
Making $300k in San Francisco can still mean living paycheck-to-paycheck - bcaulfield
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/middle-class-budget-San-Francisco-300-000-13741570.php
======
KingMachiavelli
This is absurd. Many of there expenses reflect nothing more than lifestyle
inflation. There is nothing suprising about being able to find things to spend
your whole paycheck on.

I was going to list my thoughts line by line but there isn't any deep social
or philosophical insight to be gained here. Having expensive taste (a monthly
budget of $2100 on food, $500 on clothes, etc) will drain a paycheck of almost
any size. These are just self imposed taxes and society has no obligation to
make these preferences more affordable.

If anything else can be said - and this may mostly just be personal
preferences reinforced by learned frugality, but I am very skeptical of
expensive tastes having 'real' merit wether practical (durability,
construction, etc) or aestetic (pleasing to the eye, makes some
social/political/economic commentary, etc). I don't have the philosophical
background to frame my issue with this kind of lifestyle, but I have a hard
time believing it's compatible with introspection and contemplation on one's
self and society as a whole. I have always seen economic prosperity as the
means move beyond material desire and focus more on producing something that
has personal and/or lasting value.

~~~
temp28179
I don't think this should be surprising.

How much you make has little to do with whether you live paycheck-to-paycheck.
You can have a lot of expenses on non-discretionary things.

I don't think it's healthy as a society to be thinking of having kids as
"lifestyle inflation." To me, it speaks more to the real crisis of urban
centers like SF that have become so inhospitable to raising families due to
terrible exclusionary housing policies that have crowded out middle
income/upper middle income families.

------
avgDev
This is so silly.

New volvo xc90, "coach" instead of GUCCI.....I mean this whole article just
makes me feel odd, but if you are living paycheck to paycheck when making over
$200k above median wage you simply suck at budgeting. This is clearly the
issue here.

No matter your income, if you live this way, one day your life will crumble
and you will be left with nothing. Well maybe your 401k contributions but you
will burn through those quickly.

Example: A guy I knew had a high position working for a bank before 2008
crash. Luxury cars, expensive home, cook that came to their house to make
food, everything over the top. Crash came and with 0 savings, their marriage
fell apart, lost cars, lost the house, kids stopped going to private schools.
Plus, their rich friends no longer wanted to associate with them. It was quite
something to watch.

~~~
temp28179
The difference is whether or not you're supporting dependents (a spouse or
kids).

There are many, many single people making $200k+ and doing just fine. As soon
as you add kids into the picture it's not "silly" at all and it shouldn't be
dismissed as poor budgeting.

We need to stop blaming individuals and start recognizing that SF and
California have created a housing crisis many decades in the making.

~~~
avgDev
Yes housing is super expensive, but owning a house in a SF is not going to be
cheap, it is a large city with people making very high wages.

I make half of that $300k, and I am living SUPER COMFORTABLY. Even if we
consider the difference in housing cost, the person in the article is simply
blowing through cash. It seems like they have zero understanding of what
saving is. They are trying to live as someone wealthy.

This article perfectly describes someone "living beyond their means".

------
volkk
5.5K on their living (mortgage + property tax) eats all of their income. not
surprised. 800$ a month car payment. 2100$ a month on food...i feel like if
they at the very least tried to be somewhat frugal, they can probably save a
ton.

this is sort of the epitome of when people tell you that there are different
kinds of rich people. the secret rich who do very frugal things and have a ton
of money, and drive civics. and then the poor rich who drive volvos, have
giant houses and spend every penny.

if one of them lost their job, theyd be completely screwed. this sort of
mentality eats at you knowing you cant quickly jump ship if your job sucks,
and then ultimately it starts making you depressed knowing youre just...stuck.
and then it can start eating at your personal life. i speak from experience
(i.e my parents)

~~~
s_m_t
$500 on clothes a month... $120,000 on clothes over the next 20 years
:thinking:

~~~
NTDF9
Happens when you have kids. Especially when they are < 5 yrs or > 13

~~~
SpikeDad
There's no way this is true. I had 2 kids and between yard sales, Old Navy and
WalMart there's no way you could spend $500 a month unless you're buying high
end, designer clothes and new Air Jordan's every month.

