Bob

That's a good point. No idea the going rate in CT, but down where I am, on a house, it's usually first and last months rent and a months worth rent as deposit up front to sign the lease and if people don't have any credit or rental history such as first home, they usually offer up to 3 months worth of rent as a deposit to secure it. If the landlord used a realtor, you, the renter would be expected to pay their fee which is usually a months worth of rent.

You get a condo, then there's more of them, so less competition, so you might only pay half a months rent as a fee.

So if the OP is looking for a $7.5K house to rent, that could be a minimum $30K down to sign the lease, which is the entire relocation budget.

Then again, it could be totally different, I don't know how hopping the market is down there, but I image it's not a stale one.

Kevthered

thanks for the reply, very informative. Like you said, rent is the main outlay and is very expensive. I suppose it would be even more so in the City. My wife is speaking to a landlord at the moment about a house she likes. By the way, would would be moving in the summer. Rent is $6800, with $6800 deposit and no fees due to it being direct. This sounds better in terms of initial outlay. I'm also looking at other things would could cut on. e.g. may need only 1 car. We are asking the landlord about possible charges for snow, trash, sewage etc

A couple of other things. To work out approx take home pay I've used the following website:

edit - I need 5 posts to include a URL - so will send below

Looking at the advanced tax calculator, I've entered salary, Connecticut, 2 dependants, but I've also added local tax of 6.35%, I am right in doing this? Bi weekly comes out at $7715. Is this what we should expect? I know it doesn't include retirement planning and healthcare.

Regarding the company healthcare plan. On the basic family plan it's $218, dental $15, vision $3.14 per pay check (2 weekly) or total $472 a month. Annual max out of pocket is $4800, prescription drugs $2500 max out of pocket, dental $1500. Based on this, what should I budget for on a monthly basis? I appreciate the premiums come out of the gross pay and are not taxed (I think).

Thanks again for all your advice. Still can't believe how expensive it is compared to the UK

Kevthered

Used to work out approx take home pay. Other sites come up with different figures.

https://www.taxformcalculator.com/

christmasoompa

Kevthered, if the above posts were just so you could post a link, please note that you can still do that as a newbie, it will just go in to the mod queue for one of us to approve manually (it's an anti-spam measure).

So please do post links and be patient and wait for us to approve, rather than posting just to get your post count up, thx.

Kevthered

Hi, I did include the URL originally but when I sent the post there was a message saying that I needed a minimum of 5 posts before I could include a URL. I felt it important to include the URL asap so thought the quickest way to do this was 2 quick posts. Sorry if I misread the situation. Thanks

sadiigo

This calculator looks fine, I checked it vs my estimates and I am an accountant. You need to insert New York state since your wife works in NY. Technically for your Connecticut state income tax you'll get a credit for taxes paid to NY state (which is higher). Don't worry about dependants now, as the new tax law is different, you'll get a standard 24k tax deduction and no personal exemptions.


Take your gross salary, deduct $6k of medical benefit and say 6% of the gross salary as 401k contribution. For example, I took $320k gross and $295k net, which gave me $8.2k per week net pay.


It is hard to say how much to allocate for medical costs (excluding premiums). It depends on how often and to what extent you are going to use the services. A visit to a specialist can be $20-$50, then you pay co-pay for any procedures/laboratory analyses (say 10% of the bill), until your annual limit is filled up. After that it is free. This is how my policy works.


If your wife plans to work from home most of the time and use a train for NY visits, I would go with 1 car only.


I would make a list of essential costs (ie rental, car, utilities, groceries, mobiles) and then check how much is left to see if this is sufficient for the leisure and other activities. Public schools system in nice areas is good enough to avoid additional tuition costs. Extra kids activities can be public (affordable via school district) or private (more expensive). For example where we live you can send kids to play soccer via public system which cost $50 per year, or into a private club, which is $1k, but arguably most kids go into the private club (see my original post about living in expensive area ), which has better coaches, facilities and better teams. In the summer, people who can afford send their kids into sleep away camps, which cost up to $6k per month. Day camps are also available and can be cheaper via a public school system.

Kevthered

Hi Sadiigo. Thanks again for a very informative post. So state tax would be for NYC instead of CT even though my wife is mainly working at home in CT?

So, going by your calculations and correct me if I'm wrong, using the same website and basing it in NY state, 300k gross minus 6k for medical benefit, minus 18k (6% of gross) equates to $276k gross, $177,851 net, $7672 per 2 week pay check. There is a drop down to add local tax. I don't know what it is, should this be included in any calculations.

The more I look into this the more I think we won't be able to afford the move unless we get more money. I can't believe 300k won't be enough.

Nutmegger

It would be very unusual for a house in a good neighborhood to be close enough to the station for it to be feasible to walk there. But many people have a "station car" -- an old one that is good enough to make it to the station and back and be left in the lot all day. (Though many stations do require a permit -- some free, some not -- to park there.) Most houses around here have well water and septic tanks, so no water or sewage charges.

sadiigo

[QUOTE=Kevthered;12422575] Your wife should check with her employer about her state domicile for the tax calculation. In our company, people who pay their state income taxes based on their residence have to work from home full time and not have an official desk in the office.


