Salary Needed To Live Comfortably in Major U.S. Cities

These kinds of studies work well as comparisons from region to region. Their values as absolutes within a region are iffy at best.

On average, is it more expensive to live in Manhattan than San Antonio? Almost certainly. Twice as expensive? Perhaps so.

Suggesting that the minimum salary for a single adult to live comfortably in Manhattan is $159K and San Antonio is $83K, however, are extrapolations that fail to take into account all manner of variables.
 
OldOld said:
if you have to ask the salary question in California or NYC, you can't afford to live there "comfortably ", but you can live there "frugally ".
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Agreed. We can afford to live where we do because we bought in so long ago and don't have extravagant tastes. I prefer the simple joys in life and absolutely hate air travel. At 73 I find an hour or sometimes two is the longest I can endure sitting in the car to drive, but we still get down to San Jose and Santa Cruz and up into Marin and rarely to Mendocino. Seems fitting to slow down. Won't be long and we'll all become inert anyway. ;)
 
MarkD said:
Agreed. We can afford to live where we do because we bought in so long ago and don't have extravagant tastes. I prefer the simple joys in life and absolutely hate air travel. At 73 I find an hour or sometimes two is the longest I can endure sitting in the car to drive, but we still get down to San Jose and Santa Cruz and up into Marin and rarely to Mendocino. Seems fitting to slow down. Won't be long and we'll all become inert anyway. ;)
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ok, you bought in so long ago. Now, there is someone patiently waiting for the inheritance.
 
N
OldOld said:
ok, you bought in so long ago. Now, there is someone patiently waiting for the inheritance.
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My ten years younger brother is not as well off in spite of working and investing all his life. If either he or my stepson or both need it we will let them park a trailer our side garden. My stepson should be able to provide better for himself but he lost what should have been a lifetime engineering job during all that tariff madness. My brother hopes to retire in a couple more years but his crazy ex is a worry. My wife on the other hand is even better off than me. I had been worried if I’d be able to compete until Mr Biden signed the Fairness in Social Security Act in 25.

The end is coming and there is much I won’t miss at all though of course much else I’ll be sorry to lose. That is life.
 
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Gark said:
Thank you for posting that eye-opening web page. I'm flummoxed that in my entire working career I never hauled in anything equal to even the lowest cities listed there. Yet, here we are, doing just fine after 10 years retired.
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Depending on what you value and enjoy doing life doesn’t require a keeping-up-with-the-Jones salary. I have no budget for being seen a certain way and no longer have any desire to travel. My biggest splurge is on plants for my garden. Library books and walking my dog are free. That leaves food. Simple is better.
 
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Gark said:
Thank you for posting that eye-opening web page. I'm flummoxed that in my entire working career I never hauled in anything equal to even the lowest cities listed there. Yet, here we are, doing just fine after 10 years retired. What is your, their, anyone's definition of 'comfortable'?
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You're welcome of course Gark. Like you, I didn't make anything near the numbers for the New Jersey cities listed. My final salary in 1997 was $45,000 and I worked a 35 hour week. I only worked for one month in 1998 before retiring. I was pushing 51, so obviously had to wait several years to collect social security. Still I managed to continue saving and investing. If I had stayed a supervisor, I probably would have been making at least $80,000 after a few years. But I hated that job immensely, so took a demotion and went back to helping our patients and doing field work on solo assignment, which I loved. Funny...I got a raise at the same time I took the demotion, so my paycheck was only $15 less every two weeks.

I imagine everyone's definition of comfortable is different. Mine is being able to pay household expenses and other bills without stressing, always having enough food and toilet paper in the house :D, being able to take vacations whenever I want and buy whatever I want, all while knowing that I have a healthy nest egg as my security blanket.
 
officerripley said:
What;s hard is when your spouse's or partner's definition of what's "comfortable" or "good" is very different than yours. Why would someone even marry or partner up with someone like that in the first place, you might ask? Because sometimes people change over the years.
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And you can get a divorce if this is a problem.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
I imagine everyone's definition of comfortable is different. Mine is being able to pay household expenses and other bills without stressing, always having enough food and toilet paper in the house :D, being able to take vacations whenever I want and buy whatever I want, all while knowing that I have a healthy nest egg as my security blanket.
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That's my definition, too. My wants and needs aren't great at this stage of life.
 
officerripley said:
What;s hard is when your spouse's or partner's definition of what's "comfortable" or "good" is very different than yours. Why would someone even marry or partner up with someone like that in the first place, you might ask? Because sometimes people change over the years.
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Yep. I have said a hundred times if I would have remained married I would have never been able to retire.

Sadly we marry people based on promises, which are meaningless to some.
 
C50 said:
Yep. I have said a hundred times if I would have remained married I would have never been able to retire.

