More of our salary went to the local economy than I expected. We have a bunch of kids, which amplified the effect, but I am astonished at how much money it took to not feel like we were struggling to stay above water. Babysitting, gas, food, clothing, activities were all extremely expensive. Even insurance was high.
The things that didn't go to the local economy still cost more — because taxes. We bought a car from Minnesota and paid a huge amount of excise tax to the state of California. Almost everything we ordered from out of state was subject to high local sales taxes. Income tax didn't help either — our higher salary put us in a higher tax bracket. The top $50k of salary only netted us $25k in buying power, which was eaten up by rent.
They can be your highest spending categories and still leave plenty of room left over to save.
As a young person living in NYC (high taxes, high housing, high food costs) I can still save a huge percentage of my income due to the high salaries.
You're not wrong about NYC, but the bay area is really broken.
However, the caveat is that housing is so expensive here that it's difficult to save up for a down payment on any kind of housing on a single engineer's salary. A 20% down payment on pretty much anything is more than $100k, and even a highly paid engineer will need a long time to save up that kind of money while also paying high rent. An 80/10/10 mortgage or some kind of mortgage with PMI is easier to achieve, but those have significant drawbacks.
So, if you have significant cash savings, or a home somewhere else you can sell, you can achieve home ownership in the Bay Area (but it will probably be a smaller home than the one you have now). If you don't aspire to home ownership, you'll be fine too -- a software engineer with an average salary can afford to pay rent here, and people who say otherwise are simply incorrect. But if you are just starting your career and move to the Bay Area planning to buy a home anytime soon, you're going to be disappointed.
Given that many people predicate their quality of life on home ownership, that's a pretty big caveat.
The problem is that $100K is a very low estimate for a down payment in the Bay Area these days. Most people I know are getting parental help to put down $500K down, because with housing prices running around $1.2M, that's what's necessary to get under the $700K jumbo mortgage threshold.
Read: Don't have a family and don't do anything special, like take vacations.
Also, average rent is $3600/month. That's over $43k a year. That leaves $17k for everything else, following your plan.
Families that need 2+ bedrooms and a good/safe neighbourhood are screwed though.
I'm not sure what you think an average salary is. If you think an average engineer can save $50k cash per year out of his/her net income, you're way above the average I had in mind.
Let's assume an average salary of $120k per year gross. That's about $6k per month net for a single person who takes the standard deduction, assuming no 401k contributions. That's a net income of $72k per year. If that engineer saves $50k, that leaves only $12k for everything else. Saving $100k in two years on that salary, which I think is pretty close to the average, is just not doable.
EDIT: Should have been $22k left over, not $12k. Still not enough to live on considering the cost of rent.
Why? Fully contributing to a 401k (assuming no company match) would put your "take home" at ~$79,200 instead of $72k following your tax rate (which I assume is roughly correct).
> That's a net income of $72k per year. If that engineer saves $50k, that leaves only $12k for everything else
$72k - $50k = $22k, not $12k.
So with no 401k, you'd have to live on $22k to save $50k/year. When contributing to a 401k, you'd have $29k to live on, which sounds pretty do-able. Add in the fact that you would probably invest these savings, and you can hit $100k after 2 years by saving a bit under $50k each year.
Saving $100k in 2 years is not as outlandish as you make it seem.
I guess it depends what you mean by "take-home". The original premise was "saving 100k in 2 years". I hope we can agree that saving money in a 401k is saving money, regardless of whether we agree it's "take-home".
Most 401k loans become due in full if you leave your job. That traps you in your job until you pay it back, because if you had enough cash to pay the loan outright, you would not have needed the loan in the first place. Unless you have an unusually good severance agreement with your employer that would enable you to pay back the loan if you leave your job or get fired, taking out a 401k loan is a bad idea.
Oops.
But that's still less than most people's annual rent, so it's still not enough to live on. It doesn't change my argument.
Whether or not the established places will toss so much money around if the hiring competition from startups dries up if there's a crunch there, well, that's probably a legitimate question, but I'm not sure that job losses of that size would only hit the Bay Area.
Yes it's expensive, but also yes there really are quite a lot of jobs that pay more than well enough to make up for it.
My rent+util is about $2000/month. I live in a very /cheap/ 1-bedroom with creaky carpet floors, no insulation, and near train tracks that's far outside SF. (Belmont)
Altogether I spend close to $4000/month if I don't do anything special. /Everything/ is more expensive in this region. Food is expensive for no apparent reason other than to gouge customers. ($6 for a few sticks of butter? When I was in Seattle, it was $2-3.) I eat less fruits here because the prices are high year round. My job doesn't provide lunches, so I have to eat out everyday I'm at work. I mean, even cars cost more here just on Craigslist. In the same way there's an Apple tax, there's definitely a Bay Area tax.
