TLDR I grew up in LCOL (DFW area) my whole life and it boggles my mind to see the difference in lifestyle you can live in my area with half of the money in LCOL vs HCOL You could have a better quality of life, public education for your kids, bigger and cheaper house, if you leave HCOL. Im in North Texas. 200K in Dallas gives you an arguably better QOL at a lower cost than 400K in SF/Seattle/NYC, even in the expensive parts of Dallas. Im a new grad and know other new grads in HCOL areas making more or less double than what I make, yet my apartment is nicer, groceries are cheaper, and in some cases I’m left over with more money to save/invest after expenses and taxes than some folks who make muuuuuuch more than me after splitting rent with my girlfriend. I commented on another post that with the insanely inflated housing costs in areas like SF, people are making 400K+ but cutting their TC in half or even smaller because they spend $10K+ on a mortgage. It’s just an absolutely insane way to live from my perspective. High W2 workers live a much more “luxurious” lifestyle in LCOL/MCOL areas than they do in HCOL areas. The most clear example of this is a 300K starter home (which was sub 200K pre 2021) would cost 5x-10x that in SF, but the home in SF is 60 years old with no yard for the kids to play in. I suppose one argument is that there is a much better opportunity to make more money if both parents are high income earners. I don’t think that will ever be me, as my girlfriend wants to be a teacher. Her starting salary is sub 60K and her mom is a career teacher with 25 YOE and only makes 70K. But then again, with a HHTC of 150K we can afford a much nicer house than what a family making 500K HHTC in HCOL can buy. With good fortune and hard work, I can make >250K TC in 10 years and be able to afford a nice 4000+ sqft home on a good bit of land and have plenty of money left over for our kids college, overseas trips, a nice car, project cars (I’m into that), I can even be your kid’s friend who’s family has a boat and jet skis. Why stay? TC 97K YOE < 1
Dfw housing is quite pricy after accounting for property tax.
DFW is not very cheap. You still need at least 800k for a nice 3000-4000 sqft house in a good school district. Property tax for such a house is 16k a year. Cooling that house down also not cheap. Restaurants are about 10-20% cheaper than HCOL. But otherwise things are not that cheap.
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Dfw is no longer lcol. Closer to mcol based on housing alone. Restaurants, services etc are no less expensive than any other major city.