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Wow, this resonates with me. In 2013 my wife and I were living in the Bay Area and had just welcomed our third child into the family. I was making 105k/yr at Ap
by archeantus 9y ago
Wow, this resonates with me. In 2013 my wife and I were living in the Bay Area and had just welcomed our third child into the family. I was making 105k/yr at Apple (which seemed like a ton at the time!) but I felt like I was saving very little of that.
I was approached on LinkedIn to take a job with matching pay but that was fully remote. I could live anywhere I wanted in the entire country. I jumped at the chance and felt like I became rich overnight! I miss working at Apple, and would definitely jump at the chance to work remotely for them, but I don't think I could ever afford to move back to California.
- gshulegaard 9y agoJust curious, as an engineer finding myself thinking along similar lines, where did you end up moving?
- archeantus 9y agoWe moved to Utah where the tech scene is actually quite strong, and the cost of living is significantly less. We bought an 8k sq ft house for the price of many 1,500 sq ft town homes we had been putting offers in on in California. It can be such a rat race down there, it is refreshing to remember that it doesn't have to be that way. Life exists outside of The Valley, and it happens to be a pretty darn good one (and affordable!) :)
- Sharlin 9y ago800 square meters????
- rocgf 9y agoMy reaction exactly. Americans use way too much, to be honest. 8k sq ft is more than enough for like 7+ families.
- CalRobert 9y agoYeah.. I mean, space is nice, but in homes of 800 or so square feet I've been pretty happy. How much carbon is emitted cooling and heating an 8k sq ft home in Utah? How far do you have to drive to do things?
- archeantus 9y agoOur utility bills certainly have gone up, which we aren't thrilled with. We are considering some solar panel options to help bring our carbon footprint down. Being fully remote, I try to make up for that by not driving very much :) Overall, the valley we live in has pretty much everything we could want, from a retail perspective. A nice small-town grocery store about 3 mins away, and larger national chains further down the road.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- _ao789 9y agoAfter living in 'cramped old london' for over a decade (still), I can only dream of the luxury of 800 Sq.m. Where do I sign up? :) fitting multiple people/families into anything less is just bad living standards as far as I'm concerned. You work hard all day long to go back to such a depressing existence. Time to start living fellow HN'ers!
- user5994461 9y agoOr time to charge more and get bigger
- scholia 9y agoWhich is why Londoners move to suburbia...
- _ao789 9y ago..and always dream of places like Spain (or better yet "Texas")
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bonzini 9y agoProbably around 180 square meters plus 50 square meters garage, driveway and garden? Edit: duh, it's really 800 sqm.
- archeantus 9y agoYes, I guess 8,000 sq ft translates to 743 meters :)
- glup 9y agoI'm sure the OP purchased such a large house for efficiency... as their children mature they can just start their own families in various parts of the vast, cavernous manor.
- juliangoldsmith 9y ago8k sqft is ridiculous even by American standards. For a family of 5, I'd call about 2400 sqft (~220 sqm) normal, maybe a bit overkill.
- kelnos 9y agoThis is something I still don't get, even as an American. I live by myself in a 950 sq ft (~88 sq m) apartment, and that's already more space than I know what to do with. Sure, add a spouse and 2 or 3 kids and my space needs would increase, but I can't imagine needing 8-10x as much space, ever. Maybe 3x, at most 4x. I grew up in a fairly large house (I don't recall the size, but two floors, 6 bedrooms, kitchen, formal dining room, living room, family room, 3 bathrooms, basement filled with junk; so, fairly large -- semi-rural Maryland, where space was cheap in the 80s/90s). My parents weren't hoarders, though they did accumulate stuff. After my sister and I moved out and my mom passed away, my dad lived in a giant house by himself, couldn't maintain it, and also felt like he couldn't move because the house wasn't in good enough shape to sell. I just don't get this need for more and more space. It just encourages you to buy more stuff that you don't need, and takes more time/effort/money to maintain. I hesitate to "tell people how to live", but this keeping up with the Joneses attitude is a component of what causes cost of living to rise and is ultimately a zero-sum game.
- microcolonel 9y agoI know people who don't have the discipline to keep spaces open, but large open spaces can be wonderful (and easy to maintain). The tough thing is maintaining large arrays of intricate special-purpose rooms which you don't need and which are full of stuff that makes it feel small nonetheless. Space is wonderful for doing things like dancing, hosting guests, exercise, communal/family cooking (sprouting many kilograms of chickpeas, fermenting 40+qt of kimchi).
