How much more are you spending (on non-avoidable cost of living stuff) now that you live in SF, though?
If I hypothetically doubled my salary _and_ my expenses, that hardly seems worth it. Although NorCal is gorgeous.
If I hypothetically doubled my salary _and_ my expenses, that hardly seems worth it. Although NorCal is gorgeous.
If you go from say 120k to 240k in salary your housing may go from say 1k (12k/year) to 3k (36k/year) but at the end of the year 120k-12k is 108k while 240k-36k is 204 which is a net gain of 96k!
Of course you still need to eat and stuff but when you check out the "Regional Price Parity" [1] you'll see that nowhere do things actually become twice as expensive. So you're really getting a 2x boost in salary in exchange for a 1.3x increase in expenses.
[1]: https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-par...
At least for me since the compensation tripled, the salary effectively doubled post-tax.
Given that the BLS puts the median programmer at 99k/yr [1] I think your salary will double if you go to the bay area.
All else being equal, the improvements in other non-financial areas (chances to grow social life, many more attractions, etc) should make up for it.
The savings gap hopefully should widen as well (unless it's a deficit, in which case, cut expenses).
Portland vs. SF vs. Nashville vs. NYC.
I would not limit yourself to just one specific big city.
You can't expect the same quality of life as you did in the lower cost cities, but it is much easier to save way more money when you have a high income, than a low income.