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Comment by eulers_secret | Hacker News Reader

This is part of why I left my job. I had the realization that my dream (homeownership/2 kids) was untenable with my income (~$135K TC) in my area. I could certainly get the credit for it, but my life would be one long hardship living under wage slavery, being house-poor, having little free time, paying exorbitantly to watch others raise my kids, and not having the opportunities I currently have...

I kinda gave up on that dream, being priced out. So I quit, either to make a TC which can afford that life (>$200K/yr) or to live the rest of my days in a hedonistic manner. Current plan is to grind leetcode/sys design and apply to high-TC companies over and over until I can afford the life I want, or die trying.

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COL and everything, 135K is like the 1% in Spain.

On topic: I have the same feeling. I'm trying to get a dev job, that would be a huge jump of income for me. But I'm 34, how much should I grind just to get "entry-level" stuff?

I was pretty unmativated in my job, just coasting by and pretty much doing the bare minimum that allowed me to be in peace with myself. Remote work increased my productivity and my hapiness overall, but it's still insufficient to buy a home, I'm basically a rent slave.

If I get a dev job, it will probably mean 30-40k to me, here in Spain. Maybe 50K if I manage to climb the ladder, given I'm 34.

With that income I can buy a flat (not a house) in my mid-sized spanish city, but that's about it.

135k is closer to 1% in the US than you’d think.

Not in the Bay Area, this is article from 2020 and even then $384k got you only in the top 10%. $105k was basically median.

Source: https://amp.thecalifornian.com/amp/4625295002

The national percentile doesn’t really matter when your income is not portable, and you can’t just move and take it with you.

As another post said, it’s doable on $135k but it’s not easy in the SF Bay Area.

> The national percentile doesn’t really matter when your income is not portable, and you can’t just move and take it with you.

With remote work, it's a lot more portable than you might think.

For some, yes. Unfortunately, this is not as evenly available as one might hope or even as widely as it was used during pandemic.

In any given city the number of homes for sale is a small percentage of the population, and even then most of those homes will trade between incumbent owners. Prospective first time buyers are competing over the number of new housing units & units freed by out-migration, downsizing, and death. People are living longer. Boomers are aging in place. It’s pretty ordinary that would-be buyers outnumber these units more than 99:1. So merely being in the top 1% of prospective buyers is necessary, not sufficient. And since prices have gone up recently, prospective buyers are higher income than the city as a whole.

As far as I know, most people who do "FP II" (vocational training) in Spain usually stays in those companies which they were doing their internship, so there are job opportunities. Usually are those known as "cárnicas" (companies that are in a lot of boring projects and pays enough), like but at least you can have a couple years of experience before hopping into a better company.

I have not too much experience in that sector, but I would say earning 30k-50k is only possible if you live in a city with good communications with the bigger ones, like Alcalá de Henares (near to Madrid, or Manresa (near to Barcelona). In some places with lower COL, like Andalucía, this is really difficult.

Don’t give up hope. Someone I mentored at a coding bootcamp just got a job as a junior software developer at age 33. It’s hard going but it works out for some people. If the career change would mean a lot more money for you, it might be worth it to keep trying.

Best of luck, whatever you decide.

Spaniard here. Over 50k is definitely possible, particularly now with so many remote opportunities available. Unfortunately, those positions are highly-coveted, so prepare for long interviews with multiple stages.

I think becoming a software engineer is totally possible for you, you are only in your mid-30s. However, I think you need to like the field, at least a bit. Do you enjoy it?

I do think so, yeah! I only seems a vast field and a daunting task to build stuff that I like. I can do some front-end stuff with no so much complexity all by myself, but I have to put quite a lot of work because I forget some syntax and I spend time debugging.

When I see experienced people in videos etc they do everything so much quicker. I know this is normal but it feels that it will take me a lot of time to get there.

I'm currently in a self-paced bootcamp (open-bootcamp) and so far I'm happy. I went with beginner knowledge on Git, CSS, JS and Python, and I improved a lot of my OOP understanding which was very lacking, and their full-stack path touches also Java. I plan to take some compiled languages too, purely out of interest.

They also have projects, although I'm not sure how they structure that, but I hope that takes me up to speed to be productive.

Sounds like you haven’t given up on your ‘dream’ if you’re currently still grinding to attain it.

Hate to break it to you, but many, many people raise kids and own a home with way less than $135k, even in your area. If you don’t want to attempt it because it’ll be hard, stressful, risky, etc.; maybe that’s worth reflecting on? Sometimes your standards/expectations are what need to change.

Maybe it should not be risky to have 2 kids for an average person.

And also simultaneously, especially American culture is super judgemental of people whonhave kids and struggle financially in any way. It is big in personal responsibility in relation to having them, paying health care or ensuring school or even supervising etc. I find it unfair that in same environment people end up blamed for having too high standards when they internalize all that and insist on being responsible and financially well off.

