[porknbeans00]

I remember in 2012 or so I did a baseline comparison of a typical Starbucks employee in Montana versus a Silicon Valley software engineer and the cruel reality was that even thought he software engineer was making a lot more in their salary they were wildly more poor than the Starbucks employee.

at the time ( this has changed ) the Starbucks employee could own a home and put into that equity. so lower cost of living and ability to save towards equity massively overwhelmed any perceived value of a 'high salary'. Throw in the cost of living in the Bay Area and the reality was the software engineers were barely subsisting while the barista was actually building a life for themselves.

essentially. even inside the continental US.... the cost of living and cost of equity, tax structures, etc all matter a great deal. That doesn't change leaving the US. In fact it largely just gets more complicated.

but you can ABSOLUTELY make a whole lot less in a region where you will live better and make more money Long term.