Local taxes are irrelevant for you now. They usually include property taxes that you pay to the state, if you own a house.

fbf2006

To be fair though, $300K would be enough to live a comfortable life. You are the one choosing very expensive locations and a 5 bedroom house in CT (or did I read that wrong)? Maybe look at smaller homes or other locations in Westchester County or NJ or even Stamford, CT? Also if your wife would be working from home and commuting via train some days, maybe look at having one car? At least until you have a better idea how everything is working out.


The renter's insurance also seems extremely high. The preschool fees should also be gone next year if you're using public school.

Pulaski

This is perhaps my favourite sort of question!

I have been criticized by some BE members in the past for overstating the cost of living in the US, but on this occasion I think your numbers are "off" and that you should be able to live more than comfortably on $300k.

For starters you are making the rookie mistake of spending waaaay too much on rent. The general rule of thumb in the US is to spend one third of your income on rent, and if anything that proportion should be lower as your income rises, giving you the money to spend on all the things that you will want to enjoy when you have a relatively high income. Just because you have the income to live in a five bedroom house in an expensive area doesn't mean that you need to! With two children you could be very comfortable in a four bedroom house and as they are both boys many people would survive quite happily in a three bedroom house. You could also look in slightly cheaper areas, after all there aren't many bad areas in western Connecticut! .... In short, your budget figure for renting needs to be no more than $5k/mth.

As others have said, with only one worker, your second car needs to be something sufficient to make it to the railway carpark reliably, so something around say $7-8k, paid in cash. Your petrol figure may be too low - most people find themselves driving much more, and further, in the US, even in relatively urban areas like the greater NYC area. We lived in Westchester, and know the western CT area fairly well, and on a weekend would often drive into NJ, or CT or up to Brewster, round trips of 40-100 miles just for shopping, a meal, or trip to a cinema.

Your eating out and entertainment budget is waaaay off. As I posted recently on other cost of living threads, a meal for four in a mid-market chain restaurant, such as Applebee's or Chili's will easily run $100, so your $500/mth will only get you one meal out per week, and not a very good meal at that! A family trip to a cinema, with drinks and popcorn will probably cost around $60. If your income is $300k, you will probably end up spending around $1,500/mth on meals and entertainment.

Your renters insurance is substantially overstated, unless you have a substantial amount of jewelry, artwork, or electronics. All you are really insuring for is theft of small, easily carried items, and fire damage, and fires are pretty rare, usually confined to the homes of smokers and homes that are old with iffy wiring. ... And burglary is rare in the US, because of the very real risk of the burglar getting shot and killed - with the consequence to the homeowner/tenant, being that the police come along, arrange for the removal of the body and thank the homeowner for removing a piece of trash from society. No, I am not joking! I would guess that renters insurance will be about $100/mth for you. If you have small valuables such as jewelry, you can get a good quality, fairly heavy fire safe, say around 150kg (making it tough to carry away) for around $800-$1000.

Your retirement planning figure is probably overstated - employers usually chip-in to 401k contributions, more so for executives and senior management, so I would guess that $1,000/mth may be a better budget figure as a slice of your $300k salary.

Bob

The cinema would cost so much more, if they took the kids and got a couple of drinks and snacks. That's not even the cost of the movie tickets, so double it if they want drinks and a snack.

Pulaski

Tickets for Jumanji tonight (Saturday) in Westport/Norwalk, at 7.50pm: adults $12.75, children $9.75, so around $45 for 2+2. Granted $15 won't get you much in the way of snacks and drinks. .... If a family trip for four to the movies in Boston really costs $120, you really need to find a way to leave! To somewhere cheaper, such as western Connecticut!

Bob

We head out to the Mendon drive in, which is $27 a car load, other wise it's pretty rare we all go to the movies, unless there's a deal going, Groupon or what not. A couple of the smaller indie cinema's in the area are a bit cheaper, but tend to be at odd hours, unless it's the holidays.

Hiro11

-House Rent - $7500 (based on 3,4 or 5 bed house - expensive) - as others have said, this is an extravagant amount of money to spend on rent. There's lots available for far less, even in places like Greenwich
-Car Leasing x2 cars -$1000- this is two luxury cars, I assume? Seems like a lot.
-Car Insurance x2- $334 - ok
-Health Insurance/dental/vision -$875 (based on company scheme, family basic with $4800 max out of pocket) - ok
-renters house/contents Insurance- $500 - way, way too much
-Mobile phone - $100 - ok
-Pre-school fees/education - $1,833- ok
-Internet - $100 - maybe a little less
-TV Satellite - $170- ok
- Utilities (gas, water, elect) - $500- ok
- Sewage, trash, snow - $50- ok
- Car fuel - $100- ok
- Clothing - $500- ok
- Food/Groceries -$1,000- ok
- Kids Activities - $400- ok
- Train/Commute - $200 (10 trip ticket to NYC)- ok
- Retirement planning 401k - $1541 )not got a clue about this) - is this the only retirement saving you'll be doing?
- College savings - $416 - weirdly precise number but ok
- Entertainment, restaurants etc - $500 - way too low. I'd at least double this.

Two questions:
I assume you won't be working?
No bonus involved with this job?

Overall, you should be able to live comfortably on a family income of $300k+, even in super pricey west CT or Westchester, NY. You will not, however, be able to live like a King or Queen.