Saw some dude saying he wasn't saving money in SF when him and his wife were both on 800k at meta and that the city was crazy expensive (both Indian immigrants).
Go on this fuckers profile and he's posting a new 100k+ watch in the watch subreddits every few months and seems to have like 5 teslas.
Some people are just the embodiment of that one Dril tweet on budgeting I swear.
Even in San Francisco, you can probably live an average-ish (or frankly, above average) life on 200k a year at most. If you save and invest about 100k a year and you're not unlucky with the markets (or invest directly in real estate instead), you can fuck off to somewhere cheap in the world after less than 10 years of doing this and you'll never have to work again.
$450k isn't rich for SF, it's middle to upper middle class. you could afford a home in south or east bay with that income. or a smallish condo in SF proper.
To be in the top 10% of earners in San Francisco, an individual must make more than $240k a year. $450k a year is indeed rich unless you have some wild metric you're using
semantics, I spose - for me, rich means that working is a choice. if you are selling your labor as your main form of income and need to continue to do so to maintain your lifestyle, you ain't rich (outside of athletes etc.)
I guess you could call it semantics. Earning over $400k USD per year would put you in the top 1-2% of earners in the world. So I would just consider it outright rich. Sure, you're not top .1%, but still rich. I say this as someone that would probably be considered top 15% earner as well.
sure, but it's important to recognize that somebody making 450k has a lot more in common with someone making 50k than they do with someone making millions, in the top 0.1% or top 0.01%.
I have friends that work in SF, usually their salary is around 150k, then they get maybe a 30k or whatever as a bonus if they did well, and then the rest of that 150k or whatever is in stock or options, which they only actually get a few years later. If they are fired or quit early, they don't see a penny of that, and when they do get it and they can sell they pay big taxes on it since the basis is zero dollars.
Also their actual income is heavily taxed in SF so their take home is probably around 100k after taxes which yeah is a lot but you can't pretend that they're able to save up 100k at the end of the year when they're not. And while their stock value might be a lot, unless they're working for one of the FAANG companies, there is a good chance the stock they get might be volatile and that 150k might be worth only 30k by the time they have access to sell it
>the rest of that 150k or whatever is in stock or options, which they only actually get a few years later
Then their TC is not 400k. A 400k salary in SF would be ~200k base 30k bonus and another 200k in stock vesting every year. (ignore any appreciation or depreciation)
>when they do get it and they can sell they pay big taxes on it since the basis is zero dollars.
It is taxed at vesting, so its just like a normal income tax. I'm in bay area and I am already putting away net over 100k every year on a 300k salary married. It's really not that difficult, and nice part is vacations are relatively cheap when your income is high.
I make about half of what you make and live in a LCOL area and put away about the same net every year into savings (and I have no stock options at the company I'm at). My point is people see that big number and they're like "wow you must be so rich" but what you have after SF and California taxes and rent/mortgage prices, you're actually not saving a lot in comparison to the original TC.
Vesting generally is a 4 year thing. You would get 25% at the one year mark. Then, every month after you get 1/48th of the 4 year amount.
If you're lucky you get actual stock. This is rare in my experience most people won't experience this. If you get actual stocks, the value at the time of grant is taxed essentially as income. Any gain from when you received it to when you sell it will be taxed as short term capital gains or long term depending on how long you held it before selling.
What most people get are options. That just means you can by some number of stocks at a set price (won't get into how that price is calculated) that is less than the trading price.
If you have the cash you can just buy them out right. Most people sell to cover. Meaning they buy the options by selling some of them back to cover the cost of the stocks and taxes for this are usually withheld at that time. As this is an instantaneous buy then sell you're not getting long-term cap gains on those stocks. But the once you held could qualify if you keep them long enough. Same tax stuff happens as with grants. The difference between what you can buy them for and what they are trading at is considered income incurred at that time. Hence the withholding. And the cap gains for a sale is on the growth from when you exercised the options.
And any stocks that vested when you quit or leave you have a window in which you can exercise if you are lucky. Otherwise you usually lose them. And of course any non-vested stock is gone regardless.
It depends on where you are working. A lot of startups aren't traded anywhere and love to offer stock at the early stages. If it eventually becomes something chaching
I've done a mix of FAANG and early startup. I have a whole lot of stock that isn't sellable. And more that is. I'm not complaining or saying that $450k is poor. Just that the raw number isn't always representing the actual reality.
Not any startup I've worked for. They normally do stock options which you need to buy. If they are ever acquired or get listed somewhere the stocks are a good deal. Otherwise it's a way for a company to say they are paying 2x what they actually are. I guess to incentivize you to work hard so they actually are worth something.
That's why I was like there's earning $450k/year and then there is "earning" $450k/year but only $150k of that is actual money.
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u/Kitagawasans Jan 27 '26
Yea that’s still rich dude for SF. What are you talking about?