------
jbarberu
Wow, this is truly eye-opening.

Budgeting $7200/yr for entertainment, $8400/yr for a luxury car, $7800/yr for
vacation and $25000/yr for food.

Whomever made that budget certainly made the decision to live paycheck-to-
paycheck.

~~~
TomVDB
Nobody made that budget. It's a reactive thing ("wow, look what I've spent!
How did that happen?") instead of planning for it.

I wouldn't be surprised (but feel free to correct me) if the vast majority of
people in that income bracket don't have an up-front defined budget. My wife
and I definitely never have. The only time we really gave it a look was when
we had to decide on an acceptable mortgage payment.

------
oblib
The overall point of income, lifestyle, and cost of living are related is
valid.

The home I live in is a good example. I'm just a couple minutes drive away
from a huge lake (over 800 miles of shoreline), have a 4 bedroom home on 4
acres of forested land and one acre of lawn, and I'm surrounded by a few
thousand acres of public land and millions of acres of public land are within
a 1-2 hour drive.

The home and property is probably only worth around 200k. Average income is
just under 40k here. But, the quality of life is comparable to Malibu, CA, on
the beach or within a 10 minute walk.

I've lived in Malibu, so I have the experience to compare the two places, and
in most every way the quality of life here is much better.

I've visited San Francisco. I would not trade what I've got for what's
described in the article. It would be a significant downgrade.

------
Traster
Sorry but there's a reason suburbs exist. When you get slightly older and you
want more space to raise a family and want a safe area you move to the
suburbs. Also I'm not American so I don't know, but 2100 bucks on food sounds
like a lot in a month. My wife and I live on probably $600.

Also just from a budgeting perspective when you say

> Entertainment (Netflix shows, sporting events, social functions, w/e
> getaways)

You need to be more explicit with where your spending comes from, because that
budget is $600/month of with 1.6% is going to netflix.

------
avar
Reading between the lines ("Coach instead of Gucci") this is the budget of a
high-income couple keeping up with Joneses who were forced to cut into into
their discretionary spending ("Gap instead of Armani") when they had two kids.

------
the_fonz
Clickbait, contrived nonsense. If housing is taken care of, the real minimum-
viable wage for San Francisco is $35k/year. Anything beyond that is either
exorbitant discretional living beyond one's means and/or overpaying. Housing
is insane in most of SF with rooms approaching $6k/month, which would
necessitate an income of around $200k/year. There's no need to live in SF, and
it maybe untenable and illogical to do so without commensurate income for the
majority of people. Live elsewhere and save money, don't just bid into a
bidding war because everyone else is.

------
antisthenes
Since everyone else tore this apart already, I think it's valuable to note
that this is taken from some random guy's personal blog, who has an interest
in driving traffic to his website.

Since the picture itself doesn't give any advice on how to actually reduce
said costs and the couple is probably entirely hypothetical, I can only deduce
that this whole thing was created to generate outrage and direct views of
their personal blogspam website.

In other words, this is nothing more than clickbait.

------
imustbeevil
They're saving $4,000 / month. That's not living paycheck to paycheck. That's
the average american household income going straight to savings.

