[typeofhuman]

I live in the Florida. My employer at the time changed to RTO and offered to pay for relocation. I was making just shy of $400k. I resigned. I now make a little over $200k still WFH. My mortgage is $2k a month. Good size house with a pool and yard in a really nice gated community. I have no car payments, no student loans, and no credit card debt. My partner's income isn't even in six figures.

We live in a top-rated school district, although our kids are homeschooled, and will likely go private for high school. We live well-below our means.

I think it's just location, location, location.

[bradlys]

Didn’t think $400k/yr jobs were even an option in Florida. Maybe one of the few companies that moved to Miami over Covid I guess?

Makes more sense. You weren’t near any of the traditional tech cities. So, cost of living was always going to be low. Your mortgage is less than what it costs for a studio apartment in most tech centers.

[typeofhuman]

Let me clarify, my 400k job was HQ'ed in California. I worked remotely in Florida. But they changed to a RTO policy and offered relocation assistance. I refused to move to Cali so I resigned.

The company I work for now is HQ'ed in Atlanta, GA. But I still WFH.

[bradlys]

That makes more sense. You never had the HCOL to begin with and so you never really had to suffer a serious setback in lifestyle due to taking a 50% cut.

For me and most others I know, I’m only living in these expensive areas - so taking that kind of pay cut requires something extraordinary to sustain a decent quality of life.