This, if your lifestyle is completely inelastic you're gonna have a bad time. Even with double the pay you're not going to come close to the midwest in terms of

This, if your lifestyle is completely inelastic you're gonna have a bad time. Even with double the pay you're not going to come close to the midwest in terms of house-size (without living in a really bad area/with a huge commute). If you are OK with not living in as large of a place, but having more money for physical goods (e.g. nice groceries/restaurants, gadgets and devices) and stuff that is mostly location-agnostic (vacations, investments) you might be substantially better off. You definitely don't need $500k to rent a 3bed apartment in the South Bay. I think market rate is probably around $5.5k/mo? Call it an even $6k to include parking and utilities. Should be comfortably affordable on $200k with breathing room ($200k for a married couple with claimable dependents being roughly $146k after tax, $72k going to housing, $74k post-tax for whatever else), though not sure about kids' tuition. Right now is a terrible time to buy a home in the South Bay (rising interest rates + RTO) so don't take all-in home ownership costs at face value.