What kind of quality of life can you have on $80,000/year for family of 4? (San Diego: sale, renters)

[mover79]

I agree. 80K will be tight for two. If both people can work and bring in close to 120-150K, it will be much better.

[Think4Yourself]

Originally Posted by tonyinsd

I'd suggest you use this tool.

Cost of Living comparison calculator

When I plug in Phoenix versus San Diego and a $60K income in Phoneix, you end up with needing $83K to live in San Diego.

So it's roughly comparable. The place you will get killed is housing, but that shouldn't be a surprise.

Yeah, it's a bit more expensive and housing is the big difference though I'd much rather live in San Diego than Phoenix. I'll take a year round 70 degrees with an ocean breeze over the desert any day of the week.

[Cardiff Kook]

where do you live in the DC area josephinebeth?

[SD James]

You are all brainwashed by this so called American Dream of home ownership. That is just ilusion and you need to be asleap to believe it. If you don't pay cash for you home purchase you are just buying a loan with 3-4% APR and you are renting from the bank. That makes you renter and not homeowner. Bank is owning a home not you until last dime is payed off and for the first 10 years you are paying interest anyways.

It's just flat our crazy to leave beautiful San Diego and live in less desirable area in order to get mortgage debt.
No wonder all immigrants in San Diego do well on much less income when they arrive here. In a short period of time they become succesfull business owners. That is because they have a different mind set and they are not brainwashed like we are, and they don't need $80.000 to live a good lifestyle in San Diego or anywhere else.

[tonyinsd]

SD James, ain't that the truth. It just boggles the mind that people say, oh, you can't do it on $80K. Uh, hello? If they're doing it on $60K in Phoenix, the statistics show that $80K is comparable.

The way I see it, you've got two options. You can live in a place you hate, and suffer. That's not living. That's existing, and I sure hope there's a heaven and you go there, because you spent your entire life on earth in hell.

Or instead of eating some lowest common denominator chain restaurant crap for lunch each day and having a couple of Starbuck's lattes, you bring your meal to work and you drink the coffee at work. That's probably $20 a day. Multiply that by the 22 days that you work each month and you're looking at $440. Over the course of a year, that's more than $5K.

You tell me. Are those lattes and that lowest common denominator crap for lunch worth that much to you?

[NYSD1995]

Cue childless / renter diatribe

[tonyinsd]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

Cue childless / renter diatribe

If that's supposed to be a shot against me, nice try. I've got one property in DC that I'm just about done paying for, and I'll be buying property here soon enough.

It is just absolute BS for people to say, oh, you can't make it on less than $150K a year. The median household income is around $60K, and there are plenty of people raising kids on that. They make it.

In my last job, I got to know a lot about people's finances because they needed to give me their financials in order to apply for loans. I saw some people who had fat incomes and no kids end up with interest rates in the 20-25 percent range because they were stupid and pissed away their money.

And then I saw people making $45K with kids get the best loan offers because they were smart.

It can and is being done every day.

Now, of course, I'll hear the "oh, you don't want to take any risks if you have kids" stuff once again.

I guess those people who put their entire families in covered wagons and headed west were stupid. I guess they were losers. And people who change careers in the middle of their lives? Losers once again.

Nope, the only winners are the people who stay in a situation they hate because they don't want to take any risk.

If I ever become like that, someone please shoot me. I'll be dead already, just finish the job.

[earlyretirement]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

Cue childless / renter diatribe

Again I agree. Most people that I've seen on this board that say it can be done, ironically are single people with no kids. And if you notice, those with kids that try it all typically say it can't be done or if it can be done they are recommending not to try it as it was next to impossible.

My advice is listen to those that actually have two kids or more in San Diego. And for the single people.....my advice would be, come back and have a few kids in San Diego and then tell us that you can have a high quality of life and have all the things you need/want at $80,000 salary. Do the due diligence and you'll see many many posts from families with kids that say it's impossible to do this sort of thing below $X.

And for the other person that went on about renting vs. owning. I agree buying doesn't always make sense. You really have to see the circumstances that you are in and if you aren't buying, then you must force yourself to save enough retirement savings for housing expenses when you are older and have limited cash flow. The sad truth is most people out there that are renters all their lives, don't bank up enough when they are older for housing. Many have severe problems once they retire and don't have any housing budget set aside.

And you can't compare it the situation to other countries where the rental rates are really high percentage-wise. In many countries around the world, they have socialized programs where the countries take good care of the elderly and provide them excellent benefits including healthcare, etc. Not so in the USA.

Buying isn't for everyone but then again, renting isn't for everyone either. You can't be totally biased against one or the other without knowing one's personal situation.

