Is $85,000/year for a single guy enough to live off of in Sunnyvale? (San Jose: apartment, rentals)

[bobby_guz_man]

You pay to play. No other way around it.

I am leaving this area when it comes to retirement, that is FOR SURE. Most likely in the Portland area. Hopefully by then Portland hasn't gotten too expensive for my old butt.

[Radical347]

Originally Posted by Jink

Just out of curiosity, I heard that San Jose was getting to be just as bad, if not worse, than Oakland? Is this just a bunch of hearsay or is it pretty accurate?

I've heard a number of people say this and I have no idea where it comes from, especially considering that for years San Jose was the country's safest big city -- it's not #1 anymore but it's still top 5. A recent transplant asked me (with a straight face) "aren't Oakland and San Jose supposed to be 2 of the most dangerous cities in the country?"

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by Jink

Just out of curiosity, I heard that San Jose was getting to be just as bad, if not worse, than Oakland? Is this just a bunch of hearsay or is it pretty accurate?

Complete nonsense. . The crime rate has gone up here the last few years but it's still safer than both San Francisco and Oakland.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

Will your government job afford you a defined benefit pension? If so, that makes a huge difference.

The advantage you have in 85K in a government job if it has a defined benefit pension vs. 85K in a private sector job is that government jobs by and large provide extraordinary benefits compared to the private sector (extremely generous defined benefit pensions & health care). That defined benefit pension by itself is worth several $ Million by the time you retire.

Think of it this way: $85K in the private sector, you need to save many thousands of dollars each year to get the equivalent of that defined benefit pension. As a public sector guy, you won't need to save that money out of your paycheck.

This is sort of a yes/no answer. I don't know about S'vale...but as someone who works for the
City of SJ, we have gotten squeezed because of high pension costs. We now pay almost 15% of our salaries toward the pension (plus Medicare tax, but not SS tax). So we took a pay cut of about 12% almost 3 years ago and yet we're also paying a higher % of our salaries to maintain our pension benefits. (We did get a 2% raise last year, but at that rate it will be a long time before we get back to our old pay rates). Because the benefit is based on your highest year's salary, the pension benefit has effectively been cut. So regardless of what the courts ultimately decide on San Jose's pension reform measure, the pension benefit has already been effectively cut. Going forward, it's almost a guarantee we'll be paying even more for those pension benefits.

I'm not saying it's not a good benefit, but it's not what it used to be. The younger folks are going to pay a much larger portion of their salaries for lesser benefits. Some cities have it worse than others, but this is going to be a common theme across the board in all public sector jobs.

Bottom line: Don't lean too heavily on the pension. I'm sure glad I saved pretty aggressively in my deferred compensation plan when I started working for the City of SJ. Even before this pension fisaco transpired, I always tried to treat the pension as my "Plan B" and I'd advise the OP to do the same.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by Jink

We get great benefits, but from what I've heard, and especially with tech companies, don't a lot private sector companies offer free health benefits including vision and dental? I always thought I was in a nice situation working for the gov't with cheap healthcare costs until I started looking at what Facebook, Google, etc. offer its employees.

That may or may not be true, but these companies don't offer defined benefit pensions, which were always pretty expensive to provide, and over the last 5 years the cost of providing them has absolutely skryocketed. I just got my benefits statement, and on top of my salary, the City of SJ contributed an additional ~55% toward the pension benefit. That's huge.

Also in a private company you most likely won't get:

--12 to 14 paid holidays (for SJ it's 14)
--Sick time in addition to holidays (for SJ, it's 12 days per year)
--pretty generous vacation (for SJ, it starts at 2 weeks and goes up to 4 weeks & 1 day after 15 years). They let us rollover a pretty generous amount before we lose it.
--Personal days (for SJ it's 3 days per year....use it or lose it, no rollovers)

And if you're in a government job, you most likely won't be working more than 50 hours per week. At those other companies, I tend to think 50 hours would be considered slacking (although perhaps other CD posters could correct me for being wrong on that one).

[Jink]

Originally Posted by Radical347

I've heard a number of people say this and I have no idea where it comes from, especially considering that for years San Jose was the country's safest big city -- it's not #1 anymore but it's still top 5. A recent transplant asked me (with a straight face) "aren't Oakland and San Jose supposed to be 2 of the most dangerous cities in the country?"

My last visit to the Bay, some lady working at the rental car booth told me something close to this. The news was on about some poor lady being murdered on her front porch in San Jose. Kinda rattled me up a bit. Thanks for the comments!

[80skeys]

Originally Posted by Jink

My last visit to the Bay, some lady working at the rental car booth told me something close to this. The news was on about some poor lady being murdered on her front porch in San Jose. Kinda rattled me up a bit. Thanks for the comments!

you gotta discern between the horror stories versus the day-to-day prevalence of crime. Any city will have some rare event that shocks people. The question is whether the levels of daily crime are higher or lower than normal. In San Jose there are some barrios where there are some gangs and a certain level of palpable daily crime. But you compare the look and feel of these neighborhoods to areas in Oakland and SF and there's a big difference. And, of course, there are large areas of San Jose that have little to no crime. I would say most of SJ is peaceful and safe.

if you're still worried, then move to Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Cupertino or any of these areas where there is basically zero crime of any kind. in all the 3 years I've lived in sunnyvale I have not seen a single act of crime occuring on any level whatsoever.

[bobby_guz_man]

Originally Posted by Jink

My last visit to the Bay, some lady working at the rental car booth told me something close to this. The news was on about some poor lady being murdered on her front porch in San Jose. Kinda rattled me up a bit. Thanks for the comments!

San Jose is a big city whose citizens tend to have a small-town mentality. Basically every homicide gets about 5 days worth of news here. To me, it's a good thing--it means the citizens are always trying hard to understand and stem the violence from getting out of hand.

In Detroit, all that violence gets you a shrug...

[Jink]

Originally Posted by bobby_guz_man

San Jose is a big city whose citizens tend to have a small-town mentality. Basically every homicide gets about 5 days worth of news here. To me, it's a good thing--it means the citizens are always trying hard to understand and stem the violence from getting out of hand.

In Detroit, all that violence gets you a shrug...

Agreed. I totally get what you're saying about something bad happening getting the spotlight for a few days. I grew up in a city where the only crime we had was a DUI every once in a while. Living in Austin, there is crime, but not many homicides or the like. It's mostly pretty upbeat here despite it being a somewhat big city.

[otterprods]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

TAlso in a private company you most likely won't get:

--12 to 14 paid holidays (for SJ it's 14)
--Sick time in addition to holidays (for SJ, it's 12 days per year)
--pretty generous vacation (for SJ, it starts at 2 weeks and goes up to 4 weeks & 1 day after 15 years). They let us rollover a pretty generous amount before we lose it.
--Personal days (for SJ it's 3 days per year....use it or lose it, no rollovers)

I work in a private company and get all of those things except for all the paid holidays (I think we just get 9 of those). And we're not expected to work 50 hours a week either, but sometimes it happens.

I'm not saying a gov't job isn;t a good thing if you get one, but there are private companies in SV offering competitive benefit packages too.