6 ms·

I keep on hearing about that.. so what's savings rate people should expect in SF?

ThrustVectoring 9y ago
Depends on your salary and general lifestyle. Single with no kids helps. Commuting from the East Bay helps. Not eating out or having expensive hobbies helps. Not owning a car helps. Making more than the typical low-to-mid 6 figures helps. Not having an onerous student loan burden or consumer debt helps. I've personally been saving over $2k/mo on an after-tax income of just over $6k/mo, haven't been trying particularly hard to max that out though.
cellis 9y ago
If you're single without kids -- 50% easily. Perhaps someone with kids can comment.
- liveoneggs 9y ago
  you're lucky to max out your 401k
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  People with children in SF either have locked in cheap housing due to Prop 13, make top-2% salary, or move out. Like, seriously, SF proper has half the primary-school-aged children than it should. It's not just people not having kids - SF has approximately the "right" number of infants and preschoolers. Under-appreciated fact about SF: your kid's schooling choices are either winning the school assignment lottery, having a 50 minute commute, homeschooling, or moving to a city that actually handles things sanely and has lower housing costs to boot.
- danans 9y ago
  If you and your partner both work full time, factor 20k+/kid/year for child care. If you later send your children to private schools, factor roughly the same rate. If instead you choose to send your kids to a public school that provides good educational opportunities, factor in either several thousand in additional local property taxes [1] or similar amounts in donations to the school PTA [2]. [1] http://www.paloaltopulse.com/2014/10/16/palo-alto-pulse-asks-how-does-school-funding-work-in-palo-alto/ http://www.paloaltopulse.com/2014/10/16/palo-alto-pulse-asks... [2] http://capta.org/pta-leaders/run-your-pta/finance/fundraising/ http://capta.org/pta-leaders/run-your-pta/finance/fundraisin...
- jakelarkin 9y ago
  been running this math recently: quality child care or private school is +$2k/month/child +2bdrm housing $4k food/transport/other $2k for couple with one kid you're at $8k/month post-tax or $150k/year pre-tax to break even.
- tezzer 9y ago
  Subsidized day care is $1900/mo for 2 kids; rent on a 3 bedroom house with a serious termite problem and an absentee landlord who doesn't care is $3300, babysitters are $20/hr if you want to go see a movie. Couples with 2 full time tech workers are fine (although they tend to not think so). I've got a spouse who works part time outside of tech and we make it work. We'll never buy a house here, and we had a landlord raise rent $1000 (33%) overnight once so you never really rest easy, but if you love your job it's a good place to be.
mmm94720 9y ago
Let me describe a typical mid-career Silicon Valley salaried tech worker scenario. YMMV of course. Base comp 200K Bonus, stock, 401k match 50K Total gross comp 250K Expenses: Taxes 40% (30% fed, 10% state) 100K Rental housing 40K ($3300/month) Food 15K Transportation 15K Discretionary spending 20K Total expenses 190K As a result, you can comfortably save $60K per year. Of course, kids and housing options will add greatly to your spend.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Here we go again with the "typical" tech worker making 250K. According to Glassdoor [1] and Payscale [2] the median/average base pay for SW engineers in the SF is about 1/2 of that. 1: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,31.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-en... 2: https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Senior_Software_Engineer/Salary/11028638/San-Francisco-CA https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Senior_Software_Eng...
  - akhilcacharya 9y ago
    That sounds more like a new grad salary...
  - Bahamut 9y ago
    Glassdoor skews low due to having more historical data. It should be noted that a lot of people also work in the Valley & live in SF since companies there pay more in general (although rent in the Valley has been rising the past few years in general, especially in Palo Alto and Mountain View). Of course it's a terrible commute, but some people prefer that - it should also be noted that the comment you responded to was talking about the Valley, not SF. Software engineering jobs in SF proper is a raw deal IMO excepting that you get to live in SF & be closer to the offerings of SF (or you can commute into SF, but might as well be commuting to an area with better pay IMO). Engineering quality is probably roughly the same across the Bay Area though.
  - stale2002 9y ago
    You are half right, and half wrong. The average startups are not paying engineers anywhere close to 250k. But I can assure you that every one of the big 5 tech companies pays those numbers (as do the "hot" unicorns that are on a similar "tier" as Google, ect) . The moral of the story is, don't work for a startup. Go big or go home. Sell out and work for one of the companies with the actual money. Because at those companies, those numbers are real. And the thing that people need to realize is that those "top" companies have a whole lot of people working for them. The numbers don't back up the common argument that is made about how "you have to be in the very top 1 percent of engineers to work at Google, FB, or Amazon".
sidlls 9y ago
Depends on your circumstances. If you're single, 50% or more, easily. If you're married/living with a partner or roommate, even more. If you have kids and/or significant debt, that drops significantly (my family of four saves about 10%).

