Hacker News Reader

Comment by robbyking | Hacker News Reader

I had almost the exact opposite experience.

I lived in SF, then moved to Athens, GA for 6 years, then back to SF. I have a lot more disposable income in SF because while my rent doubled, my salary tripled. On top of that, anything with an MSRP set at a national level (cars, bicycles, guitars) is a much, much smaller percentage of my monthly income. On top of that, I can contribute 3x as much to my retirement as I did before. It's win/win/win.

View on HN

Your salary tripled? I think that might be the extraordinary factor here.

Almost to the penny. That said, the median income in Athens is next to nothing, but the housing market is dirt cheap, too.

Truth be told, it's actually a fantastic place to live, I just missed living in the city.

Eh, that's reasonable from Athens, GA (I spent ten years in Atlanta, and have some familiarity with the market in GA). Moving from Atlanta to Seattle doubled my total comp (and definitely did NOT double my CoL). Staying in Seattle and moving from one giant tech company to another doubled it again, so another part of it comes down to who's really willing to pay for talent.

I lived in Athens until recently. I work in Atlanta now, but I don't doubt you had such a big pay jump. When I looked (very briefly) at tech jobs in Athens they were all around 50-60k for senior positions (not much of a selection either obviously). Of course you can also get a 3k sqft house for under $200k around there.

While I get your point, I'm not sure Athens is the best example. Athens is a college town that's both too close and too far from the Atlanta metro area to really see many companies invest in it.

Alpharetta, for example, is an hour away from Athens, closer to the City of Atlanta, has a heavy tech presence, and a median household income approaching $100k in a state with a median income half that.

It's more expensive than Athens, yeah, but it's also not Silicon Valley expensive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com