31–40 of 55 posts
SV / SF is no place for a family. Most of it is high crime and quite seedy. You'll pay significantly more for housing. Only the 80% of SF which is rent controlled is affordable (as an outsider, you'll never get this). At market rate, For 6K/month you might be able to rent a tiny 2 bedroom apartment with no parking. You'll never be able to save up for a condo and you can forget about a house. Most of us, are trying to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love a remote gig, assuming it was as an FTE with benefits (healthcare being important for family and all). My wife's company cannot afford to provide any benefits whatsoever. It just seems like recently, the move is toward in-office employment with little to no work from home. I've talked to a handful of companies I'd love to work with, but I'd be willing to bet that they would all balk at remote employment.
What does your wife do for the non profit? Is it something transferable to the corporate world where the pay would be a lot better? Or is one of your goals for her to be a stay at home mom?
SV / SF is no place for a family. Most of it is high crime and quite seedy. You'll pay significantly more for housing. Only the 80% of SF which is rent controlled is affordable (as an outsider, you'll never get this). At market rate, For 6K/month you might be able to rent a tiny 2 bedroom apartment with no parking. You'll never be able to save up for a condo and you can forget about a house. Most of us, are trying to…
?! ?!
And since your daughter is young you can afford to spend a few years finding the right place. Like I said, commuting sucks. If you pick an SF startup but you are in San Jose, expect a 1hr minimum train ride each way that will be very crowded. Traffic is also bad. Some places have rent control which is nice.
Really think hard on startups you think will be acquired or IPO. You really need the lottery ticket of options to be able to fund a downpayment in the housing lottery. It's almost impossible to pick the right early stage startup.. YC is a good filter but also go find the ones with the super smart people. The type that succeed no matter what. Or find a startup with veteran or ex-industry types. This is where networking in crucial.
It will be a shock. Then again the Bay area is beautiful with great things to do but my guess is you'll be working all the time!!! :)
Before I say anything else, one of the major benefits of both NYC and the Bay Area is that you have a lot of opportunites to climb the career ladder. If that's what you want, you'll have a lot of opportunity to increase your salary beyond the range you've stated.
For that salary range I wouldn't recommend the greater NYC area unless there is a significant bonus and you know you'll get it. Housing becomes cheaper once you get away from NYC. But home prices are still high and property taxes are shocking in New Jersey, varying widely from town to town. At one point I was evaluating NYC/NJ vs the Bay Area, and concluded the property taxes and various fees (e.g. HOA) made NJ almost as unappealing as the Bay Area. The housing stock isn't great either.
Everybody says NJ has decent public transit to NYC. That's only if you can afford a home near a NJ Transit or PATH stop and your office is near a train station on the same line. Otherwise you might be driving to an NJ Transit station (and pay $100/month+ for parking), NJ Transit to Path Train/NYC MTA, then walk. Plus, all those are very crowded at peak times. Somebody I worked with had car->bus->train->train to get to work.
In NYC it's easy to get trapped in cycle of climbing the job ladder (maybe taking jobs you hate) just so you can feel like you can accumulate savings and an emergency fund. I was amazed by how many tech people I met who worked in banking who hated their jobs and worked way more than they wanted to because of the pay and a desire to stay in the NYC area.
There are families of 6 that live in illegal 1-car garage units on the peninsula who pay >$1k a month for the privilege. If you think that's crazy (I do) then you have to come up with less-crazy alternatives.
If you want to try hacking it in the bay, recommend you go for an extreme commute from a place like Antioch or Manteca. You can get otherwise-sane deals on housing if you're willing to sacrifice an extra hour's drive each way. Your little ones can have a yard and their own rooms while you slog it out on some of America's most miserable interstates.
Also kinda crazy, but totally worth considering, move to Las Vegas and commute via air. Cheap one hour flight each way, low cost of living.
As you "season" in the bay, you may be offered more and more money as you take on new positions. Eventually even buying a $1+ million house that checks all the usual boxes will become possible. It takes years for this to happen, but you may find as your career grows, uprooting the family every year to move 10 minutes closer to work can make things better.
Under your circumstances, it's a No-Go for sure. Plus you'll end up dealing with all the rudeness and competitiveness in Bay Area. That alone should keep you away from the Bay. Then traffic, prices, etc. Long timers are actually looking to get out of the Bay, snapping larger homes and a better quality of life somewhere else.
You could consider living somewhere like Berkeley, which is a short (and direct) 20 minute BART ride into S.F. (if you don't have a remote or local job).
I'd push hard to get your salary up to ~$165k/year as a senior-level (totally doable).
After taxes and whatever you throw down for partial Health Care payments through your job, you can target around $9k/month in your pocket.
1) About 1/3 of your income can go to housing. You can rent a small home in Berkeley (very nice areas) for $3k to $3.5k/month [1][2] The market is just now starting to open back up, so it'll only get better.
2) About 1/3 of your income can go to bill's, groceries, car payments, BART tickets, etc... (~2.5k to 3k)
3) Last 1/3 of your income (~3k) can go directly into your savings account.
It's doable, in very nice areas, with a high quality of life.
That said...
...it all depends on what your personal definition of "high quality of life" is.
Top rated public schools (9/10 & 10/10 rated), great weather year around, hiking, biking, sailing, surfing, beaches, skiing, fishing, local farmers markets (supplied by actual local farms from the central valley), amazing & unique local Grocery markets [3], stellar independent eateries [4], etc... all out your back door, most of it walkable [5], most of it bike friendly [6], and/or very close by.
Big, spacious, modern house with lot's of acreage. Nope.
[1] https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/eby/hhh?nh=49&min_price=...
[2] https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/sub/d/beautiful-and-serene-...
[3] https://www.yelp.com/biz/monterey-market-berkeley
[4] https://www.yelp.com/biz/gourmet-ghetto-berkeley
[5] https://www.cityofberkeley.info/bicyclingandwalkingguides/
[6] http://www.berkeleyside.com/2017/07/11/berkeley-gets-first-b...
You will be accepting a decline in quality of life to move to SF for work (increase in salary is not congruent with your increased expenses), and must decide if its worth it. I'd suggest looking for full stack remote jobs where you'll make $100k-130k/year while remaining in Ohio (if thats where you want to live). Leaving a support system/family behind if you have a child (and considering another child) is not trivial…