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

[Cardiff Kook]

i definitely understand where you are coming from vienna.

my fiance and I won't be having kids for a while and my parents have given us the green light to live with them in North County until we get jobs and on our feet.

once kids become part of the equation, we should be established enough that it won't be as hard as trying to move here after already having kids

[tonyinsd]

Originally Posted by shmoov_groovzsd

tony, I think the point of the posts come in degrees of 'quality' of life. Not just 'making it' with everything hinging on maintaining gainful employment.

With that being said, with all other factors added in to ones financial life, some folks are going to always live paycheck to paycheck with only the tangible payments that in front of them every month. Others will have far more depth with their finances, hence the 'quality' of life that is completely subjective. With all cards on the table as earlyretirement posted and Sassberto mentioned, for the OP, with a family of 4 on 80k, those quality measures that were listed gets shorter and shorter in SD.

Now we're comparing apples to apples. Can you live an upper middle class life with two kids here on $80K and own your home? Nope. You've got to cut back a little. That means buying a new car once you're done with the payments is something you can't do. And those $10 lunches and two $4 lattes every day? Probably going to have to cut back on. And yes, the shopping trips for new clothes where you drop a hundred dollars every week will have to go.

But the question is, what's important to you? Is it more important to drop a c-note on clothes that you can barely fit into your closet or to live in a place you actually enjoy? If you're making a lot of money but living in a place you hate, is that worth it?

Those are questions each person has to answer. Nobody else can answer them for you. If having a new car every three or four years is more important than living in a place where the temperatures don't hit 100 for weeks on end, then you've got to live like that.

What you can't do is say you're going to make certain lifestyle changes in order to afford to make a move and then not do them. You'll end up broke and bitter.

[mover79]

Coming from Chicago, I wouldn't say I hated it. I moved here for an opportunity and the prospect of good weather. Every major metropolis has something unique to offer. Buying $10 lunches and $4 lattes and driving a new car every few years does not make good financial sense no matter where you live. These people will end up in financial trouble sooner or later no matter where they go. People want to know how far back they will need to slide on the scale of middle class lifestyle by moving to San Diego. Some are more flexible than others, some not. Each person needs to decide on their own.

[NYSD1995]

Even if you never bought a single latte you would not be ale to afford the lifestyle I described on 80k. One major emergency home repair and you'd be wiped out. It's just not enough to put half your income away on housing and then try to live on the rest. I just had a pair of dress shoes resoled and it cost 70 bucks. New glasses for the wife and I, over a thousand bucks. 2 kids in preschool, you dont even want to guess at what that costs. That's not lattes and shopping sprees that is regular life stuff.

You're basically just giving up on home ownership, college savings, retirement, and good healthcare. Why would a family move somewhere with no chance of ever buying a house? Unless its a short term thing, it makes little sense to uproot your family for the prospect of living in a rental for life. Most people who make these moves are looking to build something, not go backwards. Giving things up to live a subsistence lifestyle in sunny paradise is the domain of twentysomethings with little responsibility, not families struggling to survive.

[skeke]

To me the big difference is having children. When my ex and I were together with children that influenced the neighborhoods in which we were willing to live. We wanted safe neighborhoods with families with similar values to our own and excellent schools. We didn't get that during our stay in San Marcos but absolutely had it in our Poway neighborhood. Now I live about 2 miles south of San Diego State and though we are very happy here I would not live here if I still had children at home. As an aging woman who wants a peaceful, friendly little neighborhood with a nice yard for gardening I am fine.

[MovingAloha]

Originally Posted by skeke

To me the big difference is having children. When my ex and I were together with children that influenced the neighborhoods in which we were willing to live. We wanted safe neighborhoods with families with similar values to our own and excellent schools. We didn't get that during our stay in San Marcos but absolutely had it in our Poway neighborhood. Now I live about 2 miles south of San Diego State and though we are very happy here I would not live here if I still had children at home. As an aging woman who wants a peaceful, friendly little neighborhood with a nice yard for gardening I am fine.

+1 ^^ This! When we are no longer concerned about school choices, we plan on moving into a more centralized San Diego location. Eastlake/Otay Ranch is definitely a family-centric area and I'm looking to revert back to a
more adult-centric locale once I'm confident my grandson is okay.

[earlyretirement]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

Even if you never bought a single latte you would not be ale to afford the lifestyle I described on 80k. One major emergency home repair and you'd be wiped out. It's just not enough to put half your income away on housing and then try to live on the rest. I just had a pair of dress shoes resoled and it cost 70 bucks. New glasses for the wife and I, over a thousand bucks. 2 kids in preschool, you dont even want to guess at what that costs. That's not lattes and shopping sprees that is regular life stuff.

