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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Unless you get very lucky with housing living off $40k/year is pretty difficult in San Francisco. Even if you manage I would definitely not call it comfortable.

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I pay $2k in rent, so $24k. That leaves $1300/month for everything else. I'm easily below that most months. (No car, no drinking, cook during the week)

I don't find SF to be any more expensive than any other "big" city outside of housing cost, especially when you factor in not needing a car to get around.

How much of that $1300/month goes to dental and medical insurance? Because with no family to support, I don't see how you aren't paying close to half that in insurance.

I only just left my job this year. I chose not to get health insurance for rest of year because it's just for myself and I don't use it. (yes, slightly risky but in good health and don't plan to stay funemployed forever)

But if I did, there's the premium tax credit, which caps premiums to some % of your annual income. For a single person, 322% above the federal poverty line is $40k with a 9.56% cap, so you'd pay no more than $318 in premiums a month and whatever you pay extra (say $182 for a $500 premium) becomes a tax credit.

It's dangerous not to have insurance in the us of course. You are one step away from being devastated because of someone hitting you in a cross walk or suddenly getting a real health issue. My property tax and house payments together are more than 4k a month in the seattle area. That high cost seems less "expensive" than my salary and house appreciation. I just calculated my house has grown 7% a year over 15 years based on estimated price and what houses sell for around me. So it's working out. But it's amazing to look at my salary compared to my costs.

echo "1.07^15" | bc -l

Just Obamacare will cost you $20k.

Of course, on $40k/year I suppose one would be taking subsidies or medicaid instead of paying full freight. But, then I guess it could be said you can make it in SF on $0/year...

No, for a single person a gold plan for Kaiser is $500/month, so $6k a year, but yes if I have $40k in investment income then I'd qualify for a premium tax credit, in this case my premium is capped to $318/month with the rest as a tax credit.

When I check at coveredca.com, I see the cheapest plan by estimated total cost [kaiser bronze] is $18069/year. Perhaps you're younger, or assuming that you will not actually have to use any medical services or products?

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