How much money does a family need to live in Seattle? (Puyallup: middle-class, sales)

[shaylahc]

Unfortunately there are a lot of variables here. What if your kids get sick? Wife needs surgery? Kid has autism? Baby is premature?

What about property taxes? Government taxes? If you rent, no mortgage=standard deduction. Prepare to fork over a huge chunk to Uncle Sam.

What about things like vacations? Lessons for the kids? What's your clothing budget? Maintenance for the house and car? Saving for retirement and college?

$200K sounds great on paper, but once everyone takes their cut, it's amazing how far that money *doesn't* go.

[shaylahc]

Also, I lived in NC for 15 years. You can live like a rich person on a Seattle income there.

Here, it's tough. Just rent or a mortgage alone can eat up a chunk. Everything is more expensive here---food, gas, etc. Property taxes can run $7-10K a year. That's $1000 a month you could be forking out just to cover your property taxes. Prepare to pay more for medical care, children's lessons. Hell even our YMCA membership is $120 a month! It doesn't take long for Seattle to hoover up a decent income. Money just doesn't stretch as far here.

[RVD90277]

Originally Posted by cloveleaf

A lot of dual income families. 160K * 2 = 320K. And where are retirement saving and college saving in your calculation? 3k can't really cover home maintenance and repair, appliance/furniture replacement on a $1m house, and car (either save up front or car payments), travel, insurance, cellphone/cable/internet/, utilities, groceries, clothing, dinning out, healthcare, etc. Have you ever tracked your family expenses?

at least in my case, each month it roughly boils down to:

home maintenance / repair: $50 (roughly $600/year) - maybe knock on wood but i haven't had many repairs
appliance / furniture: $50 (roughly $600/year) - again, appliances are pretty new and seem built to last
cars: $1000 (we drive nice cars) - this is where i think we splurge (i have a $100k bmw and a $35k nissan leaf) - btw, i always lease so never have car repairs
insurance: $500
cell/cable/internet: $200
utilities: $200 (electricity, gas, garbage)
groceries: $500
dining out: $500 (i think this is a little high but we go out around 6x/month at around $80 or so each time)
health insurance: $150
vacations: $100 (roughly $1200/year)

Total: $3250? - i could reduce my car payments by $250 pretty easily by going with a bmw 3 series instead of my 7 series. the bmw lease is up in january so that will free up a lot of cash. i don't even pay for gas/electricity for my leaf since my work offers free charging (and my work is only 10 miles from home).

savings in my equation was $60k/year so after 4 years of amassing $240k and putting $200k down on a house you still have $40k left over (assuming you invested it at 0% interest) and then you have the next 20 years to amass another $40k/year which is $800k which if you get 6% annual returns, you're left with a few million for retirement, etc.

i have 3 kids so i know that college costs are high. i also am at an income level where i don't know if i'll get much (if any) need based financial aid but i'm also not at a level when i the costs don't matter so i'm saving roughly $200k/child for college (current cost at a private university with room and board is roughly $240k over 4 years) and hoping to have the rest of it met by loans, hopefully some increase in investments of the 529, etc.

but in any case, this post was only to illustrate that it's not impossible to live in WA on a $200k annual salary. i know many people who do and live just fine. like i said, most of the mid-senior level folks at work live off of $160k and then save $50k-$100k+/year by auto selling all of their stock whenever it vests.

now if we lived in the bay area, we'd be having a different discussion. seattle is pretty cheap though when compared to NYC, bay area, honolulu, and even LA.

but what do other folks spend? maybe i'm out of line but i handle the finances for my family. since we are single income (wife stays home), we don't pay for child care. i also don't pay for landscaping (i mow my own lawn).