I cannot possibly save $50k/yr for a house. Oh and $150k/yr is not $110k/yr after taxes. It's more like $94k.
I'm saving maybe $20k/yr right now. Ain't even contributing to retirement. Just trying to save for who knows what until I can get a job that pays 50% more.
Granted, the house was a good deal, but should be able to swing a 2/1 for 2500 or so.
You don't have to spend $6/lb of butter, but if you buy it at Whole Foods (or similar), you do.
You're not the only one paying extra rent to rentiers. So are retailers and restaurants.
$4,000 * 12 is $48,000. Plus your $20k in purported savings is only $68k.
That's only $100k in gross pay, which is the bare minimum for a developer in SV. Most new grads make more than that.
1: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/Sa...
2: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-en...
EDIT: And to add more to the conversation than that curt response:
When I compare take-home pay among various jobs I tend to ignore bonuses (because they're subject to your employer's whim--you don't necessarily get them) and I tend to ignore equity (because it's typically temporary--once you vest it no longer adds to your yearly take-home). To compare apples with apples you can only really compare base salary.
A company offering $100k in salary + $20k in bonuses and $80k in RSUs is paying significantly more than one offering $120k in salary with no bonus or RSUs.
Also, Glassdoor tends to skew low. Here's a more reasonable database of new grad offers which average $109k base for public tech companies. [0]
Most new grads here make $90k-110k from what I've seen. Yes, you can make more. Yes, there are companies that pay stock on top of that. Those people are not me.
I make ~$110k. Minimal benefits. No stock. I happen to work for a big company too. Not every company here pays well and many low ball as hard as they can. (And succeed at low balling)
Before this job, I made $65k. Companies low ball hard and if you can't interview well, you take what you can get.
If you're not a new grad and you're only making $110k, then yes you are making under-market. I'm not disputing what you make (that'd be ridiculous), but your assertion that you're making a standard salary.
That's including rent right? If so that's not too bad.
> Food is expensive for no apparent reason other than to gouge customers.
Stop shopping at overpriced pseudoscience stores (eg Whole Foods). Regular grocery stores are not that expensive. Or buy in bulk at Costco.
> My job doesn't provide lunches, so I have to eat out everyday I'm at work.
Bring food from home and stop wasting money on buying lunch.
Also, I don't know anybody who got that kind of parental help or put $500k down.
September 2016: http://www.bankrate.com/financing/mortgages/jumbo-home-rates...
From TFA "the jumbo loan is supposed to come with a slightly higher rate". IMO the rate should be a LOT higher; otherwise PMI is always a losing proposition. Bizarre market forces indeed.
It was certainly surprising/counterintuitive that jumbo rates would be lower than conforming, but even when they're not, it sounds like they're incredibly close.
That said, if someone wanted to throw $500k at me to buy a house, I wouldn't turn it down :)
Regardless, whether it's 2 years or 3 years, to do the lifestyle you're suggesting takes and incredible amount of willpower to be willing to sacrifice and prioritize. It's passing up that cell phone upgrade. It's cutting discretionary spending to zero. It's passing on happy hour and bringing lunch every day.
While feasible, it's hard.. but suffering for two years to benefit for a decade. Quite possibly worth it.
It is easy to end up spending double rent on a comparable place. The difference is for now at least the home you buy can grow nicely so you need to do the math on rate of return for that vs other uses of that cash.
When I bought my first home my loan (P+I) payment was $1300 per month on average (paid every 2 weeks), which was not only affordable but cheaper than what I was renting at once you accounted for interest deductions! But the taxes were somewhere around $500 a month after the township raised local property tax by the maximum year after year. Due to average daily balance laws and escrow regulations, we often had a substantial amount of money "invested" in to our escrow account.
There was no amount of deductions to make this home an asset. It pushed a good quality home at a great price to something that now remains completely unoccupied.
My situation is 100% atypical - but I more meant to illustrate how big of an impact property taxes can be.
Have you actually done this? Know anyone who has? This seems completely implausible, outside of some extreme frugal lifestyle cases (I'm talking "eating garbage dumped by grocery stores" level frugal)...
[1] Googling "average software engineer salary california" shows figures ranging from 107k to 135k, 120k seems to be more or less the median of Google's figures.
Edit: added footnote
You must admit that $40k bonus after tax is a huge, atypical amount of money. It makes your effective yearly income to be about $156k.
It reminds me of the mrmoneymustache.com guy, saying "anyone can retire early! Just look at me, all I had to do was get $1M in stock from Cisco!"
No disrespect intended for you; I'm sure compared to some of your friends you lived frugally. The point I'm making is that to duplicate your living standard today, very few comparable developers would be able approach your level of savings.
Not sure what typical bonuses are these days, but I don't think that's out of line for a big tech company. Certainly stock grants can be much more than that, but it usually takes more than 18 months for them to amount to anything.
