Scraping by on six figures? Tech workers feel poor in Silicon Valley's wealth bubble

[Deleted]

I've seen a coverage on this on the Dutch news not too long ago. People working for Google living in a trailer while paying tousands on rent.

This is why I dont get that these large companies buid their head offices there. Everything is super expensive.
Why not spread out over the country and build offices in cheaper areas.

In the end, whats the point to work for Apple, Gogole or whatever if you make a lot of money but you lose it all on living expenses?
I guess people just go there for their resume and then leave again, which must also suck for these companies.

[Dastreus]

What in the fuck. Why are some of them living in garages? Just get a home an hour's drive away, if you must, to find cheap holy shit. You have six figures. Surely, there must be something within reasonable travel distance that is affordable.

[apepi]

You know, there are tech companies all over the country? Even the world! They don't have to live there if they don't like it. It might give them less salary but if you put in the cost of living they might end up making ahead altogether.

[Deleted]

The only one clearly out of line was the dude who brought in 700k a year. He could easily save up huge amounts of cash and easily qualify for large bank loans to purchase a house.

How the hell can you complain when you make 700k$ a year? Absurd amount of money. A 2 million dollar house would be nothing for me if i made so much money.

[Xirrohon]

Haha. What.

If you earn more than 100k and feel like you are strugling, you are retarded. Simple as.

Why? I make more than that and I cant imagine raising a family where I live. The avg family income where I live is $90k. I dont see how they can make it work. The cost of child care alone is around $20k/year. Figure another $24k for mort/rent (and thats cheap) and thats already half your income before taxes. Its so bad, that I have coworkers that live in WV/PA and drive almost 2hrs to work. Just so they can have a house they can afford.

Back in the day, you could get a house and pay it off in 10 years. Have a car, nice clothes, good food and not work nearly as much and do that with pretty much a minimum wage salary. This was as recent as the 1970s. The value of the dollar doesnt get you shit now a days.

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What in the fuck. Why are some of them living in garages? Just get a home an hour's drive away, if you must, to find cheap holy shit. You have six figures. Surely, there must be something within reasonable travel distance that is affordable.

The point of the article is that they shouldnt have to do that.

[Wrecktangle]

That's pretty normal anywhere in the United States. In fact, you have it better than most people.

40% as a front ratio is not good, even assuming you have no other debt. It means you're living above your means for sure. For instance, I own my own home, single income, and my mtg payment is 23% of my gross monthly income. Knowing that I could rent this place out for mkt value puts a person in my situation at 30%. If you go by averages (using data from 2011, I didn't bother trying to find something newer) it works out to roughly 26% natl avg income vs. natl avg rents, not >40%. Even if the data shows a disproportionate gain in rent prices vs. stagnation of gross income (and I'll 100% bet it does), it's not going to make up a 20% difference. 5%? Sure 10% in some markets? Yeah maybe. 20% only in rare circumstances.

[ro9ue]

They need to do what I do: work remotely. Get the Bay Area pay and live in a small town.

[Toogoodman]

I live in Boston and im "scrapping by" on nearly six figures, feels pretty fucking bad.

The reason people get paid so much in Boston, and Sanfran is because the cost of living is so high, so they need to raise everyone's wages to accommodate that. Problem is, when you give people more money to fight over the same products, prices go up. This is why the "fight for 15" boggles my mind, it would literally cause the exact same thing. You cant give people money to get them out of poverty, some people will simply always be in poverty.

[Xisa]

All of the tech hub cities are like this.

I had a chance to work for Amazon for a well-into the 6 figure range job, but the costs of living were so much higher that I came out underwater.
San Francisco and cities like it are going to become unlivable is nothing is done about this.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

They need to do what I do: work remotely. Get the Bay Area pay and live in a small town.

When I was living there I had co-workers who commuted from Sacramento (about 2 hour drive if traffic is reasonable) because that was where they could afford the home they wanted.

The Bay is absurd. My wife and I moved back to the Midwest from the Bay a few years ago, and we went from a 2-bedroom townhome a block over from section 8 housing where we had swat through our neighborhood twice in the 18 months we lived at that location to paying $1,000 a month less for a five bedroom house in an affluent Twin Cities suburb. We're much better off financially and we both took about 15-20% pay cuts.

[Xisa]

40% as a front ratio is not good, even assuming you have no other debt. It means you're living above your means for sure. For instance, I own my own home, single income, and my mtg payment is 23% of my gross monthly income. Knowing that I could rent this place out for mkt value puts a person in my situation at 30%. If you go by averages (using data from 2011, I didn't bother trying to find something newer) it works out to roughly 26% natl avg income vs. natl avg rents, not >40%. Even if the data shows a disproportionate gain in rent prices vs. stagnation of gross income (and I'll 100% bet it does), it's not going to make up a 20% difference. 5%? Sure 10% in some markets? Yeah maybe. 20% only in rare circumstances.

We have a nation of people that live beyond their means. That fact that people on here are trying to justify choosing to go into situations where Mortgage / Rent is 40-50% of your income shows how ignorant most of them are in regards to the tenants of financial planning.

