Pulaski

I totally agree, they don't "need" to, however without them giving more information the information they have received may be misleading at best, and quite possibly irrelevant, not to mention that this whole thread may be a waste of our time, and theirs.

People often come to BE asking for advice about moving, and obviously if someone is coming as a student they need different advice from a young couple, family, mid-career couple or retirees, but without more information about their circumstances we can only give fairly generic advice.

In this case if Bellybratz and her family are currently happy, squeezed into a 2 bed flat in London and making do with second hand clothes and "meals out" at McDonald's, then maybe they can make $200k/pa in the Bay Area work for them. .... But the one clue to Bellybratz current situation she let slip in post #1, above. is that her two sons are in a private school in the UK. Therefore I remain highly sceptical that Bellybratz and her family are going to find a comfortable lifestyle balance in SF much under $400k/pa.

Steerpike

FWIW, I was in a similar situation when I moved here. I found a job on my own (I flew to SF and hunted one down), they were willing to hire me and deal with visas but they had no relocation package (they were a small outfit and didn't have the HR resources to administer formal relo plans; they had done a few visas previously and committed to mine - that was what I needed). I took the job and it was the best decision of my life. However - I was single at the time and my moving costs were low. Good luck to you!

Steerpike

Well said, both of you! I've just found this thread and many of the responses are embarrassing.

To the OP - you are mentioning Cupertino, Los Altos, Palo Alto, San Mateo, Burlingame. They are all really nice, 'high end' cities, although Cupertino and San Mateo can have some more affordable parts. The schools in those cities are top rate, though, and that's part of the reason for their high prices. My biggest concerns would be that schools start soon, and finding a rental 'from afar' could be difficult in short order.

Schools (especially the really good ones) are super-strict on proof of residence for enrollment, because everyone living outside of those districts tries to play games to 'qualify' so a lot of attention is paid to this aspect. There are dozens of smaller cities that have nice parts, such as Millbrae, San Carlos, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, etc but I can't speak to their school options. Personally, after living in Palo Alto, Mountain View, and San Francisco for several years I moved to the 'East Bay' (on the eastern side of the Bay) and love it there but - the commute can be tough. Fremont (in the East Bay) is a very common choice for many tech workers on 'The Peninsula' (as it is called - the area between San Jose and San Francisco); you end up having to cross one of the bridges which can be a chore. I always worked 'odd hours' to improve my commute but then, I didn't have kids to rush home to. I ended up being very fortunate to land a job in downtown San Francisco, and then commuting by 'BART' from Walnut Creek in the East Bay - a very convenient and efficient commute that I did for decades. Walnut Creek is a lovely town and I've been here for 30 years now.

Best of luck finding something! I moved from London to the Bay Area in 1983 and I have never regretted it. Please do return to this thread and tell us what transpires!

Lion in Winter

Which is, of course, completely her business. She knows what their income will be, and can make her own decisions based on info received without telling the world her income on an internet forum full of strangers. Some are comfortable doing that, and some aren't. Her questions were not related to that, either. Well meaning people can ask the salary question once, and if it is not answered then let it drop rather than push and criticise if the person chooses not to respond or share.

PetrifiedExPat

Oh dear, the responses are not embarrassing, they are realistic.

Unless of course scraping buy is somehow a life goal.

PetrifiedExPat

Agree, of course they don't have to, but as just mentioned scraping by shouldn't be a life goal. We are on the same page, a lot of delusion about salaries in the bay area.

400k is prob. the minimum, but then again, I suspect some can get by on bread and cheese and call it a win

EdgeAA

For me the issue of salary is kind of related to the question, because if the salary is say $200k and the house budget is for example $750k and a minimum 3 bedroom house is required then there's no point recommending a really good school district in an area if the cheapest 3 bedroom house is going to be $1.5m+. If you have a rough idea of budget (not necessarily exact salary figures) and what type/size of house is needed then it's easier to recommend somewhere within those parameters.

Nutmegger

The OP stated that their housing rental budget was $6K per month. Isn’t that an adequate guideline?