[shaylahc]

Originally Posted by RVD90277

at least in my case, each month it roughly boils down to:

home maintenance / repair: $50 (roughly $600/year) - maybe knock on wood but i haven't had many repairs
appliance / furniture: $50 (roughly $600/year) - again, appliances are pretty new and seem built to last
cars: $1000 (we drive nice cars) - this is where i think we splurge (i have a $100k bmw and a $35k nissan leaf) - btw, i always lease so never have car repairs
insurance: $500
cell/cable/internet: $200
utilities: $200 (electricity, gas, garbage)
groceries: $500
dining out: $500 (i think this is a little high but we go out around 6x/month at around $80 or so each time)
health insurance: $150
vacations: $100 (roughly $1200/year)

Total: $3250? - i could reduce my car payments by $250 pretty easily by going with a bmw 3 series instead of my 7 series. the bmw lease is up in january so that will free up a lot of cash. i don't even pay for gas/electricity for my leaf since my work offers free charging (and my work is only 10 miles from home).

savings in my equation was $60k/year so after 4 years of amassing $240k and putting $200k down on a house you still have $40k left over (assuming you invested it at 0% interest) and then you have the next 20 years to amass another $40k/year which is $800k which if you get 6% annual returns, you're left with a few million for retirement, etc.

i have 3 kids so i know that college costs are high. i also am at an income level where i don't know if i'll get much (if any) need based financial aid but i'm also not at a level when i the costs don't matter so i'm saving roughly $200k/child for college (current cost at a private university with room and board is roughly $240k over 4 years) and hoping to have the rest of it met by loans, hopefully some increase in investments of the 529, etc.

but in any case, this post was only to illustrate that it's not impossible to live in WA on a $200k annual salary. i know many people who do and live just fine. like i said, most of the mid-senior level folks at work live off of $160k and then save $50k-$100k+/year by auto selling all of their stock whenever it vests.

now if we lived in the bay area, we'd be having a different discussion. seattle is pretty cheap though when compared to NYC, bay area, honolulu, and even LA.

but what do other folks spend? maybe i'm out of line but i handle the finances for my family. since we are single income (wife stays home), we don't pay for child care. i also don't pay for landscaping (i mow my own lawn).

I don't see rent or a mortgage listed? In Seattle it'll run you about $2,000-4,000 a month, plus property taxes and insurance. So add $3-5K a month to your list (which doesn't include a "miscellaneous" category...and that is where a lot of money goes). I also want to know how you feed 5 people on $500 a month. I spend around $1200-1400 and I have 4 kids (they are teens, so they eat like adults). Also, my husband works for MS but we don't get anywhere near $50-100K in stock and bonuses. This year we got a total of around $25K, most went to pay for bills. Since we rent we get hit HARD at tax time, to the tune of $20K a year for federal taxes only.

I'm not arguing that you can live on $200K (or even less) in Seattle. But to have a nice house, lots of disposable income, saving for the kids for college, etc....it's hard. We lived in a huge house in NC and our mortgage was $2000 a month. To buy that same house in Seattle would be around $800K. Even though my husband makes about 40% more than he did in NC, our standard of living is less than what it was before.

Seattle is an expensive place to live.

ETA I also want to know how you get such cheap utilities. My water bill alone is $125 a month. Trash is $40. Gas and Electric runs around $200, sometimes $300 in the winter if it's really cold. I also don't see a clothing budget (kids grow fast!), and lessons for the kids (assuming your kids do them, as most kids do. Piano lessons, soccer, karate, dance....$$$$$$). I'm assuming your kids are small, they get exponentially more expensive as they get older.

[kaday]

Originally Posted by shaylahc

I don't see rent or a mortgage listed? In Seattle it'll run you about $2,000-4,000 a month, plus property taxes and insurance. So add $3-5K a month to your list (which doesn't include a "miscellaneous" category...and that is where a lot of money goes). I also want to know how you feed 5 people on $500 a month. I spend around $1200-1400 and I have 4 kids (they are teens, so they eat like adults). Also, my husband works for MS but we don't get anywhere near $50-100K in stock and bonuses. This year we got a total of around $25K, most went to pay for bills. Since we rent we get hit HARD at tax time, to the tune of $20K a year for federal taxes only.

I'm not arguing that you can live on $200K (or even less) in Seattle. But to have a nice house, lots of disposable income, saving for the kids for college, etc....it's hard. We lived in a huge house in NC and our mortgage was $2000 a month. To buy that same house in Seattle would be around $800K. Even though my husband makes about 40% more than he did in NC, our standard of living is less than what it was before.

Seattle is an expensive place to live.

