[nunez]

When you live in an area where basic homes start in the $1M+ range and it seems that everyone else is richer (not necessarily wealthier!) than you, it's easy to feel like you're "barely" getting by. It fucks with you...badly. That's the disadvantage of living in "luxury" neighborhoods: you need to have massive self-control to prevent keeping up with the Joneses.

I felt this way often when I worked in Finance. My and my wife's combined total income was great at >$200k, but it felt like tons of people were way ahead of me despite us being well ahead of the national average, especially for our ages. This felt even worse with the burden of student loans over our heads.

I bet that leaving the Valley was a great decision for them. A lot of these feelings went away when I left NYC as well.

That said, deciding to send their children to private school was 100% on them. My wife has several friends and acquaintances who teach at private schools and charters. They aren't necessarily better, curriculum wise.