[1: I am an engineering manager at Google]
The whole point of the original statement was "I made $X and saved $Y, it's not that hard." But when you examine the X and the Y, they are not representative at all!
It has similar merit to a lottery winner saying, "why can't you win the lottery too? All I did was buy a lottery ticket."
Like the article mentions, saving a lot is easy if you're fine with a roommate and living in a non-luxury apartment, but if your housing standards are higher than that then it's tougher.
This is, of course, at the compensation levels talked about in the article. Some companies (early stage start-ups, banks) pay much less.
Not being very frugal:
- rents $2000K/mo 1BR apartment (single but wants some comfort in the Peninsula, no hellish commutes from East Bay)
- transportation $200/mo
- free lunch (and possibly dinner) at the company - eating out and groceries $300/mo
- entertainment $200/mo
So far, $36k expenses + $50k savings and you still have $8k left to go on ski trips to Tahoe, Outside Lands and other non-frugal lifestyle expenses.
"A decent 1BR" - It all depends on the definition of decent. I pay $2k for a 1BR walking distance to Redwood City downtown/Caltrain.
But forget about renting an apartment, if you want to save and you're single, having roommates allows you to rent in the Peninsula for much less than $2k/mo.
Also, I added $300 discretionary spending which lets you to cover some of the things you described, and you're left with $8k at the end of the year.
Can you easily save $50k while spending $3k on rent+utilities to live in a fancy apartment in the Peninsula ? Maybe not, but you certainly don't need to be "eating garbage dumped by grocery stores".
Nice strawman :) I was specifically talking about the situation conditional on saving the 100k in 18 months, my comment was a response to the comment above it.
Separate point: your figures seem very low. I thought SF is roughly equivalent to NYC in terms of cost of living. In which case 300/mo is a zero off as an estimate for all food expenses.
edit I don't know what a 401k is good for (I already have two retirement saving schemes in other countries), mostly did staycations since SF is such a tourist destination.
NYC, not SF, but the difference isn't huge.
Most people are atrocious with their money by either overspending or under-optimizing.
Also, the average apartment in Manhattan (if you do rent without roommates) is pretty close to your cited figure for total monthly expenses. Which means you either lucked out, or seriously compromised on your living arrangements.
I was making $150k/yr, which is pretty standard for a developer in NYC.
> Also, the average apartment in Manhattan (if you do rent without roommates) is pretty close to your cited figure for total monthly expenses.
I take it you don't live in NYC. The average is a useless metric because it's distorted by millionaires and billionaires. Just go on Craiglist and you'll find plenty of suitable apartments in the $2-3k range.
Nobody I know pays more than $3k/m for their apartment. Heck, my friend just rented a beautiful luxury single-bedroom for $2.8k.
In my case, I chose to go for a non-luxury apartment for $1.8k/m. This was definitely a deal, but even though it wasn't luxury there was plenty of space and I even had a back yard.
I do.
> Nobody I know pays more than $3k/m for their apartment.
Few people I know pay under. We live in parallel dimensions I guess.
> In my case, I chose to go for a non-luxury apartment for $1.8k/m.
I don't know what NYC you live in, but this is non-existent AFAIK. I know someone who went all the way to Rego Park (this is really far from Manhattan) to rent a 1BR for $2.5k.
I make about that much, at a company without free food perks that doesn't give me amazing stock bonuses (my social skills are too bad to negotiate them…) and I live frugally but could never save that much after $2k/mo rent! And there's no huge parental loans for me.
But if you do and are, you have $100K. Congratulations. That does you no good when homes are $1M+. Keep saving.
The other big thing to help with home ownership is to get married. With double the income it is a lot easier to save for a downpayment.
With a frugal lifestyle, 10% should be doable in a couple years, especially if you're okay with living in the East Bay (so the house price is somewhat reasonable).
On an engineer's salary, it is very doable to pay rent and still save up enough to buy an entire house in cash elsewhere in the country.
The cost of living comparisons I've seen are comparing the "local economy". They compare the cost of: housing, food, transportation, health care.
[1] https://medium.com/migration-issues/millennials-have-less-de...
My big break was finding a job in San Francisco. I charmed my way into an entry level sales gig with a base salary of about 35K USD (in 2004), and was soon making at a 70K-ish "annual run rate" (stealing that from startup PR lingo). And that job did all of the lead generation for me. I wasn't able to find a job like that outside of a big city.
Even when I was homeless for a bit a few years later, I chose to stay in San Francisco over moving in with my suburban LA parents because there I saw more opportunity in San Francisco. For me, it was riskier to play it safe in the burbs than hustling in San Francisco. It's better to burn out than fade away.
The way I see it, if you wanna make it as a professional, and you don't have a reasonably understood career path to follow, it makes sense to go where the money is. You can live financially cheaply in most places, and you'll have to decide how much you're willing to work for it. For me, living in San Francisco is, and has been, worth it.