3 ms·

AFAIK there are many cities where 70K per year is well below comfortable (even if your definition of comfort doesn't imply luxury yachts or cocaine). Yesterday

AFAIK there are many cities where 70K per year is well below comfortable (even if your definition of comfort doesn't imply luxury yachts or cocaine). Yesterday I have been told $80K is the actual median income but $200K is minimum comfortable in SF (never been to there, can't confirm).

NL807 6y ago
Once you're a millionaire, I'm assuming you have purchased and paid off a home. With that in mind, if $70K/year is still well below comfortable, then I would argue their spending habits are questionable.
- tomcam 6y ago
  Maybe? I live in Seattle. My paid-off home costs $13,000/year in property taxes alone.
- mastazi 6y ago
  Where I live (Sydney Australia) after purchasing an average home [1] you would have less than a million left out of those two millions, so according to grandparent's calculation [2] you would have less than 35k/year left, to sustain yourself. That's above the poverty line which is around 24k/year [3], but well below the median salary which is around 50k/year [4]. [1] https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/sydney-s-median-house-price-back-over-1-million-as-interest-rate-cut-looms-20200302-p545w3.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/sydney-s-median-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25580987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25580987 [3] https://apo.org.au/node/276246 https://apo.org.au/node/276246 [4] https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/providers/housing/affordable/manage/chapters/household-median-incomes-2020-21 https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/providers/housing/affordable/man...
  - mgkimsal 6y ago
    that 'median salary' is likely having to support housing/rent which the hypothetical person in this scenario wouldn't have to account for. might not be 35k after housing, but might be (or housing/taxes).
    - mastazi 6y ago
      After rent and taxes I have around 30k, due to my temporarily reduced salary (due to Covid). If it wasn’t for my wife’s help, we wouldn’t make it to the end of the fortnight. We have a teenage daughter. If this was my salary level indefinitely, it would not be sustainable in the long term because we wouldn’t be able to afford any extra spending e.g. buying a new car. We live in an expensive part of Sydney so moving to a different area would result in some savings and we would almost (but not quite) have as much as my pre-covid disposable income which was more than OK for us. Moving would not be painless though, e.g. my daughter would have to go to a new school and lose touch with her friends which isn’t easy for a teenager. I guess what I’m trying to say is - coming back to the original comment that started this thread - in some expensive cities, 2M doesn’t really change your life much (at least, not to the extent that you can think “I’m rich now I don’t have to worry about money ever again”). Personally I’m thinking about moving to a less expensive area, now that remote work has become even more common. Important note: all my reasoning is in AUD but probably OP meant USD 2M. That would be about AUD 2.6M. So, more than 2M but not by an order of magnitude.
dxdm 6y ago
I think it's also enough to live comfortably in many other cities in almost any country of your choice - Berlin, for example, is well within reach. You can of course insist on living in an expensive place, but maybe it's worth trading in some choice in location for more freedom in how you spend your time?
williamtwild 6y ago
I was taking it to mean 70k a year to burn, with all of the "normal people" bills like mortgages and car payments.
coldtea 6y ago
>AFAIK there are many cities where 70K per year is well below comfortable Thanfully it's not mandatory to live in those cities... They're not even the best cities to live, considering international rankings...
- dantheman 6y ago
  International rankings are nonsense. They're not interesting cities - they're not places people want to live.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >They're not interesting cities - they're not places people want to live. If people are teenagers or starry eyed 20-somethings dreaming of making it big in LA, NY, or SV, yes. If people are 30 and above, they are very much interesting and places people want to live...

NL807 6y ago

Once you're a millionaire, I'm assuming you have purchased and paid off a home. With that in mind, if $70K/year is still well below comfortable, then I would argue their spending habits are questionable.

tomcam 6y ago
Maybe? I live in Seattle. My paid-off home costs $13,000/year in property taxes alone.
mastazi 6y ago
Where I live (Sydney Australia) after purchasing an average home [1] you would have less than a million left out of those two millions, so according to grandparent's calculation [2] you would have less than 35k/year left, to sustain yourself. That's above the poverty line which is around 24k/year [3], but well below the median salary which is around 50k/year [4]. [1] https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/sydney-s-median-house-price-back-over-1-million-as-interest-rate-cut-looms-20200302-p545w3.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/sydney-s-median-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25580987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25580987 [3] https://apo.org.au/node/276246 https://apo.org.au/node/276246 [4] https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/providers/housing/affordable/manage/chapters/household-median-incomes-2020-21 https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/providers/housing/affordable/man...
- mgkimsal 6y ago
  that 'median salary' is likely having to support housing/rent which the hypothetical person in this scenario wouldn't have to account for. might not be 35k after housing, but might be (or housing/taxes).
  - mastazi 6y ago
    After rent and taxes I have around 30k, due to my temporarily reduced salary (due to Covid). If it wasn’t for my wife’s help, we wouldn’t make it to the end of the fortnight. We have a teenage daughter. If this was my salary level indefinitely, it would not be sustainable in the long term because we wouldn’t be able to afford any extra spending e.g. buying a new car. We live in an expensive part of Sydney so moving to a different area would result in some savings and we would almost (but not quite) have as much as my pre-covid disposable income which was more than OK for us. Moving would not be painless though, e.g. my daughter would have to go to a new school and lose touch with her friends which isn’t easy for a teenager. I guess what I’m trying to say is - coming back to the original comment that started this thread - in some expensive cities, 2M doesn’t really change your life much (at least, not to the extent that you can think “I’m rich now I don’t have to worry about money ever again”). Personally I’m thinking about moving to a less expensive area, now that remote work has become even more common. Important note: all my reasoning is in AUD but probably OP meant USD 2M. That would be about AUD 2.6M. So, more than 2M but not by an order of magnitude.

dxdm 6y ago

I think it's also enough to live comfortably in many other cities in almost any country of your choice - Berlin, for example, is well within reach. You can of course insist on living in an expensive place, but maybe it's worth trading in some choice in location for more freedom in how you spend your time?

williamtwild 6y ago

I was taking it to mean 70k a year to burn, with all of the "normal people" bills like mortgages and car payments.

coldtea 6y ago

>AFAIK there are many cities where 70K per year is well below comfortable Thanfully it's not mandatory to live in those cities... They're not even the best cities to live, considering international rankings...

dantheman 6y ago
International rankings are nonsense. They're not interesting cities - they're not places people want to live.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >They're not interesting cities - they're not places people want to live. If people are teenagers or starry eyed 20-somethings dreaming of making it big in LA, NY, or SV, yes. If people are 30 and above, they are very much interesting and places people want to live...