4 ms·

$25k/year is enough to live on even in the Bay Area if you have roommates and work at a big tech company with good benefits. It's not too hard to find a 3 bedro

by easde 6y ago

$25k/year is enough to live on even in the Bay Area if you have roommates and work at a big tech company with good benefits. It's not too hard to find a 3 bedroom house for $4,000/month in somewhere like Santa Clara. Split that 3 ways and that's only $1,300/month. Food and transportation is free during the week, leaving $700 / month for all other expenses (old car, food on weekends, some entertainment). Definitely would not be the most exciting life ever, but it's doable. Very effective if you want to quickly save $500k-1M for a home down payment or retire somewhere to a low COL area by the time you're 30.

alextheparrot 6y ago
While I agree with your math on premise, trying to live this lifestyle is definitely part of what burns people out. This assumes you’re eating all your meals at the office, limiting the hobbies you can pursue, not going on vacations, etc. Why not take an extra year to do all those things and also be able to engage with your twenties a bit more actively? I became much happier when I started to abandon frugality to this degree and bought a used car, picked up a few hobbies that cost a few grand a year, planned vacations that actually pushed my boundaries. (Bay Area, mid twenties for reference)
- hindsightbias 6y ago
  Those of us older would just see that as an exstension of college life and look at it nostalgically. Sure, I wish I’d taken a gap year, but any millennial trying to survive/move up is going to have to work hard. We didn’t have that time without frugaility, so maybe not realistic for most millennials. So I guess a stoic with a used Triumph motorcycle, a backpack and a copy of ZAMM would be optimal. A pretty decent set of vacations are only a gastank away in the Bay.
  - alextheparrot 6y ago
    When I moved out to the bay and was making ~85k a year at a startup I definitely lived like the person I responded to, except I paid for my own meals. Drive to local vacations, excess money went right into student loans and, after those were paid off, stocks. The difference in opinion is derived, I think, from how I reacted when I got a big tech job. My earnings went way up relative to that first job, but initially my lifestyle didn't change at all. Eventually I started adding things little by little, thoughtfully I think. I took my first international trips, didn't dismiss hobbies outright because of cost - it made me a lot happier because I was experiencing things for the first time. That doesn't mean I stopped backpacking, drinking beer in the park, or going to cheap concerts - it was additive. At the end of the day, though, my lifestyle increased only by a small portion of how my earnings were. All things considered, my savings rate didn't really change by all that much. There are some people who do really, really well trying to minimize their yearly spend, but there are a lot of people who could give themselves a little bit more slack and be better off mentally and physically for it. It isn't that they're not working hard. For me, it was just growing with working class parents - I never learned to ski, we drove instead of flew to visit family, video games were birthday presents. Relaxing some of the frugality was part of being thoughtful about who I actually was and wanted to be, and I think that's ok.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    That is assuming you don't want a family. Meaning you will have a big bag of regrets later, and even if not, problems too... That changes the cost equation immensely. We're trading best time to raise a family for a career. It's wrong and likely unsustainable. And you cannot assume you will get hired in 50s, not yet and not in this industry.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      You're making a lot of assumptions about someone else's priorities.
    - hindsightbias 6y ago
      Probably most kids from the 50s on think Dad spent too much time on his career. As does Dad. Now, a working BA tech couple can be grossing $400k in their mid 20s. That should be workable for kids. It wont be suburb comfortable, it will have lots of regrets, but the kids will get over it.

by easde 6y ago

alextheparrot 6y ago

While I agree with your math on premise, trying to live this lifestyle is definitely part of what burns people out. This assumes you’re eating all your meals at the office, limiting the hobbies you can pursue, not going on vacations, etc. Why not take an extra year to do all those things and also be able to engage with your twenties a bit more actively? I became much happier when I started to abandon frugality to this degree and bought a used car, picked up a few hobbies that cost a few grand a year, planned vacations that actually pushed my boundaries. (Bay Area, mid twenties for reference)

hindsightbias 6y ago
Those of us older would just see that as an exstension of college life and look at it nostalgically. Sure, I wish I’d taken a gap year, but any millennial trying to survive/move up is going to have to work hard. We didn’t have that time without frugaility, so maybe not realistic for most millennials. So I guess a stoic with a used Triumph motorcycle, a backpack and a copy of ZAMM would be optimal. A pretty decent set of vacations are only a gastank away in the Bay.
- alextheparrot 6y ago
  When I moved out to the bay and was making ~85k a year at a startup I definitely lived like the person I responded to, except I paid for my own meals. Drive to local vacations, excess money went right into student loans and, after those were paid off, stocks. The difference in opinion is derived, I think, from how I reacted when I got a big tech job. My earnings went way up relative to that first job, but initially my lifestyle didn't change at all. Eventually I started adding things little by little, thoughtfully I think. I took my first international trips, didn't dismiss hobbies outright because of cost - it made me a lot happier because I was experiencing things for the first time. That doesn't mean I stopped backpacking, drinking beer in the park, or going to cheap concerts - it was additive. At the end of the day, though, my lifestyle increased only by a small portion of how my earnings were. All things considered, my savings rate didn't really change by all that much. There are some people who do really, really well trying to minimize their yearly spend, but there are a lot of people who could give themselves a little bit more slack and be better off mentally and physically for it. It isn't that they're not working hard. For me, it was just growing with working class parents - I never learned to ski, we drove instead of flew to visit family, video games were birthday presents. Relaxing some of the frugality was part of being thoughtful about who I actually was and wanted to be, and I think that's ok.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  That is assuming you don't want a family. Meaning you will have a big bag of regrets later, and even if not, problems too... That changes the cost equation immensely. We're trading best time to raise a family for a career. It's wrong and likely unsustainable. And you cannot assume you will get hired in 50s, not yet and not in this industry.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    You're making a lot of assumptions about someone else's priorities.
  - hindsightbias 6y ago
    Probably most kids from the 50s on think Dad spent too much time on his career. As does Dad. Now, a working BA tech couple can be grossing $400k in their mid 20s. That should be workable for kids. It wont be suburb comfortable, it will have lots of regrets, but the kids will get over it.