No, I don't know why people always say that. I live on less then half that. I eat out, drink, do stuff on weekends and pay my school loans and bills. Thats like 7000 a month? If you can't get by with that comfortably high cost of living is not your issue...

If you don't mind me asking, what are you paying for rent? Been considering moving out there so trying to get a feel for things.

I have an exceptional deal on my 2 bedroom in Mountain View which costs me around 2400/month. I believe the current market rate for my apartment is something like 3300.

If you're willing to live a bit further out (like Milpitas/Santa Clara), you can live somewhere for under/around 2000, which (when split with a spouse/partner/roommate) can be reasonable given the salaries in the area.

So I'm assuming you split the place with someone else? I imagine it is no trouble to find roommates out there, or am I wrong?

Looks like I'd have to live with roommates if I moved out there.

700 for a a tiny room in a house. Were talking about minimum wage style living... I could spend up to ~1900 on a apartment. Just haven't been able to find one. It's real competitive to get a place. Day to day expenses don't seem any different to me then when I lived in NY. Except wine, bottles can be as low as $4.

The comment says 'especially with a family'

Sure, a single guy can rent a single room and walk everywhere. Add in wife and kids and you need three rooms, a car, somewhere to park it. Schooling, activities, shoes and clothes, stuff...suddenly 140k isn't looking too flash anymore.

Well, let's do some calculations...

Assume you're making 140k, after 10% retirement contribution and CA taxes leaves about $6400 per month net. With the average 1 bd apartment at $3200 now that's half your take home wage. Leaving $3200 per month is $800 / week. Or $20.00 an hour at 40 hours. Given typical start-up hours and not even counting the typical food/internet/car expenses. So, if you want to look at it as an all-in after expenses, yeah, even that kind of salary can feel like minimum wage. The economics of minimum wage here in SF are a LOT worse...

Wowza! So at $140k/year the effective tax rate in CA is around 40%? (Or maybe my math is bad.)

EDIT: And some that may not all be income tax? E.g. in Ontario one pays fed income tax, provincial income tax, Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance, and a few other I may have forgotten. In London, UK one pays income tax, national insurance, and council tax (property tax paid by property occupiers).

At that income level, the federal tax is %28 and CA is %9.3, so about %37 yeah. Max is 33+12 = %45. There's also ~9% sales tax in most parts of california but every time you go out you better tip %20.

And for all that, we get to pay for our own health care and retirements too!

I said effective tax rate not marginal tax rate. It looks like US and CA income tax has brackets, so even if your marginal rate is 37% you won't be paying that rate on 100% of your income.

That said, I'd believe that if you include expenses like health care your net pay would be ~40% less than your gross pay. :P

Don't forget social security taxes - flat 6.2% on your first $118.5k of earnings: http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10003.pdf

It's an exaggeration, but there's no denying that SF is one of the most expensive cost of living places in the country.