Author Topic: Relocate for maxmimum savings (Finance Jobs)  (Read 1515 times)

maginvizIZ

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Relocate for maxmimum savings (Finance Jobs)
« on: January 08, 2019, 12:43:45 PM »
Hello everyone!

I'm currently researching on potential employers, then dug a bit into where in the USA I want to live.  That brought me to the "relocation guide" sticky thread, which brought me to livingwage.mit.edu.

This is a pretty cool site that shows average wages by industry, and average living expenses.

Out of the 16 cities I am interested in, the current city I'm in is in last place. :(

City          State   Business & Finance   Expenses   Savings
DC              89483   35162   54321
San Fran   CA   89667   36974   52693
New York   NY   83763   31645   52118
Dallas   TX   74251   23086   51165
Seattle   WA   77131   27846   49285
Denver   CO   73462   26937   46525
LA           CA   73954   29031   44923
San Diego   CA   74466   31220   43246
Austin   TX   67158   24691   42467
Chicago   IL   67701   27138   40563
Phoenix   AZ   62505   23343   39162
Miami   FL   63929   25676   38253
Portland   OR   66625   28583   38042
Las Vegas   NV   59911   22822   37089
Boise   ID           58630   21882   36748
SLC   UT           60075   23882   36193

Edit: Bah.  Chart I pasted above doesn't look good.  I attached a spreadsheet.
(all expenses are for a single person)

I'm a little sad to hear Salt Lake City is in last, but I have heard there's too many college grads from U of U & BYU that want to stay in Utah, which decreases wages...

What are your thoughts on this?  Does it make sense for me to move to DC/Dallas/NY to get the high wage to get FI faster? I wonder if those cities are working over 40 hours a week... But I'm sure the average hours worked from city to city is probably the same...


My 2 most interested cities are Seattle & Austin... Anyway I'd love to hear your guys opinion on all of this.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2019, 12:49:58 PM by teltic »

YttriumNitrate

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Re: Relocate for maxmimum savings (Finance Jobs)
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2019, 09:28:03 AM »
Wait a minute, I think you are using the expenses of someone just scraping by rather than the stated incomes. For example, the MIT site lists taxes for DC at $5,700 and SLC at $3,779. However, plugging in the stated Business/Finance salaries into https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes shows that your tax burden (assuming 18k going to 401k) would be $19,442 in DC and $10,097 in SLC.

maginvizIZ

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Re: Relocate for maxmimum savings (Finance Jobs)
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2019, 10:10:30 AM »
Oh good catch on the tax portion!  I changed the expenses to excluded taxes on scraping by, and then used smartasset.com to calculate taxes (deducting $19k for 2019 401k).

SLC was still last place (wah wah), top 5 shuffled a bit in order.

Thanks for catching that.  It seems like it still makes sense to go to TX/WA/CA/NY/CO?


I attached the spreadsheet if you want to take a look :)

formerlydivorcedmom

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Re: Relocate for maxmimum savings (Finance Jobs)
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2019, 10:25:38 AM »
I lived in Austin for years and I loved it - although the traffic is fairly horrendous now.  You would probably want to do some job searches to verify that you could get the salary that you want.  Austin is home to a large university and very close to a large number of other universities and colleges, and a lot of those kids want to stay in the area.

Are you planning to rent or buy?  In Texas, we don't have a state income tax, and they make up the revenue with high property taxes.  If you are planning to buy a home soon, you'll need to keep those additional costs in mind.  If you are renting, keep in mind that there are tens of thousands of students looking for cheap housing too.

I'm in IT, and when I worked in Austin salaries were often lower than a lot of the other areas, but benefits could be really, really good (stock grants, employee stock purchase, good 401k matching).  I assume that's still the case now (10 years later).  These types of benefits don't get included in the generic salary surveys.

maginvizIZ

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Re: Relocate for maxmimum savings (Finance Jobs)
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2019, 11:42:43 AM »
I plan to rent, and have a couple roommates too!  Since I'm single and flexible with my housing situation, this is why I'm particularly interested in going to places with high salaries... I think I can minimize expenses compared to the average person.

Interesting to hear salaries were lower compare to other areas...

Maybe I'm thinking a little too hard regarding where to relocate... I want to hit FI ASAP and like the idea of temporarily relocating to different places (helps fulfill my need to travel).  Hopefully I could score a relocation package too??

JLee

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Re: Relocate for maxmimum savings (Finance Jobs)
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2019, 01:32:06 PM »
Code: [Select]
City State Business & Finance Expenses Savings
DC 89483 35162 54321
San Fran CA 89667 36974 52693
New York NY 83763 31645 52118
Dallas TX 74251 23086 51165
Seattle WA 77131 27846 49285
Denver CO 73462 26937 46525
LA CA 73954 29031 44923
San Diego CA 74466 31220 43246
Austin TX 67158 24691 42467
Chicago IL 67701 27138 40563
Phoenix AZ 62505 23343 39162
Miami FL 63929 25676 38253
Portland OR 66625 28583 38042
Las Vegas NV 59911 22822 37089
Boise ID 58630 21882 36748
SLC UT 60075 23882 36193