ETA I also want to know how you get such cheap utilities. My water bill alone is $125 a month. Trash is $40. Gas and Electric runs around $200, sometimes $300 in the winter if it's really cold. I also don't see a clothing budget (kids grow fast!), and lessons for the kids (assuming your kids do them, as most kids do. Piano lessons, soccer, karate, dance....$$$$$$). I'm assuming your kids are small, they get exponentially more expensive as they get older.

Wow I will comment that in addition to feeding hungry teens actually clothing rapidly growing teens is also a huge expense...even if you do it on the cheap like we do. Also this year both my teens have braces...one child on second set....for both running us $15,000 over the course of the treatment (a small portion is picked up by insurance). We are fortunate enough to have a talented musician in the house and we chose to support that one initiative...instrument rental, lessons, orchestra fees.....even public school has costs...school supplies and expensive calculators, sports fees...I could go on and on. Kids are expensive. And we are way less into the kids activity thing than the average family.

[malloc]

Everyone has different expectations. And sometimes the statistics don't tell a story. Maybe my anecdote will help someone considering the move to Seattle.

We are a family of six (four children) and we live in West Seattle. Our biggest regular expenses are the mortgage and a good full time day care for one of the kids. We have two cars: a 2001 Honda accord and a new mini-van. This Christmas we will take our first real (i.e. out-of-state) vacation since the recession. We were in the red for most of the year because the birth of our twins and a couple month for a full time nanny were expensive. With those expenses behind us, we are back in the black. The schools are good enough and while the neighborhood isn't fancy, it's nice enough. We are not putting money away for college or retirement this year and probably won't for another year or two. We are a single income family making about $120K and we do not feel squeezed. Two years ago, at $105K we didn't feel squeezed. We pay our bills on time and pay off the credit cards at the end of each month. There is money to send the kids to YMCA day camp during the summer and to hire baby sitters when we want a date night. We've been able to fix up the house a little, too. During the recession we made it work on $80K/year (while contributing to retirement!), but we only had one kid at the time.

Our house is getting a little small for six people. We will sell the house in a year or so and buy a bigger place-- probably in the suburbs where houses are a little bigger for the same money. If you want to score some real estate, look a little further out: Federal Way in the south or Bothell/Lynwood in the north.

Hope that helps.

[flyingsaucermom]

Originally Posted by RVD90277

at least in my case, each month it roughly boils down to:

home maintenance / repair: $50 (roughly $600/year) - maybe knock on wood but i haven't had many repairs
appliance / furniture: $50 (roughly $600/year) - again, appliances are pretty new and seem built to last
cars: $1000 (we drive nice cars) - this is where i think we splurge (i have a $100k bmw and a $35k nissan leaf) - btw, i always lease so never have car repairs
insurance: $500
cell/cable/internet: $200
utilities: $200 (electricity, gas, garbage)
groceries: $500
dining out: $500 (i think this is a little high but we go out around 6x/month at around $80 or so each time)
health insurance: $150
vacations: $100 (roughly $1200/year)

Total: $3250? - i could reduce my car payments by $250 pretty easily by going with a bmw 3 series instead of my 7 series. the bmw lease is up in january so that will free up a lot of cash. i don't even pay for gas/electricity for my leaf since my work offers free charging (and my work is only 10 miles from home).

savings in my equation was $60k/year so after 4 years of amassing $240k and putting $200k down on a house you still have $40k left over (assuming you invested it at 0% interest) and then you have the next 20 years to amass another $40k/year which is $800k which if you get 6% annual returns, you're left with a few million for retirement, etc.

i have 3 kids so i know that college costs are high. i also am at an income level where i don't know if i'll get much (if any) need based financial aid but i'm also not at a level when i the costs don't matter so i'm saving roughly $200k/child for college (current cost at a private university with room and board is roughly $240k over 4 years) and hoping to have the rest of it met by loans, hopefully some increase in investments of the 529, etc.

but in any case, this post was only to illustrate that it's not impossible to live in WA on a $200k annual salary. i know many people who do and live just fine. like i said, most of the mid-senior level folks at work live off of $160k and then save $50k-$100k+/year by auto selling all of their stock whenever it vests.

now if we lived in the bay area, we'd be having a different discussion. seattle is pretty cheap though when compared to NYC, bay area, honolulu, and even LA.

but what do other folks spend? maybe i'm out of line but i handle the finances for my family. since we are single income (wife stays home), we don't pay for child care. i also don't pay for landscaping (i mow my own lawn).

