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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.
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
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
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
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?
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."
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.
You're not getting the point, which is: don't live in the bay area unless you can afford it.
That's really what it comes down to. You have to make a decision on employment not just based on the size of your paycheck. Quality of life, proximity to activities/transportation, cost of housing, general cost of living all play into the equation.
It's as if nobody every taught these kids any sort of financial management or business skills, or even analytical thinking to work out the finances themselves. This is not, as they say, rocket science.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
my theory is the VC firms have bought up the property around these tech hubs and recoup their money easily via rent.
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.
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
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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