Guy makes $160,000 and barely making it month to month...

[TraDaToR]

You also have fantastic mountains at your doorsteps. I hate you just a tiny bit

There is a ski resort 30 min from my house so when everybody is at work and it has just snowed, I take a morning ski pass and do the first track on my own. Then I come back home at 2h PM to prepare for the US open at 3h30 PM. Haven't done it this year to date though.

 

[viruscore1]

I don't think the ratio has change that much. You all remember when we started out about 20+ years ago. Housing in tier 1 city approximately 2k/month. Salary about 90 to 120k. Now it's double, grow up, get rid of the BMW and summer home, you can't afford it. Scale down expenses until you're established and save some serious money.

 

[Zzzz1]

I should have been more precise. My honest apologies to upset the Frenchman. I was referring to everyone in the hardworking world.

You really don't care about facts when you are trying to make a point.

Rest of the world working 12hours a day ?

https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS

http://www.fortune.com/2015/11/11/chart-work-week-oecd/

https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/differences-average-working-hours-around-world

 

[Rationalize]

Wonder how many of these high tech employees can work from home via technology link up and show up physically once a week to tie the ends that cannot be done via long distance.

Then they can live 3-4 hours away like normal human beings and not be merely scraping by.

Another solution that I can see to this housing problem is telecommuting, working from home and just meet maybe once a month or several times in a year. With communication technology so advanced now, they can totally collaborate over video-conferencing, store everything with cloud storage and programming is individual work that can be done anywhere there is no need to be in an office.

Less demand --> drop in price.

If your job can be done from home, it can be done from India.

...

Key to the cost of living seems to be the level of concentration needed in your job. If you have to think / solve hard problems, you need sleep, small commute, minimal bull$hit -> higher expenses.

If you're working in a brainless back office, by all means commute and save a buck -> it may be the most exciting part of your day.

 

[Ryan81]

I've seen graphics online that try to compare the incomes in various cities, adjusted for the cost of living.

However, the cost of living is VERY different per individual, based on individual choices, so I have always found these graphics/charts to be pretty meaningless to me.

For myself, I live fairly frugally in a top tier (or formerly top tier) city. Considering only my income from my W-2/wage-slave job, I live on probably 1/4 to 1/3 of my take-home from that. I have additional passive income from rentals and other investments, plus additional income from trading activities -- all of which isn't quite enough yet for me to live off without dipping into principal. But it is close.

I could probably escape the daily-grind of a wage-slave job right now, and be set for the rest of my life, but I'm relatively young, so I continue to work as a safety-margin so I have a large and diversified set of income producing assets that will hopefully let me ride out any SHTF scenario during my lifetime.

But one day, and one day soon, I will leave the corporate grind. I smile every time I feel I am inching closer and closer to the day where I tell the boss "not coming in anymore!"

 

[ironchef]

Plus in Switzerland it should be net surface, in the US and many other countries it's gross, so 100sqm house is probably around 110 115sqm in the US or HK, and a 100sqm condo can become 140sqm in a residence with large collective grounds (that's assuming it's calculated the same in US as in Greater China )
Still it is not cheap by rural european standards, buy yes, that's Switzerland.

In the US (California) it is net sq ft, not gross like HK.

 

[luisHK]

In the US it is net sq ft, not gross like HK.

thanks for the correction, it ll give me a clearer picture when i read about the prices in the US.

 

[ironchef]

If your job can be done from home, it can be done from India.

...

Key to the cost of living seems to be the level of concentration needed in your job. If you have to think / solve hard problems, you need sleep, small commute, minimal bull$hit -> higher expenses.

If you're working in a brainless back office, by all means commute and save a buck -> it may be the most exciting part of your day.

Actually SF is one of the few cities in the US where commuting can be quite reasonable. Once upon a time I worked in downtown SF and commuted by BART from across the Bay. Total time, included drive to park at BART terminal ~30min, similar to taking a bus if I lived in the city. I did have to syn with BART schedule. My opinion is the fellow who made $160K and had to live hand to mouth did it by choice.

 

[Turveyd]

I know 2 rich guys,....


1, million £ house bought cash, 2mil in the bank, earning 25k per month from his 2 businesses, spends all his time worrying and scrimping, drives a 14year old car total madness.

2. The other guy huge house fancy cars, fancy holidays, hookers , hookers and more hookers and Im not joking, hugely fat like bmi 50 belly to his knees literally disgusting, had a heart attack mid 40's no real shocker, his wife thought setup for life, turns out 1mil in debt, wife lives in a council flat lol


Despite dying young be guy 2 he had a great life, eat what he wanted obviously, had some of the best looking woman I've ever seen, hot wife.

 

[jj90]

And obviously a condo is not a house, but I doubt there isn't a whole bunch of locals who can buy million+ houses, Canada is not a poor country and it is a moderate sum in most first world large cities. Also I had a discussion only a few days ago with a chinese family about the move they plan there (they already got the visa but still hesitate, it seems to depend on wether they get their kids in one of the good schools there- as is the case with many foreigners, they are probably wary of the local riff raff ) and the prices they mentioned for mid size homes were in multiple of CAD millions (the mother is looking at villas on some island by Vancouver )

Luis unfortunately it is not so clear cut. Let me add some colour.

Vancouver salaries for white collar jobs average about 60K CAD for <5 experience. Shave 1/3 off for blue collar work. Sure it scales with time, but there is a natural cap on wages. The average Millennial will graduate with about 30K of debt(non law/med) and virtually no savings. They are not buying anything remotely close to 1M in price simply because they cannot afford the mortgage even with help from their parents who have the vast majority of their net worth in the family home.

Banks will not lend to them the amount needed for a 1M property. The realistic price point for locals is sub 750K, if no help from the parents, then <500K. This is why most locals are moving increasingly to the suburbs or condoing up.

The baby boomers/older generation working class have most of their life savings in their primary residence are worth on paper likely anywhere from 500K-1M. They transfer that to their kids via a down payment. Now they are worth less.

There are bidding wars for the locations that are still affordable, hence the bid in localized prices. People who say it's all the rich foreigners are deluded, most locals aren't competing in the +1M price range.

While Canada isn't a poor country, the net worth of most individuals/families isn't as great as it looks. Those villas on the islands near Vancouver are out of reach for 90% of the populace in Vancouver. BTW, the local riff raff really isn't going to be an issue for where your acquaintances are going to be staying.