I don't see how this is really accurate. We're tightwads that dress like slums and hardly eat meat or fish or fancy things and our grocery bill is nearly twice as much as this each month. Unless you guys are not eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables? You seem to be a well-off family... having mentioned in the past that you had thought about buying a custom build in my neighborhood... most the people who live here take vacation... but $1200 a year for a family of 5 won't get you anywhere... maybe a long weekend in Vancouver or Portland... some place that doesn't involve purchasing flights. Possible, of course, but it would be a substantial deviation of the norm for your demographic.

Also are your kids running around naked, long haired and bored all day? Because I don't see the budget for clothing, grooming or extracurricular activities, sports or hobbies. Even a swim pass at the city pool costs my husband $30 a month... I go to yoga for $80 a month... kids have tutoring, swimming and karate... $700+ each month... and we buy second-hand clothing most of the time, but like our quality shoes... I would say add another $100 a month for clothing/hair cuts. Well, gee, that's $1000 for what I call the "lifestyle" category... we all have one... some maybe cheaper, others more expensive... butI would expect the nice-car family to have matching nice-clothes.

[RVD90277]

Originally Posted by shaylahc

I don't see rent or a mortgage listed? In Seattle it'll run you about $2,000-4,000 a month, plus property taxes and insurance. So add $3-5K a month to your list (which doesn't include a "miscellaneous" category...and that is where a lot of money goes). I also want to know how you feed 5 people on $500 a month. I spend around $1200-1400 and I have 4 kids (they are teens, so they eat like adults). Also, my husband works for MS but we don't get anywhere near $50-100K in stock and bonuses. This year we got a total of around $25K, most went to pay for bills. Since we rent we get hit HARD at tax time, to the tune of $20K a year for federal taxes only.

I'm not arguing that you can live on $200K (or even less) in Seattle. But to have a nice house, lots of disposable income, saving for the kids for college, etc....it's hard. We lived in a huge house in NC and our mortgage was $2000 a month. To buy that same house in Seattle would be around $800K. Even though my husband makes about 40% more than he did in NC, our standard of living is less than what it was before.

Seattle is an expensive place to live.

ETA I also want to know how you get such cheap utilities. My water bill alone is $125 a month. Trash is $40. Gas and Electric runs around $200, sometimes $300 in the winter if it's really cold. I also don't see a clothing budget (kids grow fast!), and lessons for the kids (assuming your kids do them, as most kids do. Piano lessons, soccer, karate, dance....$$$$$$). I'm assuming your kids are small, they get exponentially more expensive as they get older.

the mortgage/rent was part of an earlier post. this one was just around how to live off of $3k/month outside of mortgage. you can slice the pie any way you want to but i basically set it up as $12k/month after taxes, $4k for rent or mortgage + prop taxes and $3k for everything else and then you say $5k/month towards retirement, emergency money, etc. i guess the main point was to say that i don't think it costs $12k/month to live here paycheck to paycheck.

we go to costco once/wk and spend about $100 each time. we also go to the asian market once/month and spend about $100 there.

[RVD90277]

Originally Posted by flyingsaucermom

I don't see how this is really accurate. We're tightwads that dress like slums and hardly eat meat or fish or fancy things and our grocery bill is nearly twice as much as this each month. Unless you guys are not eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables? You seem to be a well-off family... having mentioned in the past that you had thought about buying a custom build in my neighborhood... most the people who live here take vacation... but $1200 a year for a family of 5 won't get you anywhere... maybe a long weekend in Vancouver or Portland... some place that doesn't involve purchasing flights. Possible, of course, but it would be a substantial deviation of the norm for your demographic.

Also are your kids running around naked, long haired and bored all day? Because I don't see the budget for clothing, grooming or extracurricular activities, sports or hobbies. Even a swim pass at the city pool costs my husband $30 a month... I go to yoga for $80 a month... kids have tutoring, swimming and karate... $700+ each month... and we buy second-hand clothing most of the time, but like our quality shoes... I would say add another $100 a month for clothing/hair cuts. Well, gee, that's $1000 for what I call the "lifestyle" category... we all have one... some maybe cheaper, others more expensive... butI would expect the nice-car family to have matching nice-clothes.