- archeantus 9y agoThere are certainly times I regret having so much space for our kids to clutter, but we ultimately bought it as a place for us to grow into. My wife is expecting our 6th child later this year, and our house has 6 bedrooms. So in that sense, it isn't insanely lavish, but a comfortable place to raise a large family. Also, as the commenter below mentioned, we do enjoy hosting people for parties and family get-togethers. We spend a good amount of energy and time and money on these activities that are for the enjoyment of other people. Wealthy people often build massive palaces to honor their own greatness and inflate their egos, I can assure you this is not one of those homes :).
- throwthisawayt 9y agoAre you a minority race and if so would you say that Utah is friendly to non-whites ?
- archeantus 9y agoI am not a minority race, but Utah is becoming quite diverse. My personal opinion is that it is a welcoming place and is a great place for families to raise their children.
- runako 9y agoUtah is a lovely place, but this stuck out to me > Utah is becoming quite diverse Was curious about this, as it didn't seem to fit my limited observation from my last few trips to Utah (which is again, a lovely place). The Census bureau government says Utah is >91% "white only": https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/49 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/49 Which is likely more diverse than Utah was in the past, but could not be fairly compared to California as "quite diverse" given the same number for California is 73%: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/06,49 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/06,49
- archeantus 9y agoThat is a fair point. Instead of the word "quite", it might have been better to use the word "more".
- wmil 9y agoFederal numbers count hispanics as white. California was 42.3% non-hispanic white as of 2010, Utah was at 80% in 2013.
- dmode 9y agoJust FYI, all the Indian folks I knew moved out of Utah. Not sure if it is because of race or nom Christian religion
- parthdesai 9y agoWould love to move to Utah for couple of years one day, just because of skiing.
- herman5 9y agoDon't forget the mountain biking!
- base698 9y agoWhat's the power bill? I have considered doing the same but seems like you almost have to buy a house that big or live in a non-desirable area.
- mahyarm 9y agoAnother good thing about not living in the bay area is you dont have to pay pg&e rates for electricty. Us avg is 0.12/kwh while pge quickly gets up to +0.30/kwh
- archeantus 9y agoI'd have to look at the bill but I think that it averages out to be around $250-350/month for electricity.
- caseysoftware 9y agoBtw, I run https://twitter.com/SLCTechEvents https://twitter.com/SLCTechEvents which is a great way to plug in and see what's going on around Salt Lake City. Not sure if it will be helpful to you but I hope so. :)
- matwood 9y agoHopefully 8k sqft was a typo. I feel like 2500sqft is too much sometimes.
- fideloper 9y agoJesus, was hoping someone else caught that too. I have a 2300sq ft for a 4 bed two bath, wouldn't want much bigger at all!
- tropo 9y agoIt's Utah. You know, Mormons. The bit about them having huge families is real. With one kid or wife per bedroom and 1000sqft for kitchen/dining/whatever, you have room for 28. (4 wives, 6 kids each) Making the non-bedroom part of the house more luxurious and adding a bathroom to each bedroom, you have room for about 16. You can hit that even without polygamy. He may be counting a large garage. That could be 1000sqft by itself, so knock off 3 or 4 bedrooms.
- archeantus 9y agoMormons aren't polygamous. Please stop spreading this narrative that you know isn't true.
- tropo 9y agoOnly 95% of Mormons are in "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". Fundamentalist Mormons are still Mormon, and yes, 10,000 to 30,000 of them are in plural marriages. Also, note that I didn't mean it as an insult, and I quite like large families. Even the mainstream Mormons tend to have large families.
- hyperbovine 9y agoI have to ask: 8000ft²? What are you doing with all that space? Are you Mormon?
- nrclark 9y agoI assume 8k is the lot size (~0.2 acre)? I had a similar experience moving to Colorado from CA.
- mightykan 9y agoI lived in Salt Lake City, Utah for 11 years. Needless to say, I got out five years ago the first chance I got. If you’re not into winter sports, the weather is shit. You get 10 months of bitter cold and snow every day. You have to dig your car out of the snow all winter and drive on horrible conditions with clueless drivers who seem to forget how to drive in snow every year. Spring and fall are one or so week each and you get rain storms the whole time. Then you have 6 or so weeks of scorching hot summer where it’s unbearable to be outside. I never ventured outside of the metro area and no one was ever overtly racist but boy if you are not a white Mormon you will stick out, you will be judged and questioned. Most Utah Mormons are conditioned to be nice so on the surface they appear so but they do judge and single out people who don’t belong. I visited SF over a weekend and was instantly surprised about how accepting everyone was. It just seemed like I fit in and belonged. I’d tolerate much worse conditions than “low income in SF” than be “rich” in Utah.
