[wiglaf1979]

No joke. My team has three branches:

  *  Sunnyvale, CA 
  *  Bentonville, AR  
  *  Bangalore, India 

We regularly will gossip about best/worst aspects of each of them. My mind is blown at how much they have to pay to live in the greater SF area. 3-4k for rent on an apartment for a small family. My mortgage is 800 a month. A mortgage with a yard big enough for gardens, a bee hive, compost, a couple of trees, basketball goal, fenced in yard, etc....

Of course they get to poke fun at how they cross two timezones and go back 3 decades culturally in time when they fly out to visit. ;-)

The Bangalore folk poke fun at the US based ones at how cold/wet/expensive/boring we all are. It's all in good fun but it really does hammer in how home is where you currently are.

Edit - I

[0xffff2]

Did you "gossip" about pay? Despite my sky-high rent (although 1-bedroom apartments can certainly be had for much less than $3k) I'm financially better off in the bay area than I would be with any outside the bay area job offer I've gotten. My net-after-housing pay is higher here than any offer or salary range I've seen in places I'd want to move to like Oregon or Reno.

[thorwasdfasdf]

are you gonna have kids? if so that equation is going to change a huge amount. Just see what it does to your spreadsheet once you factor in 3k/month child care, and the cost of living in a place big enough for a small family, etc. did you look at the massive difference cost in eating out and groceries? housing and taxes?

[0xffff2]

Yes, I budget down to the penny every month so I am factoring in all of it. I don't have any interest in having kids, so that's an angle I hadn't considered.