At least for me the point was that living here off of $200/year isn't that hard but I guess it's a YMMV. My budget also included saving $60k/year so maybe you only say $40k/year...there's a lot of room in there with $200k. Budgets are obviously highly personal so I don't expect everyone to spend what I do, etc.

I have 2 infant kids and haven't spent a dime on clothing yet (one is 18 months and the other was born last week). All of the clothes were hand me downs from friends and I have crates full of clothes. My 8 year old wears new clothes but jeans are about $5 and shirts are around $3 if you shop on sale at the outlet malls (usually at Gap). At least for us, the cost of clothing has been insignificant. For me, most of my t-shirts are free (from work, etc.) and I've worn the same set of roughly 5 jeans and 5 khakis (levis, banana republic, j crew) for the past decade. I work in tech though so dress code doesn't seem to matter much. I have a few suits that I got when I got married 12 years ago and only wore them a few times since (weddings & funerals).

I haven't bought a plane ticket in years but I'm just lucky to have amassed a lot of miles from previous jobs and through credit cards (this year I amassed 400,000 AA miles from their citibank visa credit card via new signup promotions (do a google search if interested in lots of cheap / free miles)). I also have the SPG AMEX that I use for all of our purchases at Costco ($400/month). We travel to LA sometimes but stay at relatives places. We mostly spend on food. We also go to Hawaii every year but use the Alaskan Airlines companion pass or miles and SPG points to stay at the Sheraton Maui or Westin in Honolulu. In pretty much all of our vacations, we just spend on food.

My wife cuts my kids hair. I get my hair cut for $15. I suppose all of the small things like that add up though.

I have free gym membership (similar to MSFT - at Pro Sports Club in Bellevue) from work. We also have our own gym in our basement. It's nothing fancy but is has a treadmill, spin bike, some barbells, etc. My son did take soccer for awhile at Arena Sports and took swim lessons at Pro Sports but he's taking a break. When he took swim lessons IIRC, it was around $60/mo I think?

I can only speak for myself but until I moved to Seattle, I never made more than $200k/year but when we lived in LA, my wife also worked and made a similar income as me. Since moving here, she stopped working and we're able to make ends meet pretty easily so that's been nice. Probably just perspective but I feel that the cost of living is pretty good over here.

I was thinking about building a home in the Issaquah Highlands (up on Harrison Dr.) and wanted to pay around $325k for the plot of land (11k sq ft lot) but the company that owns the land wanted $400k. As our negotiations went on, his price kept going up and my price kept going down so we just got further and further apart. My budget to build was around $800k (for construction + architecture + etc.). To do that, I needed around $300k to get the project started which was not a problem (I've been working for almost 20 years and always made it a point to save a lot).

I guess it might sound like my kids walk around naked with long hair and I dress in rags and we eat ramen every day.

I think the biggest expense will be if I send the kids to private school. That could end up being a quick $1.5-2k/month per child so that will break the budget. For now, I've been relatively happy with the public school here.

[Lonney105]

Originally Posted by shaylahc

I agree as well. My husband makes decent money working for MS, and we're still struggling to save for the future. I feel like we'd never be able to buy a house. Does anyone really want to be enslaved to a $500K+ mortgage (a fixer upper in the burbs) for the next 30 years?

It's tough. To me it seems stupid to have to scrimp and save just to keep your head above water when you're making 6 figures plus.

We brought a house in Puyallup, and move in a few weeks. I will catch the Sounder train to downtown Seattle where I work. Family of 3, one income, our price range was 230k or less - that ruled out anything north or east, so we started looking south, and kept going south until we found something decent. Decent = 1/4 acre lot, nice street - houses all nicely spaced out on 1/4 acre lots, newer (1980) house (1800 sq ft), 3bd rooms all good size, and family room, double garage, in good condition. House a couple issues and seller is paying to get that stuff fixed.

I figure if I get bored of the hour (total) commute I can always look for a job in Tacoma or come to some arrangement with my current employer to work from home sometimes.

Problem with Redmond/MS is it's out of the way a bit from rail. At least if you work downtown you have some more options for transit on rails and can avoid the traffic.