- davidw 9y agoThere are a number of people here in Bend who want more space and a smaller town. It's getting expensive here too, but hopefully there's the political will to not repeat all of the mistakes of San Fran, Boulder and other places. I certainly do my share of talking to people like city councilors when I can. If anyone's up here visiting, I'll happily buy you a beer - or whatever you prefer, but... there's lots of beer here.
- ryanSrich 9y agoJust remember that you'll want to select a city that has a decent economy and tech scene in the event that you lose your job and need to take a location dictated position. So long as you and your partner are both making 6 figures you should be able to afford any of the following cities: - Seattle - Portland - Austin - Denver
- juliangoldsmith 9y ago>So long as you and your partner are both making 6 figures That's a pretty high bar for cost of living. Here in Charlotte, NC, I make half of that, and could support two people without any difficulty.
- ryanSrich 9y agoYeah. There's definitely a culture tax in the NW. I can freely enjoy the virtues of legal cannabis, frequent the best coffee shops in the world, and hike the glacial peaks all in the same day. To me that's worth the cost.
- juliangoldsmith 9y agoIn Charlotte, I'm 2 hours away from the Appalachian mountains, and can easily get good coffee. I wouldn't consider legal marijuana worth $100k a year, personally.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sf_rob 9y agoI get the feeling that tech people no longer have reasonable understandings of cost of living. I live in the PNW and could keep my current nice standard of living on a $60k salary (as a single person). I cannot think of a scenario where I would need two six figure incomes unless I really ramped up spending (private school, nicer car, nicer house).
- 9y ago
- stevenwoo 9y agoWhat area of the country did you decide to move to, and why (besides the obvious cost saving)?
- archeantus 9y agoWe decided to move to Utah. We have some family here and the tech scene is actually quite strong. Overall it has been a great move, and besides the nice people that we met in California, we haven't really missed the craziness of the rat race down there.
- stevenwoo 9y agoThanks, that makes perfect sense. Just the local car traffic over the last ten years has kind of gone crazy.
- ransom1538 9y agoDid the exact same thing this year. Moved to Oviedo, FL from SF: 1) no state income tax, 2) public schools in my neighborhood are equivalent to a private school in sf [i] 4) weather is great 8 months out of year, 5) beaches you can swim in, 6) rent is ~1/4 of what it was in SF, 7) cuban food, 8) as a resident, kids have year round disney passes [i] http://school-ratings.com/Florida/schools/Carillon_Elementary_School.html http://school-ratings.com/Florida/schools/Carillon_Elementar... WARNING: The tech job market is pretty much non-existent. "more challenging" is an understatement. I would be prepared to answer 'can you lift 50 lbs' in your 'tech' interview. I am a remote dev.
- s3r3nity 9y agoSidebar / off topic: highly recommend the cuban espresso in Florida if you're into coffee...blew me away when I had it for the first time, and is one of the top reasons I look forward to travelling there.
- cylinder 9y agoTo me it's just a poorly pulled espresso with a ton of sugar...
- will_brown 9y agoNot sure the down votes because you just perfectly described a bad colada. But there is hope they can be delicious, it's the only coffee I drink, and I even wanted to bring Cuban coffee in a can to market cubanshot.weebly.com of course months after contacting coffee canners Starbucks came out with their doubleshot cubano which is terrible. Basically the difference between a real/good colada and what you described is whipping and creation of a paste in the beginning before the pull. Remain open minded
- protomyth 9y agoI see a lot of canned coffee so there seems to be a bit of market beyond Starbucks. I would ditch the green though. I guess it depends on can you produce at a scale that would make you profitable.
- Dangeranger 9y agoVermont has an amazing community of remote engineers, reasonable housing prices, and some of the best public schools in the country. Come and enjoy the outdoors, food, and amazing beer with us.
- harterrt 9y agoWhere in Vermont do you recommend? I just went remote in the past year and I plan on roadtripping to VT soon for a week.
