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Paycheck calculator shows me that $120K [1] in CA leaves you with $6,220 after-tax monthly income. If you really made about as much, and managed to save ~$5.5K
by mr_pink 10y ago
Paycheck calculator shows me that $120K [1] in CA leaves you with $6,220 after-tax monthly income. If you really made about as much, and managed to save ~$5.5K a month, then you spent only ~$660 a month, which is just impossible, sorry. Even if you're sharing a 1BR with several roommates, which, by the way, is not really an option for many.
[1] Googling "average software engineer salary california" shows figures ranging from 107k to 135k, 120k seems to be more or less the median of Google's figures.
Edit: added footnote
- nostrademons 10y agoIt was 2009-2010, so rents were lower, but my paycheck was lower as well (I started at only $100K/year base, compared to the ... well, much higher amount a few years later). After taxes and 401k, I netted $5400/month. 18 months encompassed 2 bonus cycles, so about $40K of that was bonuses, after tax. My rent was $900/month with roommates, and then $1400/month in the 1BR, and total monthly expenditures were about $2K. I was packing away about $3.5K/month; 18 months of that is $63K, +$40K from bonuses = just over $100K.
- mr_pink 10y agoWell, good for you. I don't think your situation was "average" really, but kudos on the savings :) Coming from a guy in NYC whose monthly expenditures are through the roof...
- linkregister 10y agoThanks for sharing your numbers. You must admit that $40k bonus after tax is a huge, atypical amount of money. It makes your effective yearly income to be about $156k. It reminds me of the mrmoneymustache.com guy, saying "anyone can retire early! Just look at me, all I had to do was get $1M in stock from Cisco!" No disrespect intended for you; I'm sure compared to some of your friends you lived frugally. The point I'm making is that to duplicate your living standard today, very few comparable developers would be able approach your level of savings.
- nostrademons 10y agoIt's over 2 years. $20K or so after tax per year. A bit over $30K pre-tax. Not sure what typical bonuses are these days, but I don't think that's out of line for a big tech company. Certainly stock grants can be much more than that, but it usually takes more than 18 months for them to amount to anything.
- user5994461 10y agoIt's out of line for people who are not at big tech companies with publicly traded stock or bonus.
- ryandrake 10y agoThanks for sharing numbers. Wow, that's an amazing bonus, and you should feel fortunate! This is coming from someone who does work for a big tech company. I've never seen anything remotely close to that.
- ohwello 10y agoThese are completely normal numbers for the Bay Area. I got substantially higher offers when switching jobs recently, so these numbers from 2010 are not surprising. I am not a rockstar or anything. I just applied to a lot of companies to get multiple offers, and negotiated aggressively. Lots of people are being paid less than this because they don't know they should be asking for more. Check paysa.com for user-reported total compensation in recent offers. If you don't believe them, check http://h1bdata.info http://h1bdata.info for lawyer-reported salaries of h1b employees (base salary only and probably biased downward by h1b abuse). The h1b data is mind blowing in the huge disparities within the same company. Let me tell you: the people getting paid 50% more with the same title are not 50% better. I increased offers by 50% by telling the recruiters that's what I would need to accept an offer.
- shawndumas 10y agonot for the bay area; and really, that's the point...