[meowfurion]

That's what happens when you have hard left policies in place. And yet it just..won't..sink..in.

[unbound]

Hard to feel sorry for someone making $120,000 a month with full health care, dental, etc.

We know this guy who lived down there before Silicon Valley was a thing. His parents owned their own home for $85,000 which he inherited when they passed on. He sold it for $440,000. Same house would go for a million now.

I don't think the point is that the guy is in poverty (he isn't), but an important point that many people fail to understand that even making 6 figures can put people at the bottom of the middle class if you live in an expensive area.

My sister makes about the same as I make, but she is single (I'm married with kids) and lives in a *much* cheaper area. The difference in how we have to live is staggering. She is basically lower upper class while I live the lifestyle of mid middle class. She can spend freely without much consideration while I have to watch budgets rather carefully.

As always, context is everything. Yeah, if you live in a small to medium size town making $150k, you are living the life! But that same $150k in silicon valley or in a large city / metropolitan area is largely what you need to be reasonably comfortable with not much left over.

[Deleted]

What about companies building houses for their workers with a reasonably priced rent? You know, we had such things in Germany in 19th century...

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I live in Boston and im "scrapping by" on nearly six figures, feels pretty fucking bad.

The reason people get paid so much in Boston, and Sanfran is because the cost of living is so high, so they need to raise everyone's wages to accommodate that. Problem is, when you give people more money to fight over the same products, prices go up. This is why the "fight for 15" boggles my mind, it would literally cause the exact same thing. You cant give people money to get them out of poverty, some people will simply always be in poverty.

And even if they will not raise their savings, they probably could improve their lives in different ways, like afford healthier food or a more expensive hobby for their child. Who knows?

[Katchii]

No sympathy. With a solid job and that kind of salary, the only reason people end up like this is because of their other choices and not being smart with their money. People complaining they can't spend all their money on fun stuff and then have trouble making rent. Cry me a fucking river.

[yuca247]

You tell me if you insist on living a 200k lifestyle while making 160k year youll be "making ends meet"? Well, color me surprised.

No kidding. When I was young we went to this rich guys house by the lake. That was just his house "on the side" from his main house. Obviously he was a very successful guy. I asked him if he had any tips or secrets to be that successful. The only thing he told me is "it doesn't matter if you make 100k a year if you spend 101k."

[Serath]

So I have a decent job. I live in the suburbs of Detroit and make just under 120k. It's a good living and it lets my wife be a stay at home mom and pays our outragous student loans. I looked at taking a job with Tesla in Fremont California. they were offering about $150k and when we did the math we found it would be a massive pay cut. Instead of a house we'd probably be in a 2-3 bedroom apartment, my wife would definitely have to work, at least part time.

It's a big issue for some folk. They look at the salary and not the cost of living and wind up going broke on what looked like a great salary.

[Toogoodman]

What about companies building houses for their workers with a reasonably priced rent? You know, we had such things in Germany in 19th century...

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And even if they will not raise their savings, they probably could improve their lives in different ways, like afford healthier food or a more expensive hobby for their child. Who knows?

The thing is, when everyone has more money, everything else becomes more expensive because of supply and demand, thus making the increase in wages non existent.

[Knolan]

I work with tech, recently a company I know a lot of people from decided to open a new office in a city in Colorado. The pay was about the half of the bay area and the engineers at first were very sad to see a massive drop in their salary, but all the new hires who end up in Colorado simply love it, they earn 60 ~ 80k per year, but they have a far, far better life than the people living in bay area. They always cite the ability to buy a huge house and no traffic as the main advantages.

My wife and I were trying to move to the US and our main goal was Colorado as well (Fort Collins), unfortunately it didn't happen, as we were looking at a L1 visa and the company did find an American to fill the position the six month period that it is required by law.

[Draco-Onis]

Why? I make more than that and I cant imagine raising a family where I live. The avg family income where I live is $90k. I dont see how they can make it work. The cost of child care alone is around $20k/year. Figure another $24k for mort/rent (and thats cheap) and thats already half your income before taxes. Its so bad, that I have coworkers that live in WV/PA and drive almost 2hrs to work. Just so they can have a house they can afford.

Back in the day, you could get a house and pay it off in 10 years. Have a car, nice clothes, good food and not work nearly as much and do that with pretty much a minimum wage salary. This was as recent as the 1970s. The value of the dollar doesnt get you shit now a days.

1) When you have kids use your family so move close to them if you are dual income consider the option of one of you staying home for a few years if the math works out. Also one of you might want to consider starting their own business if you have financial skills you can be a financial manager at home with a nice client list get the best of both worlds.

2) Yes you will have to commute you can't have both up to you to find a house you can afford.

3) Nice car and clothes roflmao a car's job is to get you from point A to point B if you feel you need to drive a BMW then you need your head checked, you can get very nice quality clothes on the cheap who cares about the label.

You can call me frugal or cheap but there are so many people including the ones in my life who bitch and complain about things like this when the problem is they can't help themselves but spend money on things that don't matter.