Realistically how much does one need to earn to live in SF with family?
Say wife, kid and me. 1 bedroom apartment cost would be around $3000 max I think? after rent what does cost so much? transportation, $400. food, if cooking at home and occasionally out $1000... So take home income of $6000 should be perfectly comfortable excluding savings. Add 15% extra for saving. Is $7000 a month not enough? why? that's $11000 per month pretax, so 132k TC. What am I doing wrong? Is 132k TC not enough?
What about retirement
132k is comfortable. But ur gonna want to live in 2br soon cuz of that kid. So maybe 2k more after taxes would be better. I'd say about 175k for that would be comfortable. But realize this is blind. People dream of 132k.
What about travel with family ?
I grew up middle class and hardly grew up flying anywhere
Utilities, internet, phone etc will cost another 350-400 odd for 2 people. Add another average of 300-400/mo to this for clothes, electronics and other shopping. If you make 2 big and 3-4 small trips an year, add another 1-1.2k/mo on average for that. Suddenly you realise that your expenses are comfortably past 6.5k.
You will not save much but can live here pretty comfortably on that
You need to earn a lot
@135k your take home is like..85..7k post tax to work with monthly. 3k for rent is already a lot of money for housing. Near 50% of your take home? + utilities 200-300 400 for transportation (needs to be reliable with a child) is closer to 500 if ruling a 20k car + gas Groceries 500-1000 Hopefully you don’t have loans to credit cards Average student loan debt is around 40k = 1000 a month. Sometimes for you and wife with wife not working. If your wife works, 2-3k a month for day care. She better make 100k and be close to daycare to pickup kid with traffic. What about clothes for you, wife and your kid? 150 bucks a month on average if you rule in shoes? The nice date with your wife? Toys for your kid? We haven’t even talked in about health insurance, co pays, traveling to see family, dog food... AND this is all the bare minimum a family needs to live. Let alone thrive.
Why would you still have student loans when you have a kid most eng knock it out early 20s
Not everyone is an engineer and now everyone is financially prudent. Especially non engineers with masters or PhD..
^so it seems like the main problem is the kid and the wife. Get rid of them and your life will be less miserable
Then it’s worst on a diffenrt level
Rent is 5-6k. Kiddo daycare 2-2.5k and all the above to run an ok household. You need to make 200k at least. Not talking about savings and vacation here.
5 or 6k??? That’s absurd
Not at all. With kids and a car you will be looking at that price. Anything under 4 is luck or is just not good. 😎
200K is comfortable