If you're in a technical job and an occupation that allows it, sure.

Plenty of machinists, auto mechanics, health care professionals and welders aren't gonna have much luck working from home.

They don't work in the CBD though, so being in housing walking distance to major transport options isn't important (and thus can work out cheaper housing options).

I do this and I want other people to know it's possible too.

I'm putting together a list of the best places to live for remote workers with families, hoping to turn it into a little website that you can filter by schools, available internet speeds, median house price, that sort of thing.

Hopefully it will help someone out there when there's more data.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X2JihFpA97EEAMz8kD-j...

How would one contribute to this?

Agreed, I want to contribute.

So I can direct people away from where I live, so the prices don't skyrocket.

Where I live, there is a concerted effort to do the same thing. For a long time people in the area have been trying to convince the world that our region is the best. Best beaches, best food, best beer, best outdoor activities, best mix of weather, best music, best quality of life.

And then we all saw what happened to Portland, Seattle, and Austin once the word got out and everyone knew about these "secret" cool cities. So now we keep our mouths shut and enjoy our beer and beaches without all the tourists and transplants.

Haha, for now it's just the spreadsheet like I mentioned in parent comment.

For now it's just the spreadsheet, (anyone can edit) but the website will be by done by Nov 11th.

That's the goal anyway, and then from there I could open source or just do weighted average input for people to rate their favorites w/ no login required.

It's early days.

Oh I totally agree. I'm doing this very thing: SF salary, live in Western MI.

But that's really only available for a small subset of the population.

On a team of 50 (all remote workers), I have four coworkers at my multi-national tech company who live in/around Grand Rapids. It might be more common than you think.

Problem is a lot of companies get smart and "pay by location". I've seen big cos from the Bay offering half the salary (before currency exchange) for workers in Vancouver.

Gitlab, for example. You can see the multiples in the json used for the salary calculator (eg. Vancouver 57.367 % of a SF salary): https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json

Nebraska has a higher factor than Vancouver :facepalm:

Angola 120.056?!

Meanwhile if you live at the Bermuda you can get more than if you lived in LA... I think they are just messing with us! lol

The solution is to not work for those companies.

> Problem is a lot of companies get smart and "pay by location"

I never saw any sense in that. Would they start paying you more if you later moved to a more expensive location?

I work freelance remotely for no country in particular and my current location is never a factor for prices.

The trick is usually to get a job locally in SF, do well for a couple years, and then ask to work remote.

And then just work for that company forever? What's the end-game?

Enjoy life outside of work? Look, I enjoy my work and it's pretty meaningful work that affects people in real ways.

But I work to live, not live to work. My job is a means to an end, that end being to have a fulfilling life that doesn't revolve around what I do for a living.

Because of that, I find the quest to climb the corporate ladder has lost it's appeal. I'm cool staying at my current, well-paying, work from home job until I retire. I don't want to be running a company, I want to be running my life.

Amen. You could also consider starting a small business if you want to stay lower key.

Corporate ladder does seem a bit... sad? But maybe some people like it! More power to them!

Cool thing about a small business is you can create a long term sustainable lifestyle that suits you. I like the philosophy of TJ Holowaychuk with Apex (created expressjs and a million other amazing things), super cool. At one point it was referred to as a “non startup”. Love that dude :-D

Nothing wrong with building a company up to an ipo either, that could be a blast depending on the people and context.

One could also work for a medium sized company. Build mission critical software, then maintain it.

I know a guy that has done this for a few companies and then moved onto consulting for them. Makes SV money in the midwest. Works whenever he wants, 99% of time remotely, and companies will sometimes wait if he has too much going on to do work for them.

The guy is living the life. So, I want to do the same.

I love this comment.

Work for yourself eventually?

All of these options people are presenting are not realistic for most workers. Contracting, starting your own company, and working at the same place for the rest of your life are generally not advisable (Or even doable!).

Yes I think a lot of people were thinking of working for Lehman Brothers until retirement, but then the company died.

This is a great goal for certain types of people with exceptionally high talent and resilience.