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by siren2026
20 days ago
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I have had that discussion multiple times with people. They all seem to think you absolutely need to live in a 5 bedroom 5m$ house in Palo Alto (because how else are you going to live?). But if you rent a normal 2BR for 4000$ in the Bay area, and could potentially rent the same for 1500$ in a LCOL, that is a minimal saving compared to your income. Everything else stays mostly the same. An on top of that most companies will give you a paycut. But for some reason people think you are going to be a king just by moving to LCOL. I think it is the opposite Now, if you get bamboozled into buying a 5000 sqft house like the average american does, then yes, big savings in a LCOL. |
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$1600 will get you a respectable 2-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood in Chicago, which most certainly isn't LCOL. If you want your 5-bedroom mcmansion in Northbrook or your artsy flat in Wicker Park, then yeah that'll cost more - see your point about houses in Palo Alto.
A downright nice 2-bedroom apartment in the heart of Rochester MN will run you $1300/mo tops, and $1000/mo is well within reason.
I had to do this math fairly recently. For me, moving from a relatively pricey part of the midwest, the number was 2.2x my income for SV to be viable. Now that I live here, I find that I actually undershot a little, and it's more like 2.4x to break even. I thought groceries and restaurants and such would be roughly the same. They aren't.