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I live here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_University_Place,_Texas#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_University_Place,_Texas#D...) and fit in

I live here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_University_Place,_Texas#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_University_Place,_Texas#D...) and fit into the described demographics. SF in no way made sense at 2x my current income.

alex_young 8y ago
I must be missing something. The link you provided says ”The median income for a household in the city was $202,132, and the median income for a family was $227,425" That's more than double the median income in SF.
- meowface 8y ago
  More than double the median income and also (presumably) less than half the cost of living. So they still made the right decision when factoring everything in.
  - sithadmin 8y ago
    Bingo!
- sithadmin 8y ago
  >That's more than double the median income in SF. Irrelevant. I wasn't trying to optimize for % gain over median income in SF. I was trying to optimize for moderate improvement in overall quality of life compared to what I have now.
  - alex_young 8y ago
    "I was offered a position with one of my clients in SF for roughly double my current income in Houston, TX. After running the numbers with an attempt to maintain similar standards of living and leisure, it was simply impossible to make the math work out in my favor without significant sacrifices on either count." So assuming you were making ~200k, doubling that to 400k, it was still impossible to make your standard of living? I find that hard to believe.
    - sithadmin 8y ago
      I found it hard to believe too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I also built a model that put a lot of guesses about intangibles into numbers. It passed sanity checks when reviewed by several peers, but I could just have a bad model. Who knows.
    - URSpider94 8y ago
      If you are making $200k in Texas, you can afford to buy a 3,500 sq.ft. house with a pool on a half-acre+ lot with AC and a 2-car garage for, say, $400k, maybe less. In CA, you would pay well over $2MM for that same house anywhere within an hour’s drive in rush hour from either SF or Silicon Valley. Anywhere north of Sunnyvale, that house will run you a minimum of $3 million.

alex_young 8y ago

I must be missing something. The link you provided says ”The median income for a household in the city was $202,132, and the median income for a family was $227,425" That's more than double the median income in SF.

meowface 8y ago
More than double the median income and also (presumably) less than half the cost of living. So they still made the right decision when factoring everything in.
- sithadmin 8y ago
  Bingo!
sithadmin 8y ago
>That's more than double the median income in SF. Irrelevant. I wasn't trying to optimize for % gain over median income in SF. I was trying to optimize for moderate improvement in overall quality of life compared to what I have now.
- alex_young 8y ago
  "I was offered a position with one of my clients in SF for roughly double my current income in Houston, TX. After running the numbers with an attempt to maintain similar standards of living and leisure, it was simply impossible to make the math work out in my favor without significant sacrifices on either count." So assuming you were making ~200k, doubling that to 400k, it was still impossible to make your standard of living? I find that hard to believe.
  - sithadmin 8y ago
    I found it hard to believe too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I also built a model that put a lot of guesses about intangibles into numbers. It passed sanity checks when reviewed by several peers, but I could just have a bad model. Who knows.
  - URSpider94 8y ago
    If you are making $200k in Texas, you can afford to buy a 3,500 sq.ft. house with a pool on a half-acre+ lot with AC and a 2-car garage for, say, $400k, maybe less. In CA, you would pay well over $2MM for that same house anywhere within an hour’s drive in rush hour from either SF or Silicon Valley. Anywhere north of Sunnyvale, that house will run you a minimum of $3 million.