The idea that you can afford a house and a boat and time with your kids on a single upper middle class income in, say, Missouri is called "normal" outside of SF/NYC.
Now combine two median incomes. You can very easily earn $80,000+ in a household, doing routine jobs without a bachelor's degree (a high school diploma is required), in thousands of typical mid-size locations in the US that are dramatically less expensive to live than the coastal cities.
Meanwhile, job openings have jumped to an all-time high.[2] While the supply of labor is at a very low level.
Pairing two median incomes delivers an upper middle class life, and does so easily given just a few years of continued improvement after reaching the median. That enables you to buy a good house in those other parts of the country (99% of the nation that is) and it enables you to live quite well if you're at all prudent. So there's your target: figure out how to get into the top 50% among the employed, not exactly a high bar.
[1] http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/326995-census-more-a...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/job-openi...
This lifestyle isn't for everyone though, myself included, but definitely seen many European families move to suburbs of Houston for energy jobs and they seem to enjoy the different lifestyle (pool in backyard, heat, etc)
I think its a grass-is-always-greener thing. You want what you didn't have growing up.
I spent so much time and effort getting out of TX, and now I'm going right back. Ironic.
Urban Austin and a Houston suburb are barely comparable.
Yikes. That marketing campaign is so overblown. If you really found Austin weird I'm curious what your day to day is like.
> if I could find parking
Urban vs suburban. I'm willing to walk and want my kids to feel the same way. I remember suburban life well, and don't miss the superficial need for parking within 30 seconds (or 2 minutes) of your destination.
A procession of people crossing the upper level I-35 in wheelchairs... is weird.
Non-homeless and non-drunk people just sitting/laying down in the middle of the sidewalk on 6th Street, S Congress... is weird. I get it, it is too hot to walk in the summer, go inside, or to the springs.
Semi-Jokingly: Republicans in Austin... is weird.
But more than these specific things, its a lot of little oddities that didn't occur in more traditional places like Houston.
That said, I moved to NYC in 2015, so I can't claim Austin was THAT weird compared to what I saw every day for a couple of years before moving upstate.
I live in (very) central Austin with my wife and kids on one income. I escaped the suburbs of my childhood, too, (and wouldn't recommend them to anyone) but I don't understand how a software engineer income doesn't support a family in an urban area between the coasts.
You probably don't really need the fastest Internet connection at home, cable/satellite TV, an unlimited cell phone plan, a new(er) car, to eat out more than once a month, to buy local/organic all the time, the newer technology things, or pretty much any monthly subscription services.
Go play outside and run around with your kids. Go to the library (they probably have lots of books, movies, music, and even video games to borrow for free!). Cook all your own food. Fix your own car/bike. Borrow things from friends/neighbors when you need a special tool. You can do it!
I think this is trading off too much for cost of living vs income. As I said in a sibling thread, our family is on one (software engineer) income in central Austin. We walk to most things, we own a big home and a yard, but I don't optimize for cost of living, I guess. Austin pays well enough, and we live with all the amenities on a single income.
In reply to your comment, we also have a super fast internet connection, unlimited cell phone plans, and go out to eat often. None of these things add up to even close to the difference in salary we get in Austin vs being in the middle of nowhere. I am all for reducing the time you spend working so you can be around family, but if you are working ~40 hours for a low salary and making up for it by cutting corners -- I'd much rather work my 40 in Austin and have it all.
If you're working 15-20 hours in the middle of nowhere and cutting corners, then that's another thing altogether.
Reminds me of: https://hired.com/state-of-salaries-2017
My strong feeling is that most places with a robust employment market price most single-income households out b/c the expectation is now that you at _least_ have two earners. Kids take another chunk out of your "competitiveness" because of childcare, cost-of-living, and increased demands on your time (making it harder to really "excel" at work).
But it does not quite balance out - households rarely have two good incomes, and the time costs still hurt.
Thanks
We have two incomes but we could easily keep up our lifestyle on just either one of our incomes. We currently save about 75% of our combined incomes.
A lifestyle business is the next goal. I've been doing part-time contract work for almost 5 years now in addition to a 9-5, and I'm really just dying to be my own boss and not have to commute (a whopping 10 minutes) to the office 5 days a week, as well as not have to deal with startup bureaucracy and artificial feel-goodery.
Of course this means that we have to be frugal at times, but the dividends it is paying in our three children's development is worth it.
The difference between running a lifestyle business and just "median American lifestyle" is owning the business (although, effectively you are living a median American lifestyle). I've always likened it to building a successful contracting business, car dealership, or chain of donut shops. Ideally letting you live upper-middle class, fairly steady (businesses rarely are long-term), and possibly something you could sell off when you retire.
It doesn't even need to be a lifestyle business, nor in flyover country. I live on the Maine coast working for a large company. We even have a big office here! I'm mid 30's, wife, kid, and we have a nice balance. Yeah sometimes I work a bit more than I'd like, but 40 hours per week is normal, and for the times I work more than that, it's more than offset by my 20 minute traffic-doesnt-exist commute. I feel very fortunate to live somewhere that other people visit on vacation, but getting here isn't really that challenging.
Portland (the original!) has a small but growing startup scene if that's your thing. It also has some of the best food and beer in the country, which is a distraction I admit.
Hot Suppa was an especially delicious place to eat.
Plus, not far from some excellent (downhill and cross-country) skiing, snowshoeing, ice fishing.
The winter is harsh, which is probably the only reason for our low population density. It's really not that bad once you get used to it, though, because the roads are pretty well cleared and maintained, you find things like skiiing/skating to do, and employers generally have common sense about when to tell folks to stay home.
I grew up in a much larger mid-Atlantic suburb that didn't have nearly the character or variety of things to do that we have around Portland. My wife's biggest complaint is the lack of shopping, particularly "nice" stores, but Boston isn't that far.
That's like, full time employment.