[oarabbus_]

>200k in the bay area is scraping by

What a gross exaggeration. Had you said 90k and for a family, then sure, but unless you consider "not having a new Tesla" as scraping by, this is disingenuous.

Source: Lived in Bay Area all my life with under $200k salary, not homeless, not scraping by, saving (a little bit) of money, able to go out with friends and my hair isn't falling out from being unable to pay bills. Maybe some of the big earners out there would consider my lifestyle "scraping by" but I like to think I know the difference between "scraping by" and "living within your means".

[SaltyBackendGuy]

> Lived in Bay Area all my life

I have as well until recently. Living in SF that's probably a close to accurate statement. If you live in Concord or Martinez (which is still technically the Bay Area), you can do quite nicely. Although, you'll trade ~2 hours of your life in commuting on Bart. Not to mention the overall discomfort of the Bart commute itself (better than the drive however).

[esotericn]

Probably just talking about owning a home.

To a lot of people it doesn't matter how many fancy toys they have, they want stability.

[oarabbus_]

That makes it even more to the point; there are probably a dozen cities in the Bay Area where one could afford a house on a 200k household income without "scraping by".

San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Martinez, Antioch, Pittsburg, Hayward, Union City, Livermore, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Richmond are all places you can get a house with a 200k salary in the Bay Area. There's probably a lot more, too. It's an indefensible statement.

[dlhavema]

> living within your means

This cannot be understated.