Hey everyone,
So I've been working in Silicon Valley for awhile now, and something I've been thinking about quite often are the limits for balancing money and lifestyle. I know a lot of people have written about this, but are there any hard limits for how much you're willing to sacrifice one for the benefit of the other?
As an example, let's compare money vs. lifestyle for IT workers, at each extreme. We can imagine an ordering with lifestyle decreasing as money increases:
Kiev, Ukraine (Lifestyle >>> Money):
Money : Low - Need to resort to internet, though there are local IT jobs but pay is little, ~30-40k tops in general.
Lifestyle : Amazing, beautiful city and women, many parks and restaurants, clean and safe compared to most of Europe.
Moscow, Tallinn, Bangkok, Bogota, Bucharest...
<insert many cities in between> (Warsaw might be a good midpoint)
London, Seattle, Zurich, Berlin, Los Angeles...
San Francisco Bay Area (Money >>> Lifestyle):
Money : High - Can clear 100-200k easily with salary and stocks, and can get to 300-400k+ if you're good (e.g. Netflix, Facebook Senior SWE).
Lifestyle : 3rd world cleanliness on streets, long work hours, major gender imbalance, relentlessly liberal.
My question is, when are the extremes worth it, and for how long? From what I've heard on this forum, people tend to start at the bottom of this list (Money > Lifestyle) when they're young then move upwards (Lifestyle > Money), but at the same time we are at out peak energy/youth when younger rather than older.
While I'm still young (mid 20's), I've become largely demotivated due to the Bay Area and how little it offers for someone my age outside of money. I am wondering at which point I should transition towards lifestyle, and whether it should be done from one extreme to the other or more gradual.
So I've been working in Silicon Valley for awhile now, and something I've been thinking about quite often are the limits for balancing money and lifestyle. I know a lot of people have written about this, but are there any hard limits for how much you're willing to sacrifice one for the benefit of the other?
As an example, let's compare money vs. lifestyle for IT workers, at each extreme. We can imagine an ordering with lifestyle decreasing as money increases:
Kiev, Ukraine (Lifestyle >>> Money):
Money : Low - Need to resort to internet, though there are local IT jobs but pay is little, ~30-40k tops in general.
Lifestyle : Amazing, beautiful city and women, many parks and restaurants, clean and safe compared to most of Europe.
Moscow, Tallinn, Bangkok, Bogota, Bucharest...
<insert many cities in between> (Warsaw might be a good midpoint)
London, Seattle, Zurich, Berlin, Los Angeles...
San Francisco Bay Area (Money >>> Lifestyle):
Money : High - Can clear 100-200k easily with salary and stocks, and can get to 300-400k+ if you're good (e.g. Netflix, Facebook Senior SWE).
Lifestyle : 3rd world cleanliness on streets, long work hours, major gender imbalance, relentlessly liberal.
My question is, when are the extremes worth it, and for how long? From what I've heard on this forum, people tend to start at the bottom of this list (Money > Lifestyle) when they're young then move upwards (Lifestyle > Money), but at the same time we are at out peak energy/youth when younger rather than older.
While I'm still young (mid 20's), I've become largely demotivated due to the Bay Area and how little it offers for someone my age outside of money. I am wondering at which point I should transition towards lifestyle, and whether it should be done from one extreme to the other or more gradual.