 36 weeks -- more than half a year.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
You're not sure of a lot of things like if you're a man or woman (lmao) but I'm SURE you're a 'not man' bitch! Change your fake name here to "The projectionist" instead of "falcon'ere-do-well" now posting by unidentifiable anonymous skulking worm posts hahahaha.
* By the way - projecting YOUR issues onto me? Ineffective. It makes me laugh how stupid "your kind" is - you HAVE to 'hide'. You're ashamed of what you are & your real name (& I don't blame you - you're obviously a fatherless bastard with NO BALLS raised by women as you act like a bitch (lol) using bitch tactics & have accomplished zero (unlike me)).
You wish you were me & you know it... Funny - I've never seen a property deed with "anonymous coward" on it either (so quit lying Mr. 'fake news' douchebag).
APK
P.S.=> How can you live with yourself FALCON'ere-do-well? apk
Welcome to the not-so-wonderful world of AMT.
Huh? There is no minimum to itemize (if you want, you can itemize for less than the standard deduction, nobody does, but you can), and a 160k mortgage is referring to $160k a year payments, which in the first 5 years of a 30 year, could be rounded to $140k+ in interest payments. Itemizing $140k of interest is well above the "minimum to itemize".
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Those are all good points MemeRot. However, if you don't put money away for your future you end up living toothless under a bridge when you grow old. They are taxes only in the sense that you don't see that money now. They are considered the prudent and correct thing to do, also they shelter your money now from taxes so in that sense, they do impact taxes.
Only I can judge you.
You are absolutely right AvtarX.
I do believe though that once one gets to a certain income level, particular things start to seem like necessities: Cell phones for each person over 10 years old in the household, good health insurance, high quality food (organic, grass-fed, non-GMO), slightly nicer clothing, slightly more indulgent parties, etc. So, these things end up sucking more of one's money than would be considered truly absolutely necessary. Yes, technically they are indulgences but what good is eating like shit if it is going to kill you earlier?
Only I can judge you.
Damn, I wasn't expecting this argument to come to such a civil conclusion!
You are right tehcyder. Those are all not exactly taxes but they are definite drains on one's income and a reduction of available funds monthly. The only qualifier on the 401K is that it impacts your taxable income, and so does a Health Care FSA (Flexible Spending Account).
Only I can judge you.
I did not realize that anything on the coast was considered flyover country, I thought that was strictly the area between the coasts. Thanks for enlightening me. My company is making a big push to move production to Pensacola and they're having a hard time staffing, perhaps due to the factors you mentioned. I went to Pensacola on a business trip a number of years ago, not really long enough to get a feeling for the area. I vaguely recall some touristy shopping area, maybe a huge Ron-Jon Surf Shop store.
Only I can judge you.
Or you could choose to live in one of the hundred cities in the US with a reasonable cost of living, good schools, and low unemployment. If you're choosing to put work ahead of kids, that's a choice you're making.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
Okay, fine -- we'll agree maxing out your 401k and IRA is not optional.
But in that case, it's not optional for normal-income people either, which means their take-home pay is literally $750/month, before housing.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
OK from the first link, I see what you mean, Those are Duplex's Not Single Family Dwellings.
They're terraced houses, mostly. I think you call them row houses? Many of them are single family houses, but some will be split up into flats (some legally, others not). They were designed as one family per house.
And in all honesty that is a Demising Wall. Completely different. A Parapit wall is used to hide things on the roof like an A/C unit. A Demising Wall separates 2 areas of a building for Fire Safety and Noise.
It's only a parapet wall if it extends above the level of the roof at that point. We'd call the demising wall a party wall. It's a parapet though because it extends above the level of the roof. More modern builds tend not to use a parapet and have a continuous roof all the way along. That gets fun, apparently, when it's time to re-roof, because it's best if everyone in the row does it at the same time. Cheaper to build though since much less lead work and rendering is needed.
Obviously You don't do construction for a living.
That's correct, however I am an engineer.
therefor misunderstanding will happen.
Yes but a good part of that is difference in terminology too.
And as far as your tiles go, since i will rescind my comment of basically calling you a liar
Thanks!
Are heavy as hell but it can still be done by a homeowner with a little skill and patience.
Depends which bit. Much of the tile laying was done by unskilled labourers. The rendering and leadwork are really specialist stuff. It is possible to learn, of course, by those are much harder to just wing compared to many other DIY tasks. Either way you're talking many person days of heavy manual labour in practice. Every 10m^2 is basically a ton of tiles.
Most residential is pitched roof with ceramic tile(i guess it keeps the house cooler? and weather better.).
A lot better: my old roof was past its 105th birthday when it was replaced. The new one will likely last as long.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I have 2 kids, work in Santa Clara, own a 3bd/2ba house a couple blocks away from eBay, my wife does not have an income, and my base salary is $160k/year + an unreliable yearly bonus (I don't work at a tech company). Granted, I did buy my house at the bottom of the market, but my mortgage payment + property tax is more than their rent. It is tight, but we are capable of doing it, while saving for retirement and maintaining a relatively healthy lifestyle. Everyone's situation is different, but I do not feel bad for these tech workers complaining about their similar salary and $3k rent. If its that bad, stop going out for $100 sushi dinners and get a roommate.
