The "reasonable salary" question. (Houston, Dallas: credit, living in, legal)

[riaelise]

Originally Posted by ashbeeigh

Again, not true. I lived right behind the P Terry's by Capital Plaza for $851 a month. It's not a luxury apartment but it was about a ten minute drive, in traffic, to Dell Seton when I worked there.

there's outliers and tbh I'm familiar with that capital plaza area....i can see why the apt was 850, sorry. but for the most part, if he wants to bike to work it's gonna cost more than 1300, which he should theoretically afford.

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by riaelise

there's outliers and tbh I'm familiar with that capital plaza area....i can see why the apt was 850, sorry. but for the most part, if he wants to bike to work it's gonna cost more than 1300, which he should theoretically afford.

It's all about your comfort level. If you need to be close to downtown, don't need a shiny new stove or a google nest then you can do it. I did it. And I'd do it again if I needed to be north. It wasn't the prettiest but it was five minutes from work and way closer to the things I like to do then I am now. If OP would have said he wanted those shiny and new things then yes, he would need to spend more.

[earthisle]

With that salary, which is in the very high end for government, you can easily afford to live pretty much anywhere

[janejanejanejanejane]

I feel like you should leave the government and go private. For a masters and 10 years experience in a job, you should be making double....just my opinion.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by scot892

The key point where this budget works is the rent. It's harder and harder to find the rent that low in downtown or it's vicinity, especially in the new buildings where rent will go for a MINIMUM 2200 a month for a small 400-500 sq ft. Unless if you share with someone, but who wants roommates, the rent is the key point in the budget. It's just not downtown but rent has been rising consistently where it appears a salary of 60k would be just enough to get by.

So, taking your sample budget, if you're paying downtown rent and increase your car payment couple hundred a month, for those who still have a payment, your savings went right out the door and a minimum of 70k would be required with minimum to spare.

before I posted I went to austinhomesearch.com and looked up all properties that fit my description. I picked a nice one and even posted the address.

you can choose to live central and spend a lot more. In my hypothetical budget I picked an actual place that was available that had nice interior pictures. I saw places as low as $600 but the interior pictures were not that nice.

In the central core rent will be about $1.5-$2/sq ft per month. As you get further out (e.g nw hills) it drops to about $1/sq ft.

In my hypothetical budget, the person has $2400 a month left over. They can easily bump their budget to $1200 for rent and still be saving $2K/month.

I constructed the budget with savings so that people with priorities to spend more in a particular area would have headroom to do that.

You can easily spend more in any one area and not break the budget. If they want a $500/month car payment that is possible. If they want a $2000/month apartment they can do that. But they can't do all of them.

[nylacutie75]

Originally Posted by riaelise

Pffft anyone who “barely makes ends meet” at 65k obviously practices poor money management. No city can compensate for that.

You can live in Austin at 55-60k. There are older condos in the north that are affordable. No you won’t live downtown, maybe at 65k but not 55k. Up your budget to 1500 and you’ll have even more selection.

You also don’t have to deal with traffic. Live next to a transit route. Wells branch comes to mind.

omgosh you can find a home to rent a apartment for 1200 to 1500 you will be fine. don't let other dissuade you from moving here. if you have a budget to go out you will still be fine.

[nylacutie75]

Originally Posted by petsounds

I have a job interview later this month in Austin. The position pays between $54,000 and $61,200. I have a related master's degree and and 10 years experience in the field, so I'd like to think I would be starting above the low end. I've been to Austin; I love Austin. It seems like some people make it out to be a super-expensive city, but I would hope that salary range is doable. Thoughts?

I have absolutely no debt. No car payment, no student loans... nothing. I don't drink or party, but I do like going to shows. I've always been good with my money. That $54,000 is actually $6,000 above what I make now and I live comfortably downtown in a big city.

did you move to Austin? you will be fine here. I also have no debt, and make 55k- so less than you..and i am doing fine, my rent in Cali was $1650 and that was tough, but i still managed to pay off all my debt, so if you took the job and moved to Austin Welcome!

[m1a1mg]

Many pages back the OP posted that they turned down the interview. I'll post this again in another 5 pages.

[whereiend]

I know plenty of people with a salary less than OP who live in central Austin and go out to shows, etc. The biggest issue I see is living alone. Having a roommate or a working spouse makes paying rent much easier. To live alone in central Austin you would to be pretty clever about finding an affordable place and budgeting lifestyle.

I will say that I don't think friends making less than $70-80k are accumulating much savings--and most are probably either near paycheck to paycheck or even a little underwater in credit card debt--but really that is Austin, if you aren't in tech it probably doesn't make financial sense to move here. That was true even when it was cheap here (there were just no jobs back then).

[riaelise]

Originally Posted by whereiend

I know plenty of people with a salary less than OP who live in central Austin and go out to shows, etc. The biggest issue I see is living alone. Having a roommate or a working spouse makes paying rent much easier. To live alone in central Austin you would to be pretty clever about finding an affordable place and budgeting lifestyle.

I will say that I don't think friends making less than $70-80k are accumulating much savings--and most are probably either near paycheck to paycheck or even a little underwater in credit card debt--but really that is Austin, if you aren't in tech it probably doesn't make financial sense to move here. That was true even when it was cheap here (there were just no jobs back then).

As outlined above there really isn't any need to be overly clever when it comes to budgeting.

You can live closer in making 55-60k and not live "paycheck to paycheck".

Credit card debt is a personal circumstance.

There are plenty of other professions that pay well that aren't tech. For example, I work in the legal industry, making "national" money (vs. Texas salaries, thankfully).

If I were to find myself living alone, I would do just fine here, in Austin.