Originally Posted by
NowCorporate
Yeah, there ya go...but you wont provide details on that 150K family of 4 in SoCal I see...take 5 mins and humor us will ya? You went from keeping up with the Joneses with your $8500 a month in cash to renting apartments pretty quick.
You lost this drama queen at living in an apartment with my family...
...Sorry, most of us didn't work hard to get to that point (G550/650 PIC in this thread) for that. Call me self centered and pretentious I guess...
Underpaid pilots are notorious martyrs, but I will certainly agree that one persons acceptable means of living if far from anothers. I know plenty of people in SoCal, and I know others who have tried going there (very recently) They only went there because they were forced to (relocation or unemployment) It's expensive and GOOD corp pilot opportunities are a small fraction of what they are in other major metro areas.
To each his own, and I'm sure they have plenty of applicants (qualified is another story) but I know that neither myself, nor any guys I know, would consider a 150K job in SoCal if the expectation was to move there with family.
Good Luck.
OK, here goes:
Claiming married and using Federal Withholding of 4 in SoCal at $12,500/month will net you $8,659.82 per month.
California Salary Paycheck Calculator | Payroll Calculator | Paycheck City
I'll use Huntington Beach as a guideline, and let's settle for renting a 3 bedroom townhouse - $2500/month (a bit on a higher side of average, but OK). In SoCal, rent usually includes water and trash service.
You're down to $6,100 - roughly. Home utilities (cable, gas, electric) $500 - one good thing about living in coastal SoCal - nice breeze and no need for a/c.
Down to $5,700.
Now... decision time. Do you buy an SUV with all the bells and whistles or do you "settle" for a Camry or something more down to earth? Personally, I don't drive a brand new car - I let someone else take pay the "drive-off-the-lot" penalty. I'll take a quality preowned car. For example, I bought a 1 year old Dodge Ram 1500 with long bed that only had like 12,000 miles on it, and still under warranty. My payment was little under $400/month. My other car was 4 years old and paid off... but let's say you get something fancier that runs you say $700/month. Throw in full coverage insurance on it, let's call it $1,500/month for transportation. Now you're down to $4,200.
Food/groceries for a family of 4 - $1500/month.
Down to $2,700/month remaining.
These are rather rough figures, and erring on the higher side. I don't see mingling with the migrant workers on this budget...
... unless you're hiring them to do some manual labor for you.
But as you said, to each their own... some are happy making 75k a year pushing an Excel and are absolutely happy with their lifestyle, others make $200k a year as large cabin PIC and are absolutely miserable. It all boils down to an individual and his/her choices.