Again, I'd say forget all the "statistics" out there and listen to those families that actually have kids in San Diego. I had several classmates that moved to San Diego. In fact 8 of them. They all had kids. They all made over $100,000 but they all moved because they said they couldn't accomplish everything they needed to with having the middle class dream. The things that Sassberto mentioned.

Also, for those of you out there that say it can be done? I'd love to see the expense breakdown after NET salary, taxes, etc. Map out for us how you would spend what is left over from your paycheck and break out the expenses to show us where you'd spend the money? It's kind of easy to play Monday Morning Quarterback and say it can be done. But one thing I've learned is numbers don't lie....so show us how you'd budget out these things and what you would allocate to each:


- Rental payment or Mortgage payment if you're buying
- Property taxes and HOA fees (if you are buying)
- Insurance Costs for your property
- Automobile payment for 2 cars
- Automobile insurance for 2 cars
- Automobile annual registration fees and any potential maintenance expenses
- Gas for both cars
- Healthcare (medical/dental) Premiums or deductibles
- Annual healthcare expenses for your family (please include yourself, a spouse and 2 imaginary kids) Include medical/dental and prescription drugs, and any other medicine
- Life insurance for you and your spouse
- Education related expenses
- Pre school expense for younger child
- Clothing budget for your family and especially your kids
- Kids toys and educational materials (books, games, movies, CD's, etc)
- Utilities (Break down water, gas, electricity, cellphone, home telephone or VOIP, cable TV, internet)
- Registration fees for the cars
- Programs for kids (swimming lessons, ballet lessons, karate classes, etc)
- Hair cuts for you, your wife, kids, nails for your wife, etc
- Occasionally babysitter to go out
- Entertainment budget (Seaworld, Zoo, movies, etc)
- Grocery budget
- Dining out at restaurant budget
- Subscriptions to magazines or newspapers
- Retirement savings contributions


I'm going to leave off future college savings plan for kids because definitely there won't be room for that. So in this imaginary scenario.....you're leaving your kids to fend for themselves on a school loan. I also left off an emergency savings fund (assuming you already have one in place), and I also didn't include vacation/travel fund (as I assume you won't be taking many vacations). I also left off ALL revolving debt (assuming you have NO credit card expenses) or NO student loan obligations. So my assumption is almost with the best case scenario as most people have some kind of revolving debt. I only listed what I consider the very basic necessities/essentials that ANY family with kids will have in San Diego. (The OP said she had "2 young kids" so let's assume one kid is 3 years old and the other is 6 years old so one is already out of pre-school so you only have pre-school expense for 2 years).

I'd love to read some answers to those that say it can be done. Show us how you'd budget the money?

Or even those that are going to move here. I'd assume you would have put together a basic spreadsheet before attempting to move out here. So show us what your spreadsheet looks like on expenses and net income. It will give people a better idea of how they are doing it. Or what is and is not realistic or doable. Numbers don't lie.

[tonyinsd]

Fact: Median household income in San Diego County is around $62K.

Fact: Families are raising children on that income level

False claim: You can't raise a family here unless you make at least $150K.

Baloney. Families are doing it every single f**king day. Now that may mean ditching the two car payments and driving that car until it drops. But guess what? Do that, and instead of coughing up $500 a month for each car, or $6K a year, you have $12K in your pocket. If you're paying $3K on a mortgage, you just gained four months of mortgage payments.

And then we've got registration fees not once, but twice. But even if we double the $97 fee to $194, it's not a deal breaker for anyone.

It's just bullcrap to say it can't be done because it is being done every single day. I know a single mother who works at Ralph's and makes $16 an hour. She owns her own house. She just bought a car -- used, of course, because she didn't want to eat the depreciation of the first few years. The only reason she bought that car is because the 11 year old car she was driving started to have issues.

It's about priorities and discipline. Are you one of those people who owes more than they can get back on their car but then "needs" a new car so you roll the negative equity and dump more debt on yourself?

If you are one of those people, you will be broke no matter how much you make. You are suffering from affluenza.

Or you can cure yourself of affluenza and say, screw it. I don't need a new outfit every month when my closet is already full of clothes I never wear. I'm fine with driving my six, seven, eight year old car because it's paid for and it gets me where I need to go.

Make smart decisions, and you can make it anywhere. You may not have that big house with a huge yard and a picket fence and a shiny new car every couple of years. And you may not have a closet full of stuff you never wear. But if a single mother making $16 a hour can own her own house and raise two kids you can't tell me it's impossible.

[sbmohr75]

Frankly, not a very good one.