So we're paying almost exactly half what the rent would be in SF, assuming the apartment you had in mind is of the same quality. We individually make a lot more than half the wage we'd get if we went to SF, though.
But, you live in a place where it is unpleasant to be outside well more than half the year, and the typical dev in your area gets paid a lot less than the typical dev in SF (and, remember that ratios aren't really important when it comes to saving, only net [1]). Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Houston is a fine place for you, but it's important to be complete rather than just stating the pros.
[1] I.e. you make twice what it costs to live in Houston, while I make only 25% more what it costs to live in SF. But if it cost $10000 to live in Houston and $100000 to live in SF, I'm still better off.
> remember that ratios aren't really important when it comes to saving, only net
Agreed, but the ratios have a big impact on what the net is. Right now, I wouldn't really be any better off going to SF in terms of saving potential. From talking with friends, the pay raise I'd get wouldn't be enough to justify it, from a purely financial viewpoint. If I stayed there for long enough, though, my salary would probably rise enough to put things in favor of SF in the end.
But that's assuming I rent my whole life. At some point I'd like to buy a house. Now things are in favor of Houston--hugely so. The average home price in SF has went above $1M recently, but in Houston it's in the 100s.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/29/san-francisco-media...
http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2013/05/median-home-pric...
In Houston, a $1M house gets you one of two things, depending on where you buy: (1) if you buy in a suburb, you'll get a mansion; (2) if you buy in the city ("in the loop"), you'll get a very nice house in probably a place like River Oaks (unambiguously the best neighborhood of Houston and possibly Texas).
IMHO, you need an income of well over $300k to afford a $1M house. How many developers in SF make that kind of money? Even in the HN demographic, it's got to be a very, very small number. Yet I could easily afford a median-priced Houston home on my starting salary out of college. I choose to rent just because I enjoy walking to work.
Anyway, strictly speaking the best strategy might be to go to SF for some of your twenties, live a crappy life but save like crazy, and then come somewhere more cost effective and buy a house, maybe also using your higher SF income to negotiate a higher wage here as well.
That said, for a lifetime home in this market you might need a little more than $1M, depending on what you're looking for and where you'd want to live.
I don't think we actually disagree about anything. Except the weather (^_^ I couldn't bear it). Houston vs. SF is a tradeoff. We'd need more data to know exactly where it crosses over for each person.
I lucked out in this regard; the biggest problem with Houston for developers is not the weather but finding a cool place to work. :P It's really a city for chemical engineers, not software engineers.
A lot of people here end up at Schlumberger or doing contracting for the oil and gas industry, which is decidedly not sexy. But it can pay well--there's an unfathomable amount of money flowing through the oil companies here. Not my cup of tea though.
That said, there are huge software engineering challenges within oil. The work environment isn't what most here are comfortable with (especially Exxon and their accountability system shudder) but Houston's industries offer some extraordinary challenges for the taking. The largest medical center in the world as well as a growing financial industry offer a lot of opportunities in Big Data.
I would've stayed in Houston but I decided San Antonio had a more interesting startup ecosystem (Austin's not my cup of tea). Having TechStars and Geekdom here has really heated things up in past years.
So, let's do the numbers to be sure.
100 000
- 7 009 (2013 CA on 100 000 -- not sure if std deduction should be factored in)
- 17 820 (2012 Federal on 87 000 -- GI - state - std deduction)
- 7 650 (Soc sec + Medicare)
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67 521