You're basically just giving up on home ownership, college savings, retirement, and good healthcare. Why would a family move somewhere with no chance of ever buying a house? Unless its a short term thing, it makes little sense to uproot your family for the prospect of living in a rental for life. Most people who make these moves are looking to build something, not go backwards. Giving things up to live a subsistence lifestyle in sunny paradise is the domain of twentysomethings with little responsibility, not families struggling to survive.

BINGO! People that don't have kids can't even pretend to know what it's like or what is and isn't important. I can tell you that until I had kids, I was totally clueless what kind of responsibility being a parent is. When you're single with no kids, you have the luxury to not have to think about things like good school districts and the like. NOT so once you have kids.

Things like wanting a stable lifestyle and home for your kids doesn't really even factor when you're single and don't have kids. And totally forget at how it might have been when you were a kid. The world is a MUCH different place than when we were young kids. And it's also much more expensive.

Like Sassberto said, forget about the "luxuries" and even just focusing on normal stuff. Things add up. Even just clothes and shoes can really add up. People without kids don't realize how quickly kids grow up and grow out of their clothes. It's not fun buying a new pair of shoes and then having your kid outgrow it in less than 2 months.

With kids, you will NEVER run out of things to buy or spend money on. Whatever you plan in your budgets, things always crop up. And not even on stuff that I'd consider a luxury.

Take a few months ago for example. We decided to buy some bicycles. Well besides the cost of bicycles, we quickly figured out that there was no room in the car to transport if we wanted to take all our bikes at the same time to areas like Coronado. Well, it meant we had to get a bike rack for the car. Well we didn't have a bike rack so we had to get one. But that meant we had to get a trailer hitch installed on our SUV and we didn't have one. So that meant we had to buy one. Then we had to get it installed. A relatively simple thing of getting bikes turned into quite an expense. With kids there are so many examples like this.

Kids totally change the equation in life and the things you thought were important before you will quickly find out aren't. When someone comes and posts about having two young kids it's much much different vs. a single lifestyle.

Stuff just adds up when you have a kid. Even just taking a vacation via plane can add up with expense of 4 tickets vs. just 2.

There are many, many families struggling in San Diego so totally keep that in mind before deciding to move here. For every happy story you read on these boards about someone coming here and moving here and being totally happy, there are probably 100 families that attempted to move here and quickly figured out they can't afford it at the lifestyle they want to live and had to move out of San Diego to another city with a lower COL and a stronger economy.

Also, I'm quite sure there is a large percentage of the people living in San Diego that might be ok for today but in retirement they are going to be severely severely underfunded. It's not just about today but more importantly about tomorrow and when you get older. Because that is very much part of the picture and many people in San Diego forget that part of the equation.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by earlyretirement

There are many, many families struggling in San Diego so totally keep that in mind before deciding to move here.

There are also many families who got in long before the boom, and are military / semi-retired / government employees living in neighborhoods they could never afford to buy into today. That one of the paradoxes of San Diego, you'll have plenty pf people making 60k/yr living in basic Point Loma ranch homes that they bought for 200k and cost 800k now

[tonyinsd]

Originally Posted by mover79

Coming from Chicago, I wouldn't say I hated it. I moved here for an opportunity and the prospect of good weather. Every major metropolis has something unique to offer. Buying $10 lunches and $4 lattes and driving a new car every few years does not make good financial sense no matter where you live. These people will end up in financial trouble sooner or later no matter where they go. People want to know how far back they will need to slide on the scale of middle class lifestyle by moving to San Diego. Some are more flexible than others, some not. Each person needs to decide on their own.

Bingo. And for the original poster, if they're making it on $60K in Phoenix, they can make it on $80K here. No, they won't be dropping a C-note on dinner every night, but most people can't afford to **** away $36,500 a year.

Everyone says, don't listen to the statistics, listen to my anecdotes. Well, hell, then. The lottery is a good investment if you listen to anecdotes.

Plenty of people are raising kids on less than $80K so I don't want to hear it can't be done. That's just, to be blunt, bullcrap. It's happening every single day.

You can't do it because you want certain things. That doesn't mean it can't be done. You want to have new cars every time you pay one off so that means you've got two car payments. There's $12K a year right there.

[mr aztec]

just shy of 100k,
1 child, SAHM,
renting small house in central San Diego $2k/mo
2 modern vehicles, both owned outright
school loans $1k/mo

It is tight. Not uncomfortably tight, but between saving for retirement, a house, and kid's college, I might be able to pick 2 of those, but not all 3.