undefined | Better HN

0 pointsGuiA7y ago0 comments

I was shocked to discover that many people making salaries amongst the highest percentile in the world are indeed a few months without paychecks away from being in an unpleasant financial situation.

I’m not too sure what the overarching reasons for that are, but my guess is that lifestyle inflation is very real, financial education isn’t very common, and many people focus on the wrong abstractions (ie decision making starting with “I make $200k a year, I can afford this!” rather than “what’s my burn rate?”)

0 comments

Groxx7y ago

That, and rent that's well over 50% of your monthly income, to have a 1 bedroom apartment miles from anything.

mercutio27y ago

No programmer working at A-list Bay Area companies should be earning so little that a 1 bedroom anywhere needs to be 50% of their gross income.

1 bedrooms in Mountain View are going for 3-4K/month. No programmers at Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, or Facebook are making less than $100k. Starting salaries (not counting bonuses and RSUs) are between $120k and $150k.

NIMBY-ism shovels money towards landlords, no doubt, but Bay Area programmers are still very rich.

Groxx7y ago

Gross pay is almost totally irrelevant, as are RSUs prior to IPO, but to use those numbers:

Your top number, 150k, at 30% taxes (roughly expected in this area) gives you 105k. That's 8.75k/month, which is pretty darn close to half of your listed Mountain View price... and Mountain View isn't even the most expensive.

1 more reply

otalp7y ago

4k a month is ~50k a year with utilities, which is 50% of post-tax salary if you're earning 120k pre tax.

hatergonnahate7y ago

When you have 1.5 - 2M mortgage which is super common among my friends in CA, a few months without paychecks is totally unacceptable.

ryandrake7y ago

Yea, people who don’t live here have no idea how expensive it is. Based on how much I make, my rural east coast parents, bless them, probably wonder why I live in a home 1/2 the size of theirs with a 50 mile commute, and not a castle with a 7 car garage. Bay Area prices and taxes...that’s why!

umichguy7y ago

Though to be honest, even if I could afford something massive, I'd rather not - just don't see the appeal in it anymore. Maybe when I was a kid growing up in HS and in college, I used to think that way. But having traveled and lived in a bunch of different countries around the world, I just lost that "aspiration," if you could call it that.

I will be more than happy with a nice and simple 1 or 2 bed apartment. Plus, big houses = lot's of caring/ maintenance = boring!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsGuiA7y ago0 comments

I was shocked to discover that many people making salaries amongst the highest percentile in the world are indeed a few months without paychecks away from being in an unpleasant financial situation.

0 comments

Groxx7y ago

That, and rent that's well over 50% of your monthly income, to have a 1 bedroom apartment miles from anything.

mercutio27y ago

No programmer working at A-list Bay Area companies should be earning so little that a 1 bedroom anywhere needs to be 50% of their gross income.

NIMBY-ism shovels money towards landlords, no doubt, but Bay Area programmers are still very rich.

Groxx7y ago

Gross pay is almost totally irrelevant, as are RSUs prior to IPO, but to use those numbers:

1 more reply

otalp7y ago

4k a month is ~50k a year with utilities, which is 50% of post-tax salary if you're earning 120k pre tax.

hatergonnahate7y ago

When you have 1.5 - 2M mortgage which is super common among my friends in CA, a few months without paychecks is totally unacceptable.

ryandrake7y ago

umichguy7y ago

I will be more than happy with a nice and simple 1 or 2 bed apartment. Plus, big houses = lot's of caring/ maintenance = boring!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse