Job proposal in Austin

[Kion]

Originally Posted by norgre

Hi everybody,

We are a French family living in Norway and my husband just got a job offer from his current company, for a position in Austin (local contract, no expat).

I dug a bit in the forum to find out what the cost of living is there but I ended up with yearly expenses that were above the proposed salary for the job ($115,000).

Here are my calculations (per month):
Rental: 3,500 (we would like a house with a 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a pool as close as possible to Shepherd Mountain).
Elec/Gas/trash: 500
School: 2,100 (2 kids)
Food: 600
Travel: 500 (1 trip to Europe/year + some WE around)
Taxes: 2,400 (based on 115,000 salary)
Leisures: 200
Insurances: 450 (cars, house. Health is covered by company)
Total is 10,250 a month, which is 123,000 a year!

I have several questions:
1- We are a family of 4, 2 kids 10 and 5 years old and 2 adults. What do you think about the calculation above? Is it realistic? Do I miss something (coming from Norway I guess there are costs not covered by the state I should take into account).
We are not going out a lot and are not shopping addicts but we don't want to count every cent. We will need 2 cars.

2- Is the Steiner Ranch area an option if work is located in Shepherd Mountain or is it hell to get there during rush hours?

3- How is the work market situation at the moment? I'll need to search for a job there (we won't move if we don't get a visa allowing me to work). I have a Master in business and 10 years experience in Marketing and sales. I currently work for a US company, don't know if that can be an asset.

4- We are considering private schools because the kids don't speak English, what's your opinion about that? Do you know of any programs in public school for foreign kids? This is a big budget...

I have 100 of other questions but I think if you can at least answer to some of the above, that would be great.

Thanks :-).

FWIW, Steiner might very well be an extremely good option - you'll give up the private pool for community pools (Steiner's are very nice, and a great way for a transplant family to meet people).

During Rush hour, you're looking at around 30 minutes. The challenge will be where your job might end up being located - the commute to a place like downtown from Steiner can really drag.

You would also want to look at a place like Barrington Oaks or Canyon Creek (more on the Barrington side if you think you might end up downtown) - again, you'll give up the private pool for a community pool.

If I were working on that budget (assuming no job for you), I'd drop the rental budget to $3K (you can likely find options even lower, but the $2750-3000 range seems to be a sweet spot for a 4/2.5 home in the type of community you're looking for.)

Gas/Elec/Trash/water estimate might be a tad high. I've got 3800 sq ft in a similar type of home and run about $400 in the peak of summer, closer to $250 at the low, avg around $300.

Food, low - I usually budget $200/wk
Recreation - really depends, that might be low, might be high - depends on what you like to do.
Insurance - Maybe $250ish Cars should run around $200, with your renters insurance $30ish
School - no point in paying $2K/mo for a private school in those areas. Your kids will either learn the language or they won't. Sounds harsh, but that's how it was for me when the family moved to Germany when I was 9.
Travel - more, if you're saving for a European vacation once per year (depends obviously on when you go).

Don't forget other necessities (clothing, mobile phone, telecom, etc.).

Realistically, it sounds like you would be fine on just the one salary - but you'd be neglecting savings, etc. Unless you find a job, in which case you're golden

[norgre]

Thanks for all your answers.

We will have a look at the public schools for the kids and lower our expectations for housing, at least until I find a job. I might be able to keep my current job and work from the US for a while though, but that is something I will have to negotiate with my manager.

Which website would you advise to look at the house for rent? I'm using Zillow but not sur it's the best one.

[Moonlady]

Originally Posted by norgre

Thanks for all your answers.

We will have a look at the public schools for the kids and lower our expectations for housing, at least until I find a job. I might be able to keep my current job and work from the US for a while though, but that is something I will have to negotiate with my manager.

Which website would you advise to look at the house for rent? I'm using Zillow but not sur it's the best one.

www.austinhomesearch.com Use the Residential Rentals option.

[EMT139]

If you could stay with your current company, that'd probably be the best. If not, find out which type of visa your spouse will be on. If he/she is on an L1 or L2 visa, that opens a ton of options for you because you can basically apply to any job and your visa won't be tied to your employer like it would be if he was on an H1B visa.

The website you're looking for is Listing Search Form - Search for Real Estate Properties | Austin real estate | Homes for Sale Austin | Austin Homes which I think it's the true MLS for Austin (Zillow and others are filtered somehow and may be inaccurate).

I know you're not looking for recommendations on this but I'll chip in and suggest you put your kids in an English speaking school if you think they can manage. You'll need to look at school districts and select your housing based on them if you choose to go to a public school but it'll probably be a great chance for them to learn the language (kids learn fast!).

Obviously, if your kids have other needs and you're not just basing your decision on language of instruction, you'll need to look into specific schools. Keep in mind services provided by public schools and the state in general are going to be significantly lower than what you're used to in Norway. Completely doable on your salary and even better if you find a job, just keep in mind you'll likely end up paying for some items out of pocket.

[norgre]

I appreciate any kind of advice, even the one I'm not asking for so just go ahead :-).

Husband's visa will be L1 so I would be able to ask for a L2 if I understood well.

Our kids will enter PK for the youngest and 5th grade for the oldest one. I guess the little one will pick up the language very fast the our daughter might struggle a little bit at the beginning but she already has some basic English so I'm not too worried. I had a look at the schools rating and it looks pretty good for most of them, at least in the area I'm interested in.

Practical question: Do the schools have buses picking up the kids in the morning or are the parents driving them? I saw some nice houses which were a couple of miles away from the assigned schools and I suspect that, unlike in Norway, kids don't bike to school in the US :-). And how can I find the bus routes if that exists?

[Trainwreck20]

Originally Posted by norgre

Practical question: Do the schools have buses picking up the kids in the morning or are the parents driving them? I saw some nice houses which were a couple of miles away from the assigned schools and I suspect that, unlike in Norway, kids don't bike to school in the US :-). And how can I find the bus routes if that exists?

If you live more than 2 miles from the school, the school must provide bus transportation. Most districts have additional criteria that results in kids closer to the school still getting bus service. AISD policy is here:
https://www.austinisd.org/transportation/route-services

Other schools will have variations on that (I think some have a cutoff as low as one mile to start with), but that will depend on the specific district. In generally, you 'enlist' for bus service, and they establish a route that will get close enough to your house to make it fairly convenient. There is information on that on the AISD web site, as well. The routes may vary from year to year.

As for biking - there are a LOT of kids that bike to our local elementary (k-5) and middle schools (6-8). It all depends on your route, really, and how far it is. Schools are closed for the worst part of the summer, and I am guessing winter won't be a problem at all for y'all .

The high school is on a busier road, so I don't think that many ride their bikes there....

[eirenecat]

I speak fluent French and the only options in Austin for French-language private schools are limited. I have experience with both of them--one of them is outright terrible and the other one is decent, but will cost more than your private school budget for two kids. If you are interested in knowing more about them, message me privately.

[norgre]

I was considering the French school at the beginning but if the local public schools are good I don't see the point in restricted ourselves into living in a limited area around the French school and, paying thousands of dollars a year.
If we move to the US, it's also because we want the kids to get the chance to learn English :-).
But thanks for your proposal of help, I really appreciate it and I'm sending you a PM for something else...

[Preston3124]

Originally Posted by spchtx

If your tax bracket is 25% than that would be about right per/mo, however I suspect the tax bracket would be slightly higher for $115,000.

The food cost seems pretty low to me for a family of 4. I know people can make that work, but that's some pretty heavy duty coupon shopping.

I think the tax number is high. All of the $115,000 would be subject to FICA at 7.65% so $8,797.

If they take the standard deduction of $12,600 and claim the personal exemptions of $4050 for each family member their taxable income would be $86,200 (115,000-12,600-16,200). That would then be taxed as follows-

18,550 @ 10% $1,855
56,750 @ 15% $8,513
10,900 @ 25% $2,725

That's a total of $13,093 and then they'd get a $1,000 tax credit for each child so 11,093 in federal income taxes. Add the FICA to that and you get $19,890 or $1,658 a month.

I am assuming other taxes like sales and gas are included in budget numbers for the other items. I'm not from Texas so I could be missing something.

As an aside as you can see from the above saying someone is in the 25% tax bracket doesn't mean all of their income is taxed at 25%.