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Comment by thirduncle | Hacker News Reader

So there is very little understanding from others how I could not be satisfied with pay.

Have you calculated what salary you'd have to earn to afford an equivalent configuration of {house, cars, debt, schools, commute, sanity} in the BA?

That may be where the lack of understanding comes from.

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I would think the experienced engineer contemplating moving their entire family to another country has done the basic math.

I really do get tired of this "but the cost of living!" argument being tossed out. People get it. It's not complicated.

I think people don't understand how their cost of living can be different then someone else's. Your COL calculation will be very different based on what standard of livings you want to preserve (house vs renting, downtown SF vs commute, sending kids to private school). So the COL delta is different for everyone.

Yeah, it's a knee-jerk response that's been trained into people to help them rationalize staying in Canada. I explain to friends/family/etc.: "I was offered 3x my salary to move to Seattle [from Vancouver]" and every goddamn time I hear "Oh, but I've heard Seattle is very expensive these days, so it probably cancels out!" Yes, Seattle is more expensive than Vancouver! About 25% more. And I make 3x as much money. I put literally 10x as much money into savings every year than I did when I lived in Vancouver.

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