<story><title>2017 State of Global Tech Salaries</title><url>https://hired.com/state-of-salaries-2017</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CiPHPerCoder</author><text>&amp;gt; We live in a 680 sq ft one-bedroom apartment in an older development ($2200&amp;#x2F;mo).&lt;p&gt;Whoa, that&amp;#x27;s almost double the estimated mortgage for the 5 bedroom houses with an acre of land my family has been looking at purchasing.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll never move to the SF Bay Area. I encourage others not to, either. Get the companies there to open up to remote employees instead.</text></item><item><author>kcorbitt</author><text>My commute is a 15-minute walk, or 5-minute bike ride. :) I chose the apartment based on proximity to work -- could have saved $100-200&amp;#x2F;mo with a longer commute, but the savings would have been more than eaten up by the gas&amp;#x2F;car maintenance costs and I hate commuting. I still own a car, but don&amp;#x27;t use it to get to work.&lt;p&gt;We live in a 680 sq ft one-bedroom apartment in an older development ($2200&amp;#x2F;mo). We&amp;#x27;ll have to upgrade when my baby outgrows his large walk-in closet, but it fits our needs fine for now.</text></item><item><author>segmondy</author><text>What&amp;#x27;s your commute like?  My friend that moved there who tries to convince me to move out there, has a 2hr one way commute.  How many sq feet is your living space for you and your family?</text></item><item><author>kcorbitt</author><text>This analysis may be reasonable as far as it goes, but it can still make financial sense for someone to live and work in the Bay Area. I recently took a new job near San Francisco paying ~$160k. Living cheaply, our actual consumption for my family of 3 is about ~50k a year. (Yes, this is possible -- and life can still be enjoyable if you like spending time in nature&amp;#x2F;other inexpensive activities.) After taxes, that leaves me $50-60k a year to invest&amp;#x2F;save for retirement.&lt;p&gt;Compare that with a salary of $105k in inexpensive Salt Lake City, which is where my second-choice offer was. After taxes and consumption for a similar lifestyle, I&amp;#x27;d be saving somewhere around $30-40k&amp;#x2F;year, a substantial decrease. Not to mention the fact that if the startup that made that offer went under, it would be much harder to find another interesting job with similar compensation in Salt Lake than San Francisco.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t plan on living in the Bay Area long-term, but in the early stages of my career I can accumulate a lot more savings and also grow my skills faster by living here than probably anywhere else in the world.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Epenthesis</author><text>I mean, this is the fundamental crux of these CoL discussions: How much does the quality of your residence matter to you?&lt;p&gt;People try and mechanically translate equivalent lifestyles from place to place, but that&amp;#x27;s probably not the best way of analyzing things. Yes, if you choose to have a midwestern lifestyle in SF, it will be ludicrously expensive. However, you don&amp;#x27;t have to. If instead, you&amp;#x27;re able to replace the utility you&amp;#x27;d get for a nice place with the activities&amp;#x2F;amenities SF has and a small town doesn&amp;#x27;t, the cost differential is not nearly as stark.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, some people do value a nice home much more than anything they could get from living in SF, and that&amp;#x27;s fine. But that&amp;#x27;s not everyone, which is important to keep in mind when understanding why people move to the bay (or big cities in general).</text></comment>
<story><title>2017 State of Global Tech Salaries</title><url>https://hired.com/state-of-salaries-2017</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CiPHPerCoder</author><text>&amp;gt; We live in a 680 sq ft one-bedroom apartment in an older development ($2200&amp;#x2F;mo).&lt;p&gt;Whoa, that&amp;#x27;s almost double the estimated mortgage for the 5 bedroom houses with an acre of land my family has been looking at purchasing.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll never move to the SF Bay Area. I encourage others not to, either. Get the companies there to open up to remote employees instead.</text></item><item><author>kcorbitt</author><text>My commute is a 15-minute walk, or 5-minute bike ride. :) I chose the apartment based on proximity to work -- could have saved $100-200&amp;#x2F;mo with a longer commute, but the savings would have been more than eaten up by the gas&amp;#x2F;car maintenance costs and I hate commuting. I still own a car, but don&amp;#x27;t use it to get to work.&lt;p&gt;We live in a 680 sq ft one-bedroom apartment in an older development ($2200&amp;#x2F;mo). We&amp;#x27;ll have to upgrade when my baby outgrows his large walk-in closet, but it fits our needs fine for now.</text></item><item><author>segmondy</author><text>What&amp;#x27;s your commute like?  My friend that moved there who tries to convince me to move out there, has a 2hr one way commute.  How many sq feet is your living space for you and your family?</text></item><item><author>kcorbitt</author><text>This analysis may be reasonable as far as it goes, but it can still make financial sense for someone to live and work in the Bay Area. I recently took a new job near San Francisco paying ~$160k. Living cheaply, our actual consumption for my family of 3 is about ~50k a year. (Yes, this is possible -- and life can still be enjoyable if you like spending time in nature&amp;#x2F;other inexpensive activities.) After taxes, that leaves me $50-60k a year to invest&amp;#x2F;save for retirement.&lt;p&gt;Compare that with a salary of $105k in inexpensive Salt Lake City, which is where my second-choice offer was. After taxes and consumption for a similar lifestyle, I&amp;#x27;d be saving somewhere around $30-40k&amp;#x2F;year, a substantial decrease. Not to mention the fact that if the startup that made that offer went under, it would be much harder to find another interesting job with similar compensation in Salt Lake than San Francisco.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t plan on living in the Bay Area long-term, but in the early stages of my career I can accumulate a lot more savings and also grow my skills faster by living here than probably anywhere else in the world.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>the_gastropod</author><text>Yes. Urban areas are typically more expensive than rural areas. Maybe if urban residents stopped subsidizing unsustainable rural living, this price gap would shrink.</text></comment>