Depends on your salary and general lifestyle. Single with no kids helps. Commuting from the East Bay helps. Not eating out or having expensive hobbies helps. Not owning a car helps. Making more than the typical low-to-mid 6 figures helps. Not having an onerous student loan burden or consumer debt helps. I've personally been saving over $2k/mo on an after-tax income of just over $6k/mo, haven't been trying particularly hard to max that out though.

cellis 9y ago

If you're single without kids -- 50% easily. Perhaps someone with kids can comment.

liveoneggs 9y ago
you're lucky to max out your 401k
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
People with children in SF either have locked in cheap housing due to Prop 13, make top-2% salary, or move out. Like, seriously, SF proper has half the primary-school-aged children than it should. It's not just people not having kids - SF has approximately the "right" number of infants and preschoolers. Under-appreciated fact about SF: your kid's schooling choices are either winning the school assignment lottery, having a 50 minute commute, homeschooling, or moving to a city that actually handles things sanely and has lower housing costs to boot.
danans 9y ago
If you and your partner both work full time, factor 20k+/kid/year for child care. If you later send your children to private schools, factor roughly the same rate. If instead you choose to send your kids to a public school that provides good educational opportunities, factor in either several thousand in additional local property taxes [1] or similar amounts in donations to the school PTA [2]. [1] http://www.paloaltopulse.com/2014/10/16/palo-alto-pulse-asks-how-does-school-funding-work-in-palo-alto/ http://www.paloaltopulse.com/2014/10/16/palo-alto-pulse-asks... [2] http://capta.org/pta-leaders/run-your-pta/finance/fundraising/ http://capta.org/pta-leaders/run-your-pta/finance/fundraisin...
jakelarkin 9y ago
been running this math recently: quality child care or private school is +$2k/month/child +2bdrm housing $4k food/transport/other $2k for couple with one kid you're at $8k/month post-tax or $150k/year pre-tax to break even.
tezzer 9y ago
Subsidized day care is $1900/mo for 2 kids; rent on a 3 bedroom house with a serious termite problem and an absentee landlord who doesn't care is $3300, babysitters are $20/hr if you want to go see a movie. Couples with 2 full time tech workers are fine (although they tend to not think so). I've got a spouse who works part time outside of tech and we make it work. We'll never buy a house here, and we had a landlord raise rent $1000 (33%) overnight once so you never really rest easy, but if you love your job it's a good place to be.

mmm94720 9y ago

Let me describe a typical mid-career Silicon Valley salaried tech worker scenario. YMMV of course. Base comp 200K Bonus, stock, 401k match 50K Total gross comp 250K Expenses: Taxes 40% (30% fed, 10% state) 100K Rental housing 40K ($3300/month) Food 15K Transportation 15K Discretionary spending 20K Total expenses 190K As a result, you can comfortably save $60K per year. Of course, kids and housing options will add greatly to your spend.

ryandrake 9y ago
Here we go again with the "typical" tech worker making 250K. According to Glassdoor [1] and Payscale [2] the median/average base pay for SW engineers in the SF is about 1/2 of that. 1: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,31.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-en... 2: https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Senior_Software_Engineer/Salary/11028638/San-Francisco-CA https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Senior_Software_Eng...
- akhilcacharya 9y ago
  That sounds more like a new grad salary...
- Bahamut 9y ago
  Glassdoor skews low due to having more historical data. It should be noted that a lot of people also work in the Valley & live in SF since companies there pay more in general (although rent in the Valley has been rising the past few years in general, especially in Palo Alto and Mountain View). Of course it's a terrible commute, but some people prefer that - it should also be noted that the comment you responded to was talking about the Valley, not SF. Software engineering jobs in SF proper is a raw deal IMO excepting that you get to live in SF & be closer to the offerings of SF (or you can commute into SF, but might as well be commuting to an area with better pay IMO). Engineering quality is probably roughly the same across the Bay Area though.
- stale2002 9y ago
  You are half right, and half wrong. The average startups are not paying engineers anywhere close to 250k. But I can assure you that every one of the big 5 tech companies pays those numbers (as do the "hot" unicorns that are on a similar "tier" as Google, ect) . The moral of the story is, don't work for a startup. Go big or go home. Sell out and work for one of the companies with the actual money. Because at those companies, those numbers are real. And the thing that people need to realize is that those "top" companies have a whole lot of people working for them. The numbers don't back up the common argument that is made about how "you have to be in the very top 1 percent of engineers to work at Google, FB, or Amazon".

sidlls 9y ago

Depends on your circumstances. If you're single, 50% or more, easily. If you're married/living with a partner or roommate, even more. If you have kids and/or significant debt, that drops significantly (my family of four saves about 10%).