Life choice: Orange County 630k vs Seattle 750k?
Disclaimer: I don’t work for MSFT anymore. We live in Seattle area, household TC is 770k. My spouse got a good career opportunity in Orange County, Director level position ( non tech). I interviewed around there, they pay shit. Family TC drops by 120k, also heavy sunshine tax. Upside includes more fun for kids, beaches, sunshine, better career for spouse. Where would you go?
move to CA. I didn't realize life could be more blissful until I left Bellevue for Mountain View. The weather is indeed a big deal
Did the opposite move. The color green year round is indeed a big deal.
Did the opposite as well, Orange County to Seattle. I’m happier in Seattle. OC has plenty of great things but so does Seattle, they’re just different. After 30 years of living in Orange County I was glad to get away from the heat and watching everything about the Orange County culture devolve and just become an absolute shit show. I’m sure people from Seattle feel the same.
What’s your net worth? The difference here is probably 10k a month after tax? Maybe more? Edit: just did paycheck city calculator, the take home is 342 vs 484. Jeezus!
2.2M
did your NW decrease after having kids?
You make more than enough money. Why do you try to earn more money? For peace of mind and happiness after all. If TC drop affects your mindset too much, then stay. However, general rule of thumbs is you are happy if your wife is happy. Besides, you cannot buy the time with money. The time you spend with kids and their time will never come back. They will never be 5 years old. As a father of two, I think Orange county offers huge upside. Kids in Seattle are stuck at inside home for most of the time except summer. So many of the kids here wear glasses which is not the case in other areas. Under exposure to sun and being indoor for most of the time as kids affect hugely to their growth, health and even social. Get a house in the best school district there and enjoy a happy time.
Stay where you are. If your spouse job turns out to be shit, there will be no opportunities on OC to change. In Seattle we have a very healthy tech market, and 750k with no state income is an easy win.
Move to CA and it’s nothing wrong to try out CA weather and pay tax for good weather and beaches. People want to go Hawaii or Florida as they have good weather and cold does not bother me and you will not like Northern Europe too where they have 6 months of 24/7 darkness but upside in summer is midnight sun . I am from Northern Europe so seattle weather does not bother me.
Upside for your wife is she will be director and you can move back to Seattle after 2 years if you don’t like . Best bet is live in San Diego and commute and its has best weather in CA and nice schools and low housing cost compare to SF and OC. It’s always good to try otherwise you will regret in future that you missed Director opportunity and it seems like your wife don’t get Director role in Seattle so.
Support your wife. Happy wife, happy life.
Don’t do it. The tech scene in SoCal is very small and pays shit coupled with high COL. Everyone always talks about living next to the beach but no one actually goes more than 3X per year anyways. It’s too crowded during the summer
I live in Irvine. It's an artifical city. Super safe, like 3rd safest city in the US. Fantabulous for kids, great schools etc. And if you like Asian food, it's like a haven for Asian cuisine here. Downside is that it's pretty boring if you're single. It's a family town down here. There's nothing to do. And sure you're 15 min from the beach, but you rarely go there. If you have a family, you're basically spending every weekend at Legoland or Disneyland to try to squeeze value out of your annual pass, and by the third weekend, it probably gets pretty boring. But again, super safe though. Your kids would grow up to have a good life. If you don't have a good friend network, you would be very bored. Your kids can bike around the culdesac, you would be sitting there watching a lot of TV. You kind of need to drive everywhere cause it's an urban sprawl. But weather is pretty good most of the time. And another thing, there's a ton of mega churches down here. If you're into worship, you can find 2 mega churches adjacent to each other on the same parking lot block.
As a city person what you’ve described is god damn horrifying. Disney world, cul de sac, mega churches. Nothing sounds good about any of that shit.
I mean... It's up to a persons preference right? Some people like suburban life. And admittedly, it's great for kids. :/
OC is rather boring to live in unless you are actually by the beach. South Bay LA by the beach is a bit more interesting, and it's especially nice if you live walking distance to the water
You can't fix depressing weather.
100% this. Would rather be in nyc than Seattle even with the winter.
The NYC winter hasn’t been bad for 2 years now, more like a cold springtime.