

Ask HN: cost of living comparison - dirktheman

I’m considering moving from The Netherlands to SF or Silicon Valley. One thing that people often warn me about is the cost of living. I want to make a decent cost of living comparison between my current situation and my moving to SF/SV. My wife wouldn’t be able to work in the US, so I would be the main provider.<p>Current situation:
I have a family with two kids (2 &#38; 5). We own a home in a nice middle-class neighborhood. Our eldest goes to a decent (public, so free) school. My wife and I both work. The current breakdown:<p>Income: EUR 48000
House: EUR 16800
Taxes: EUR 11800
Food (we cook, fresh, but no fancy stuff or restaurants): EUR 4200
Health insurance: EUR 4200
Car (gas+ins.+maint., ’00 Mitshubishi Chariot) EUR 3500
Vacations &#38; leisure: EUR 3000
Savings: 4500
If we were to move to SF/SV, my wife wouldn’t be able to work. I’m aware that the cost of living is a lot higher, but so are the wages. A decent programmer makes somewhere in the ballpark of USD 80.000 a year, right? So how does that compare to the wages/cost of living ratio? Can you make it on one single salary, whilst keeping the same standard of living we have now?
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mrexroad
tl;dr: if you're committed+supported, it's doable on a single sw engineering
salary in the bay area (can't say same for other fields). there will be bumps,
but if you're both committed/open/honest then you'll find ways around all of
them.

situation: \- moved to south bay mid-2000's w/ no family/friends in the state
\- single income, 3 kids (1 then), wife at home w/ kids (cheaper for her to
stay home) \- enterprise job with a few years of startups thrown in

what worked: \- co-op pre-school for kids \- committed to minimizing and
buying only what we couldn't do w/o \- regular yard sales to help reduce and
raise cash. maybe sold $500 a year? \- if it's broke, fixed it or learned to
live without (no clothes dryer for past 6 months, but now i find line drying
therapeutic and am pretty proud of it) \- most of kid's clothes were either
bought used or given to us by friends \- learned to maximize benefits of any
service or perk, lots of awesome free weekend activities for kids out there \-
if we had to buy, found a way to get whatever was the absolute best for our
needs.

what sucked: \- constantly weighing detriment vs benefit of decisions on
children (schooling, food, new toy, trip) \- surprise expenses (baby, injury,
etc) \- co-workers w/ similar pay buying what they want when we'd have to
literally look under the couch for lost cash to pay bills, or more rather the
general assumption by others that money wasn't a problem \- burnout \- going
from comfy enterprise salary to going to startup as 2nd full time engineer
hire and being far too empathic to the company's financial needs rather than
my own.

couldn't do without: \- trust all around, and trust that things would always
work themselves out \- full support of my wife, and her resourcefulness in
problem solving \- trusted nanny/friend/etc to watch kids at random times \-
my wife finding "mommy friends." not as much for her happiness as it was for
access to a network of child-related items (clothes, bottles, shoes, toys,
etc). \- tracking spending like a mf'er. reviewing every receipt before
leaving store. not being shy and questioning everything.

~~~
dirktheman
Thanks for sharing! We seem to be quite similar in our spending pattern.
Although I saw an increasy in our income the last couple of years, we're still
living quite frugal. Perhaps being Dutch has something to do with this... We
still don't splurge, although I'm glad we don't have to cut back on things for
the kids anymore. As for the yard sale: we cleaned out the attic just last
week and made over EUR200 with stuff we don't use anymore... Such a good
feeling!

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rdouble
A decent programmer makes more like $150K a year.

A decent house costs over 1 million dollars.

A rental for your family will cost $3-4K.

The schools in SF aren't great and there is a lottery system. This means your
kids could be going to school on the other side of town even if you live
across the street from a school.

The schools in SV are good but housing there is just as expensive and you have
to drive everywhere.

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moocow01
The cost of living is the real kicker in SF that makes you have to closely
evaluate an offer if coming from another place.

For single people its a lot easier to live in SF on around 70-100k. Having
kids and family makes it harder in SF and there is a definite portion of
people that leave due to the extra financial pressure it inevitably puts on
you.

Probably for you there are 2 things to potentially take into consideration...
in SF 1) child care is expensive if you ever needed it and 2) the schools in
SF have a reputation of not being very good. There are private schools but
those are costly as well.

The last thing is that rent for a place is very expensive for a place that
would fit your family. Make sure to get a feel as to what you'd be paying
here. My guess for a just large enough space would be $2800 to $4500 per
month.

Based upon your wife not working and having kids Id honestly not recommend
moving. Not trying to be discouraging but just trying to be honest with you
that it could be tough going financially if you are the sole income earner for
the 4 of you.