Steerpike

You keep suggesting they will be 'scraping by'. You have no idea what their circumstances are.
Let's assume an income of $250k. Takehome after taxes (two people, married filing jointly) would be $180k, or ~$15k/mo. (that's not accounting for 2 dependents allowance, so it will be more).
Assuming $15k/mo, we can allocate $6k to rent, $1k to medical premiums, $1k to car costs (loan, ins, gas, etc), $1k to utilities/phone/internet/etc (climate is mild so no huge utility bills), and $1.5k to food (these are generous allocations). That still leaves $4.5k per month unallocated, in case I'm missing something. That doesn't sound like living on bread and cheese to me.

PetrifiedExPat

I do appreciate the breakdown. I may segue/invite Pulaski to comment since I know he has worked on this (I have not in any detail)

Pulaski

I do have some estimated numbers (which I may post later), but right off the top I'm going to disagree with your estimate of $250k/pa gross leaving $15k net income per month. My experience of current taxes albeit with one child not two, is that net monthly income from $250k/pa gross, isn't likely to be much over $12k*, and apparently they're budgeting half of that for rent.

* Prorating the Pulaski family monthly income, then allowing for highest marginal tax rates on the top slice, and other factors that give us some tax benefits despite only having one child, IMO it really is likely to be that $250k only leaves a few $00's over $12k/mth net. Then health insurance and 401k contributions (which are technically voluntary) take more out of that $12k (yes, I know 401k contributions are tax deductible up to prescribed levels, but 401k contributions still take about $2 out of your net come for every $3 of contributions).

Steerpike

First of all - my numbers left $4.5k 'spare' after generous allocations for various budget items ($1,500/mo for food is pretty generous!). So out of that $4.5k, we can take another $1.5k for 401k leaving $3k 'spare'. I already included healthcare premiums of $1k / month assuming employee fully covered but having to pay premiums for spouse/kids (which many competitive silicon valley companies will cover, but just in case I was conservative). Remember, this is one salary for two married people, so that $250k is filed as 'married filing jointly' and that has a significant impact on the taxation situation.

This site - https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator - gives a breakdown of taxes for $250k household income, filing status 'married', state personal exemptions 2, showing a take-home of $180k. (If you change from 'married filing jointly' to 'single' the takehome drops to $160k).

This site - https://www.talent.com/tax-calculato...ion=California - only yields $156k but that's probably because it assumes single, not Married Filing Jointly. They offer no way to choose MFJ that I could find.

There are plenty of 'paycheck' calculators but they all assume a full year of SS, Medicare, etc which all 'cap out' during the year. This one - https://californiapayroll.com/resour...l-calculators/ seems fairly comprehensive, though and yields $170k net if you choose married. So let's be conservative and assume $170k, not $180k.

Income -
170k / yr net = 14.1k / mo.
Expenses -
6k rent
1k medical (could be much less with competitive company benefits)
1.1k car (700 loan payment, 200 insurance, 200 gas)
1.5k food/groceries
1k utilities (200 cable/streaming/data; 300 gas/elec; 100 phone; 400 'misc')
1k 401k (this is pre-tax but assume an after-tax of 1k for simplicity)
Remainder -
2.5k / mo, or 30k / year, which can be used for savings, vacation, travel, education, etc - anything not covered by the broad strokes above.

This is not living in the lap of luxury but is hardly struggling.

Bellybratz

This is really helpful thank you. I did try and call the Unified School district office enrollment section a few times a few weeks back but there was no answer. I will try again. Obviously we will be joining mid term which is far from ideal but I am hoping they might then have a better idea of places available. I understood that you were given a space in your closest school but then read a post about overflow schools where they put you in one that might be further away?

Bellybratz

Thank you for this. I am not sure how my post about schools has turned into one about how much my husband earns but it's helpful to know. We have been looking at what costs we will have so it's good to get an idea of things. He gets health care for all 4 of us through work but not sure if he has to pay tax on that in the US? It is a taxable benefit in the UK, does it work similarly there?

Bellybratz

Thank you! My husband is not keen on a crazy commute as l have seen a lot of nice areas that are just a bit too far. The traffic is bad enough here and l know how bad it is there so got to balance commute with living somewhere nice right - the never ending goal! We lived in London for 6 years then moved further out to get a bigger place and a driveway so don't want to go backwards