I currently have enough money saved to travel the world for 5 years. That's a long time. Imagine how much more fulfilling that journey would be than putting this money towards a lowend 1-bedroom condo in Vancouver and then working 20 years at a high-end career to pay it off. Insane proposition. VHCOL cities are not appealing anymore. I want out.

If your perspective on housing is "just need a place to live", then paying off a mortgage for 20 years is hardly a problem. You are tied down, yes, but if you have friends and family in the area and like where you live, it's hardly a problem - it's just a life.

(Of course this is different if the intention is "buy a place, wait until it rises in value, flip it, and repeat")

That said, you need to want to put down roots, and you need to like where you're putting those down. I love Vancouver, I've been here 20 years, I left for 5, and came back. This is where I want to raise my kids. But this is a highly privileged perspective backed by having a good well-paying job that lets me afford to live here (in a 3-bedroom condo in east van).

Still, travelling the world for 5 years sounds like a fantastic plan to figure out what you want to do in life and scouting out parts of the world that you can imagine living. That could mean finding something more rural, or finding a city more off the beaten path that you identify with that doesn't have international prestige and ridiculous VHCOL.

honestly, "hey, spending 20 years of your life paying to "own" the roof over your head" sounds sad to me...unless you have dependents and need the stability

not everyone has dreams of planting roots

If you don't want to plant roots, then you don't need to own a house, and then the whole debate about housing prices does not apply to you.

Rent, travel and see the world, and be free!

Where do you live that is unaffordable?

I still live there, a suburb of Portland OR. I locked in a cheap apartment years ago that's now rent controlled, which makes my situation possible. I currently pay about half what new renters pay. Without it, I'd be stuck in wage-slavery anyways and couldn't take the time to self-improve like this.

Moving is an option (my partner has restrictions: No states with anti-abortion laws, which removes many inexpensive places), if I go remote. Seems like every other dev has the same idea and that's helping drive prices up everywhere - along with other factors, of course.

Friends of mine who make a combined way less than you bought new construction across the river in Vancouver, WA.

Even staying just in the State of Oregon finds places under $200k (perhaps not the most desirable of building types, but certainly above a mobile home). But that may really put you in the "sticks" - south middle of Oregon is some of the most unpopulated land in the USA.

Rent-control may end up trapping you in another way; fear to move because of your current deal. Had a friend stay in a three-bedroom apartment long after he should have moved up to a house for just this reason.

That is an oddly-specific restriction your partner is demanding.

It may just be a shibboleth/canary for a set of state politics the partner disagrees with.

Seems very reasonable to want women to have access to healthcare they might need in worst case scenarios. I would even throw in requirements of parental leave, amongst other basic protections. Assisted suicide comes to mind too.

If abortion law, something you can simply drive to another state for a once in a lifetime event is in your requirements for where you can live, don't be surprised when people roll their eyes at you when you bitch about housing costs. Penny wise pound foolish.

One may also not want to contribute to those leaders on principle, and instead reward the other leaders even though it costs more.

Also, this type of stuff is costly to deal with, in terms of emotional and physical health, and probably even monetary costs:

https://www.thecut.com/2022/04/texas-woman-charged-with-murd...

> She miscarried at a hospital and allegedly confided to hospital staff that she had attempted to induce her own abortion and she was reported to the authorities by hospital administration or staff,”

Here, you have precedent being set that a woman should play it safe and withhold information from their healthcare provider, lest they be put through an ordeal like this.

> One may also not want to contribute to those leaders on principle, and instead reward the other leaders even though it costs more.

Of course, just don't expect me to care about your housing costs if that is your reason you choose to stay in a high COL area.

And I'm not sure what precedent that example sets relevant to me because nobody I know would try and induce their own abortion in an anti-abortion state instead of just driving out of state and going to a professional clinic.

Unless the state you're living in has made it illegal to transport someone across state lines for the purposes of getting an abortion. It has been done in a few places.

I wouldn't choose to raise my daughter in a place that would penalize or prevent her from getting the healthcare she needs because of other people's feelings about that care, and I certainly wouldn't want to be penalized for helping her, either. Same would go for any female in my family.

I bought a house with 3 kids in the bay area (San Leandro) on slightly less than $135k (wife stays at home), but I had a rent controlled apartment in SF for 9 years. I bought at a good time (August 2020) and was able to use 403b without penalty. Kids go to public schools. All three kids are in one room, but it’s a very large room, and we have a cottage which is my office for now but the teenager can go there later.

It’s possible but not easy (and harder now), and you have to be patient and careful and a bit lucky.

Look into equal work, equal pay companies (was trending on twitter like yesterday)

That I can remember of: Vercel, Gatsby, Gitlab, and much more.

Move to somewhere cheaper if you can?

That won't solve the problem. Soon you will complain that you can't live in a mansion on your $300k/yr salary.

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