~~~
dirktheman
Thanks for your honesty, it's appreciated! That amount of rent is indeed a lot
higher than I expected it to be. I checked craigslit to get a feel, and there
were some affordable houses, but I know from previous visits that good
neighborhoods in SF border to really bad ones, and it's hard for me to judge
what's an acceptable location.

I feel that SV would be better for my family, although being the sole earner
would require a very, very frugal lifestyle. Definetely something to keep in
consideration, thanks!

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DanBlake
I can only speak for SF cost of living. SV is likely cheaper.

If you want to live in a nice area in SF, I would say the answer is going to
be mostly 'no'.

80,000 seems like more than it is out here, but it unfortunately is not. A 3
bedroom apartment in the sunset district will be at best about 3k/month. If
you want to move to a nicer area, it will be closer to 4k+.

The bigger issue is, most places wont rent a unit like that to you unless your
income is 3x higher than the rent, which yours would not be (roughly 2x).

That said- Dont give up hope! The only real way to find housing out here is to
come out and hit the pavement. Things go really quick and you need to be on
your feet

~~~
dirktheman
Thanks! I have this assumption that SV is both cheaper and nicer to live for a
family than SF. Cheaper rents, nicer homes and better schools. Is that
correct? For my family, I actually prefer suburbia to the hustle and bustle of
a city...

~~~
jyu
Yes. Housing is expensive, and probably not realistic at $100k / yr. Rent can
be cheaper in SV (In Millbrae older 2-3br apt can be $2k / mo).

Taxes are higher too.

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brianchu
I grew up and went to high school in Palo Alto, so let me add my thoughts:

1) The schools in SV (not SF) are quite good. Both public and private schools
are some of the best in the United States and are comparable to top magnet
schools in New York City. On the flip side, the academic culture inside the
schools can be quite competitive (demanding on your kids).

2) Housing is quite expensive - more than $1 million for a good home. Renting
a home would be about $50,000+/year. Check zillow.com for more accurate
house/rent prices. My numbers might be skewed because Palo Alto is also more
expensive than other places in SV.

3) $80,000 is the salary for an _entry-level_ developer. Meaning someone fresh
out of college. I don't know how much experience you have, but you should be
able to make a lot more. Rdouble is right that a good developer with
experience should make $150K+. Again, I don't know your qualifications.

This was a good HN article/discussion about SF:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5073439>

AFAIK the only bad area of SF is the Tenderloin.

~~~
eshvk
> AFAIK the only bad area of SF is the Tenderloin.

Uhh..No, Hunter's Point, Bayview, sketchy parts of SoMa, 16th and Mission all
come to mind. Recall that OP is moving here with family.

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rtcoms
A similar old thread can be found here :

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1778185>

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davidjnelson
You need at least 150k to live comfortably in sf.

~~~
drstewart
Please, this is ridiculous. This is reminiscent of the NY times article about
the woman complaining that she's only scraping by on $400,000 because she can
only afford 2 vacations a year or some such.

~~~
astrodust
You have a link to that? Sounds like interesting reading.

~~~
drstewart
Sure:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmill.html?_r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmill.html?_r=1)

Title: "You Try to Live on 500K in This Town"

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claudiug
numbeo.com