~~~
dragonwriter
$4,000/mo is $48k/yr; median household income is around $60k, mean around $73k
in recent years; there is no sense in which $48k is “the average American
household income” (it is a sizable chunk to savings annually, but not average
household income.)

~~~
imustbeevil
They are saving what that income would be after taxes. That's not the point.

The point is that this is in no possible way closer to "paycheck to paycheck"
than "saving an entire family's worth of money".

------
esotericn
Living 'paycheck to paycheck' on anything above the bottom tier of full-time
job is solely a matter of budgeting.

It comes down to the choice to simply live as if you earned less. You can do
that down to a very low number indeed.

If you earn 1500 pounds per month, and live as if you earn 1200, within five
months you're one month ahead.

Does it take discipline to do so? Sure. Fundamentally though, if you were
earning 1200, you'd be absolutely forced to do it. So just do it.

I'm well aware that SF is an expensive place. It's not an order of magnitude
more than London.

The poster could obviously and trivially live on 100K and stash whatever the
other 200K is post tax away.

The minimum figure in London I'd say is about 800 per month. Maybe 900. Below
that you're going to struggle to get to work. 10K a year. Above that you could
save it all _if you wanted_. Most people don't.

------
andrewprock
The 401k numbers indicate that this is a two income household. Including the
home equity they are saving at a 20% savings rate, which is much higher than
most. Good savers are typically in the 10% range

To be more typical, computer with an interest only mortgage, or contributions
of less than 12% annual gross to the 401k.

------
anon188272
So many folks tearing this article apart. I think the point here is that
$300k, which the vast majority of income earners will never achieve and whom
many in the middle class would consider “rich”, is not actually true wealth.

If anything this article points out the true problem with society - the vast
and growing income disparity between the “rich” and the truly rich. There are
plenty of folks who can eat every meal out, buy Ferrari’s and shop at Gucci
without batting an eye, and despite outrageous expenses grow their savings
tremendously per year.

[https://www.salon.com/2016/04/14/the_1_percent_are_the_real_...](https://www.salon.com/2016/04/14/the_1_percent_are_the_real_villains_what_americans_dont_understand_about_income_inequality_partner/)

------
bliblah
>$2,100 on food

No way these guys are going to any reasonable grocery store or even a farmers
market, they are probably eating out twice a day at that rate, especially in
the US where you can easily feed a family of 4 for a week under $100 in
groceries.

~~~
TomVDB
4 to 5 times dining out with the family at $25 per head: $400.

A latte for 2 at Starbucks every day + the occasional croissant: $400.

Sponsored lunch at work for 2 during the week at $7 per: $300.

With the remaining $1000, you still need to cover breakfast every day and
evening dinner for a family of 4.

You don't need to eat out at a fancy place twice a day to get there at all.

~~~
glomph
Eating out 5 times a month is a luxury though. Buying coffee out *every day"
is also a luxury lifestyle choice. It seems pretty callous to describe that as
living paycheck to paycheck; especially given the kind of budgeting some
people do.

~~~
TomVDB
Sure, but it's not nearly as extravagant as "they are probably eating out
twice a day at that rate" (if you don't count lunch at the restaurant at work
as "eating out".)

It's a pretty normal behavior for an upper middle class family.

------
thatfrenchguy
> 1,750-square-foot, three-bedroom

Who the hell thinks having a 1750sqft home inside a city is “being middle
class”

~~~
closeparen
Most people who own such houses have mundane occupations and average
paychecks. They only got expensive recently.

~~~
reallydude
Most middle class don't have them, so still not average in context.

~~~
closeparen
Middle class is often _defined_ by homeownership; this seems like an argument
about definitions.

~~~
wutbrodo
The definition you're using has heavy suburban connotations though, and
ignoring location doesn't make any sense when talking about real estate.
Living in the urban core has never been a marker of the middle-class, and the
fact that the political entity of the City of San Francisco happens to be
mostly urban core doesn't change that at all. These people could easily have
dramatically reduced housing costs if they weren't making the consumption
decision to live in the suburbs of said urban core.

~~~
closeparen
Typical middle class suburbs come with ~30 minute commute times. From downtown
SF, that still puts you well within the urban core. Maybe Oakland's urban core
when BART works.

Living in the Bay Area's suburbs is more like living in the next metro area
over from your job, i.e. Milwaukee to Chicago.

~~~
wutbrodo
That's a very good point. I'll have to think about it

------
closeparen
No. It can mean you save “only” a few tens of thousands a year, which will
never get you anywhere near homeownership, but you can certainly rent a nice
luxury apartment, max your 401k, and swipe your credit card freely all at the
same time with plenty to spare.

------
ohaideredevs
My understanding is that this is a load of ____. Basically, if you make 300k
and live in a modest room (especially if you buy a modest condo with fiends),
you can leave SF with over half a million in 5 years.

~~~
mdeeks
This article is about someone with a family that needs more than a room or
condo with friends. If you are in the situation where you can live in a condo
with friends then you will do a lot better. Raising a family and owning a home
dramatically raises expenses.

------
Jake_Z
well, if you chose not to have kids and an 800k apartment, it will be totally
different.