Sadly we marry people based on promises, which are meaningless to some.
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Indeed. A couple of times, on sites where there are gals younger than I, I've handed out the advice of: if where (not just the exact dwelling but also neighborhood, town, city, part of the country, etc.) matters enough to you that you'd be very unhappy if you were not living where you wanted to, try to not marry or partner up with someone with an alpha personality.

Because if you do, you will most likely live where and how, and only where and how, that alpha wants to. And even if it's that infrequent occasion where you're not living where and how that alpha wants and it's not even yours or anyone else's fault, you will hear about it 'till the day either you or the alpha dies, whichever comes first, because alphas are never silent about what they want. (When alphas are not getting what they want, the phrase "like trying to cage up a wild animal" is frequently appropriate.)
 
officerripley said:
What;s hard is when your spouse's or partner's definition of what's "comfortable" or "good" is very different than yours. Why would someone even marry or partner up with someone like that in the first place, you might ask? Because sometimes people change over the years.
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OldOld said:
And you can get a divorce if this is a problem.
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Like my parents. He dictated how their lives would go, and she went along. He became possessive and didn't want her out of his sight. Then he got old and sick and couldn't physically function without her care, and then she stayed.
 
MACKTEXAS said:
Like my parents. He dictated how their lives would go, and she went along. He became possessive and didn't want her out of his sight. Then he got old and sick and couldn't physically function without her care, and then she stayed.
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I saw so much of that growing up, so many elderly couples that they were living how the old men wanted, these sad, tired (sooo tired) old women going along with it because they "were supposed to" and I think part of the reason they put up with it was because they thought they were going to get rewarded in heaven. Looking back, the only happy old women I ever saw back then were financially comfortable widows and divorcees.
 
officerripley said:
I saw so much of that growing up, so many elderly couples that they were living how the old men wanted, these sad, tired (sooo tired) old women going along with it because they "were supposed to" and I think part of the reason they put up with it was because they thought they were going to get rewarded in heaven. Looking back, the only happy old women I ever saw back then were financially comfortable widows and divorcees.
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it's all about money. yes, money can bring some level of happiness.
 
officerripley said:
I saw so much of that growing up, so many elderly couples that they were living how the old men wanted, these sad, tired (sooo tired) old women going along with it because they "were supposed to" and I think part of the reason they put up with it was because they thought they were going to get rewarded in heaven. Looking back, the only happy old women I ever saw back then were financially comfortable widows and divorcees.
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My aunt's husband was sweet, but his dad was the boss and they lived on his farm. Son took over, so dad was the boss. He didn't dare talk back to his dad. My mom helped her sister with the kids and household at 12 instead of going to school. If she laughed he threw a Bible text at her that she'd stop laughing. Imagine. You have a nice guy and then you have to obey his dad.
He would go check if she cooked and cleaned well enough.

These still do exist but are very scarse. A girl on a Dutch reformed forum asked if it was normal that her dad and brothers would go check if she, her sisters and mother had cleaned the toilet well enough.
 
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officerripley said:
I think part of the reason they put up with it was because they thought they were going to get rewarded in heaven.
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1 Timothu 2:15 Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.

In Dutch this is translated wrong:
yet she will be saved, bearing children, if she continues in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.

So the English translation says God helps her when she's pregnant and gives birth, but the Dutch says she will be saved: go to heaven if she gets kids. There are seriously strict reformed Dutch women who are like: I may not take the pill.


Question for the reverend on a Dutch reformed forum:

Bearing children to be saved
Rev. C. den Boer | No comments | 27-12-2013| 08:40
Question
1 Tim. 2 deals with the position of women in the church.

Must a woman, besides believing, also bear children to be saved? Surely that is not possible? What about barren women, then?

Refoweb | Kinderen baren om zalig te worden | Refoweb

By the way obeying is not a problem if he is not a controlling ass.
Corrie ten Boom said there was no question that her dad was the boss in the house, but he was a lovely man and sweet to his wife. It only becomes a problem if he is controlling and nobody tells him that's not okay.
 
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Messy said:
If she laughed he threw a Bible text at her that she'd stop laughing.
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My paternal grandmother was like that. There was to be no laughing or even smiling while in church, even if the pastor said something amusing, because salvation of your immortal soul was serious business, this life was only a tightrope walk over the flames of Hell.
 
officerripley said:
My paternal grandmother was like that. There was to be no laughing or even smiling while in church, even if the pastor said something amusing, because salvation of your immortal soul was serious business, this life was only a tightrope walk over the flames of Hell.
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His son, my uncle, was often very down. We'd visit and he was like: everything was horrible. He was an elder. We took him to a happy clappy church to cheer him up.
 
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