- jqueryin 9y agoBurlington if you want both size and cool vibe (Vermont native here).
- xutopia 9y agoI'm a Montrealer and I visit Burlington regularly for week end trips with the family. From a tourist perspective that city is a nice size with what feels like a vibrant local food culture.
- Dangeranger 9y agoBurlington is very nice if you like small cities. Huntington/Richmond is a little off the path, but still close if you want more space.
- nosequel 9y agoDid the exact same thing 10 years ago. Couldn't take living in California any more. We moved to Colorado. * My health, both physical and mental has increased tremendously. * Our house is far cheaper in mortgage than our apartment was. * Schools are far better than anything in California we could afford * Crime is almost non-existent. Most people don't lock car or house doors. * It is rare I drive more than 8 miles on any day, no more highways for me unless I'm skiing. * The air & water are clean, the tap water tastes better than the bottle water I used to drink.
- geebee 9y agoCan I ask you about one thing, though? Both my kids are in SFUSD schools, and San Francisco actually has a large number of 10/10 rated schools. This is based on test scores, of course, so it doesn't tell the whole story. For instance, take a look at this: http://www.greatschools.org/california/san-francisco/schools/?gradeLevels=e http://www.greatschools.org/california/san-francisco/schools... Do you think that your elementary school in Colorado are vastly better than the top three we see here, Chin (John Yehall) Elementary, Clarendon, or Lafayette? Scroll down a bit. SF has some bad schools, but it's not like these three are isolated one offs. There really are a lot of schools in SF scoring a 9 or 10 here. There is a lottery, but (this is just my experience and impression) it's not shot in the dark level lottery. If you research schools and find some of the ones that fly below the radar rather than just listing the "trophy" schools, and create a balanced list, you have a good chance at a good school. No, not a 100% chance and an excellent school, which you can obtain by leaving SF and moving to a good district where a high rent or mortgage payment locks it in for you (hey, I get it - I'll call it what it is, but I do get it). There are great reasons to leave SF, and the school situation here is hardly perfect. But I disagree with the general notion that public schools in SF are an across the board failure. I'd even disagree that they are a general failure with a few minor bright spots. I'd call the situation mixed, with a lot of good, a lot of bad and a lot of in the middle. You can have a very good experience with SFUSD.
- phkahler 9y ago>> San Francisco actually has a large number of 10/10 rated schools. Is that on a national or state scale? I find my district in Michigan making all kinds of claims like that about many of our schools, but it's all compared to others in the state. Nationally we're still above average but nothing to get excited about.
- acchow 9y agoAre you an engineer? You were probably being underpaid.
- amyjess 9y agoI'm a Texan looking to move out of state because I'm transgender and our legislature wants to make it impossible for people like me to exist. Since that's the only reason I'm wanting to move, I'm looking for the most Texas-like place I can find. Unfortunately, the closest I can come is Southern California. I dragged my heels like crazy on admitting that SoCal was the only place that has most of what I wanted because the cost of living is so insanely high, but I really have no choice. Everything else either was outside the Sun Belt or not Asian enough. Unfortunately, that means I'm stuck hoping I get a job that pays $140k, because that's what I'll need to make to rent a house in SoCal, and I'll be in a position where if I ever lose my job and end up unemployed, I'll have less than a month to find a new job before I become homeless. I have a friend of mine trying to sell me on the Vegas area, though. I'm considering it, particularly Spring Valley. But I also have another friend urging me to avoid Vegas because she says there's no tech industry there. For the record, my main criteria are: must have transgender-inclusive non-discrimination protections at the state level, must be in the Sun Belt, must have high Asian and Hispanic populations (I'm looking for at least 15% of each in the suburb I'm moving to, preferably more), must be a sprawling suburb, must be able to afford to rent a house with central AC on the salary of a software engineer of my experience in the area. The only states that meet the first two criteria are California (and only SoCal, not NorCal), New Mexico, and Nevada. The third criterion eliminates New Mexico (almost no Asian people in the entire state)... and until a few days ago, I thought it eliminated Nevada as well.
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y agomust be in the Sun Belt I'd try to sell you on Minnesota except for this :-) Well, we do get tons of sun (similar solar insolation numbers to Houston, TX), but it can be bright and sunny and still -25F
- amyjess 9y agoI had a friend who did try to sell me on Minneapolis. What put me off ultimately was finding out that central AC is difficult to find outside of the Sun Belt.