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Comment by g2guo | Hacker News Reader

I recently moved from Waterloo to San Francisco. My salary had doubled in the process, but my living costs have also substantially increased. I live in a 1-bedroom condo with similar square feet; my diet stayed the same, I pursue the same hobbies and similar habits (fitness, education, entertainment). In the end, the higher cost of living offsets my salary increase, and my quality of life stayed the same.

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The idea that "the increase in cost of living wipes out the salary increase" always comes up in these threads, and I think it's way off the mark.

For example, I used to live in Fukuoka, a mid-sized Japanese city, and now live in Tokyo. A nice 2BDR in Fukuoka downtown would cost (say) U$600 per month. My salary in Tokyo is about double of what I could earn in Fukuoka, but an equivalent place in Tokyo would cost me way over $1200. So I don't live in downtown, and I choose to live in a smaller place. But it's not like everything costs twice as much as in Fukuoka. Food is a bit more expensive, not twice as much. A smartphone costs pretty much the same wherever you are in Japan. Traveling abroad also costs the same (or less in Tokyo, since you usually need one fewer leg). More importantly, if I keep my savings rate the same (savings/income), I can save much more money in absolute terms; I don't have to retire in Tokyo, so it is definitely worth the save more.

Rent tripled once I moved to SF, and there are quite a few other things than just food and rent. For example, Crossfit Classes and Yoga classes cost 3x as much ($10 vs. $30). Going to the bars here are at least 2x as much ($5 vs. $10+). So really it comes down to lifestyle, admittedly I tend to live an expensive lifestyle.

You are either not paid enough for a SF/SV engineer, or were paid quite a lot in Canada. Even with my increased rent and food I'm saving in a year what took me 2-3 in Canada.

Parent's mistake is to maintain the same lifestyle. If you settle for less housing or room mates, you come across ahead.

Depends how nice your lifestyle was back in Canada.

If you used to live in a nice 1BR condo, you could definitely move to SF and spend an extra $20k/year in housing and still come out way ahead.

If you used to live in 3br house with a backyard and garage, you definitely won't be able to maintain that in SF.

Why would someone move for work if it meant a lifestyle downgrade?

It doesn't have to be a downgrade in the aggregate. You can downgrade your housing but upgrade other stuff.

That is, if stuff or travel are your main motivators in life. If you'd prefer to raise a family, a 1BR ain't gonna cut it.

No need for the snark; obviously "other stuff" includes things you need for raising a family.

Right, but housing is sort of the bare minimum. People in developing countries raise families in extremely cramped conditions, true, but that's not something you can get away with in our society. Children's Aid Society, Family & Children's Services, and many other organizations will intervene in such situations. It'd be especially embarrassing to be put in such a situation just so you can bump up from a high-five-figure-job to a low-six-figure-job by moving to SF.

Beyond that, there's also the issue of schooling. That tends to be a nightmare for people in the Bay Area, due to the districting policies. Many Bay Area parents opt for private schooling, further adding to the expense.

DCFS is the main reason not to raise children in cramped conditions?

How about, you know, basic empathy? (Unless you have some reason to believe that DCFS has unreasonably high standards here?)

DCFS is the main reason not to raise children in cramped conditions?

No. I was never advocating for raising children in cramped conditions. Remember, the person I was arguing with lumped family into "other stuff".

I live in Waterloo. I've seen more than one person on HN argue that you should leave as soon as you get your degree here. I don't want to do that. I think Waterloo has some wonderful neighbourhoods for raising children, complete with top notch public schools within walking distance. The real estate prices here are not nearly as bad as Toronto, let alone SF. Even if you could make 3 times as much working in the Bay Area as you could here; I would assert that it's easier to buy a 3BR house here, have 2 kids, get them both into university and keep them healthy the entire time than it would be in SF.

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