There isn't any work in many of those cities for people in certain professions (i.e. tech). So you're looking at going back to school and starting all over in a new career field.
Honestly, I frequently wish I had gone into the medical field somewhere instead of engineering/programming. The pay might not be as good (I'm not talking about being a surgeon), but the job stability is much better, and you can work almost anywhere (depends on your exact specialty of course but if it isn't something obscure it'll be needed everywhere).
It's generally middle management's decision whether to hire people who will work remotely
Marissa Meyer's edict at Yahoo contradicts this claim.
Not only that, but in any job involving working with computers, the IT department has to be set up to allow remote work. If they're not, remote employees have no way of getting work done. Middle managers have zero control over IT.
so just imagine how those of us making UNDER six figures for the entire family, living in the Bay Area are feeling.
If you were a peasant but won the birthplace lottery, so you had a great climate, fertile land, political stability then perhaps life was not that bad.
I'm assuming a great inequality, if you lacked any of these perhaps life sucked or was completely horrendous at times.
Better to be in the upper class of course, there you had the filthy rich but some just had a creaky castle/château/manor and bad land to show for it.
I'd settle with being a rich, immoral and decadent Roman citizen with slaves who dance, play music and bring me grapes.
Milk for example is cheaper in SF than in most of the country, and that is even if you're buying locally produced. Food is mostly normal prices. Restaurants prices are comparable to other cities. Electricity and water are normally priced. Gas is normally priced. Things like clothes, or anything from a department store would be exactly the normal price.
The things that are more expensive: rent, parking, bars, certain types of live events, museums, gift shops and other tourist things, etc. If you visit and everything you do is tourist-y, that has nothing to do with the City.
Public transit is cheap.
As long as you only wave your hands and presume that some sort of unknown general class of items is more expensive, then you'll never even know if you're right.
Yep. I was only in SF for 6 months and it was obvious right away: Californians place social value on spending, not saving. If they buy something on sale and want to brag about the price, they tell you the list price not what they really paid. And if you tell them how to save money, they'll give you a silly patronizing look before they recover and ask what blog you read it on.
And I'm only from one state away!
Ahh yes, large cities. Where everything is an expensive, crime-ridden, crowded, noisy, polluted, smelly shit-hole.
Maybe you should move?
There's plenty of tech work in every city. I've never lived or worked in the Bay Area despite the opportunity to do so, and I've never really had difficulty finding work. 16 years of being a sysadmin/netadmin. The upshot is that I have a family, a house big enough for all the kids to have their own rooms, work from home, wife gets to be a stay at home parent, and I live within 20 minutes of almost all my kids grandparents (one grandma lives a couple hours away). And all this is inside city limits. If I were to need to switch to another job, I could get an office job in days, or another remote job in weeks.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
Making $160k your take home should be in the neighborhood of 8k per month. How are you complaining about $3k in rent? First of all a mortgage on the same property would inevitably be less and you could always move into something smaller.
Raising minimum wage may affect the mean, but it's unlikely to affect the median.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
What did the cleanup consist of? A barge is basically a steel rectangular box that floats. I could imagine an old steamer wouldn't be heavy on the chemicals, but would be something that would come apart into many pieces. A sunken barge can be pulled up with a crane and an electro-magnet.
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This is the type I'm thinking of. Sure it will take some work to get it livable, but that's half the fun.
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That depends on the tech work. System administration is something that's needed everywhere. Certain more obscure types of programming work, not so much. I mainly do embedded C and C++; there isn't work for me in "every city" by a long shot. I'm not confined to the Bay Area (nor have I ever lived or worked there), but I can't just go pick some random medium-sized city like Omaha and expect to find decent work there. And usually, when there is work there, it's only at one place, which is bad for several reasons.
Mid 6 figures? So 500k? So 100k/yr for each member of the family?
If you thing surviving on this amount is a struggle, you would not be satisfied with any amount of money.
Want to know my theory? With women working now, 2x as many people are in the labor pool, so salaries are half of what they used to be. Supply and demand.
Never heard of IRC chat rooms or private chat I guess.
I've found IRC and tools like it to be the opposite of helpful for such discussions. The constant disruption to a chain of thought of trying to monitor such channels during work, and the temptation to post or discuss or explain an issue rather than actually working on it can be overwhelming for me. I get quite enough "pop-up" alerts about real work related services, any additional from chat channels would overwhelm me.
Some of us also use our hands, a local whiteboard, or facial expression and intonation, alone or in combination, to convey or to notice additional communication. Face to face communications is particularly helpful when I am uncertain if a colleague understood what I was saying, due to language barriers or unfamiliarity with particular technical jargon.
Don't know the details, but it was all in a huge rush at government work rates. It was a $1000 rotting wooden hulk under tow, but large and tall as riverboats go. Doubt they raised it in one piece. Likely just brought out a dredging barge and crane.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There are already a bunch of 'crete floating, basically immobile 'houseboats' in the east and IIRC north bay. It's already been thought of.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
4 figure? You get by on less than $10k a year? That is impressive.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?