challengerflyer

Am I the only one who finds these "my situation is better than your situation" posts absolutely ponderous? Each side has its advantages and disadvantages, there are great 121 gigs and even better corporate gigs. To each his own. I'm currently flying 91, same company for 7 years, good money, bonus, 95% weekends off, 2/3 day trips most common, little international, company amex, nice hotels, etc. I'll make sure my guy has fresh Nutter Butters and Diet Dr. Pepper if that provides me a good paycheck, decent job security and a great QOL.

Climbto450

THE PRICE OF HOUSING!!! not to mention high gas and horrible traffic. 150k in socal means you are lucky to get a house in the inland empire or Santa Clarita valley/simi valley. This means lots of traffic to get to work 38 mile drive equals 1 1/2 to 2 hour commute and the some of the highest gas costs in the country.

RJSAviator76

If the graph depicting cost of housing and income is not parallel for the area, something is out of whack and has to give.

Basically, if median income for the region cannot buy you a traditional family home over a traditional 15 or 30 year mortgage and without the shady adjustable rate, negative amortization mortgage scams, something is seriously wrong. In my opinion, the prices in SoCal are still insane because everyone is still drunk or hung over from the housing bubble, and some more of that "good sh*t."

Or is it that employers aren't paying enough?

I can tell you this... 150k in SoCal is far above the median income, and if it can't get you into a single family house in a decent neighborhood because of the housing price insanity, you may be better off renting anyway.

Climbto450

You can get into a home in lower income neigborhoods and poor overcrowded schools for your kids. Houses are still far to expensive in socal for an average to nice area with good schools and safe streets. However, you can always rent!! Yes 150K is way above the mean income of around 45k for the average person / employee in socal but what does that get you?

Bill Lumberg

In SoCal you end up paying the "sunshine tax" just for being there. Everything is more expensive. I remember reading that once your income reaches $49K, a 9% state income tax kicks in - and that $49K threshold is far lower than in most states. So, you can kiss a big part of your salary goodbye to pay for union pensions throughout the state. California, New Jersey and New York have terrible state taxes.

I agree with the old saying regarding California, "it's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." If you do live there, you better have dual incomes if you are married - no way you can survive without decent dual incomes (hope your spouse is a dentist, partner in a law firm or a surgeon brining in the cash).

RJSAviator76

You tell me... 150k a year is 12.5k per month gross. Assume you're married with 2 kids, you get dinged 4k in taxes per month so your net will be around 8.5k.

Not enough to live in a nice area? Or do you have to keep up with the Joneses?

NowCorporate

Ah yes....yet another pilot who judges from his moms rent-free basement.

If you think you will have 8.5K avail to keep up with the Joneses on 150K you may want to consider a few things you missed that most in the real world have to contend with:

- State taxes
- County taxes?
- City taxes?
- Property taxes (House/car/boat)
- Sales taxes

You are now down to about 50%

How about these:

- Retirement (oh yeah, that)
- Savings (got 1 years cash on hand?)
- College fund (little Johnny gonna get a scholarship?)

Now this:

- do you have any hobbies?
- do you eat?
- Do you wear clothes?
- have any pets?
- Cars break? (lets assume mommy bought you them and no payments)
- Do you buy gifts? (kids events, birthday, xmas?)
- Do you ever take a vacation?
- do you give back some to charity?

etc...etc.

Hold off on that new BWM Captain, lots to consider before worrying about keeping up with the Joneses. You should think more about keeping up with the migrant farm workers...as what they make in cash is about what you will have after you, the wife, and kiddies live like responsible SoCal citizens.

SoCal makes even other metro area look expensive as the semi-nice areas are right next to ghettos. Ghetto areas mean private schools, add 10K+ to your above notes. There is no driving a little further to live better/rural as I can reasonably do in the NY area etc. Taxes are horrendous compared to most. Any idea what it costs to register a car in SoCal? Its not my idea of a family area on 150K, not by ANY stretch.

Yes I think one CAN live on 150K anywhere...maybe not how I want to live, hence we (like most pilots?) have other income means...but the idea that you pay minumum federal tax and have the rest for a nice house and a golf club membership is a bit of a stretch.

Good Luck.

RJSAviator76

You know... condescension is a very ugly trait that is usually used to hide some sort of inadequacy. What's worse is that it shows complete lack of class. Hardly a good trait for a corporate pilot, even for one based in NY...

But I digress...

The housing in SoCal has really gone off the deep end, and that is the driving force indeed. But again, things boil down to individual choices. Do you have to drive a BMW, or will a Toyota do? Do you have to live in a 3500 square foot house, or will an apartment in a nice part of town do for the time being?

We lived in a gated community decent size apartment in coastal Orange County while the house I own elsewhere was rented out; my kids went to a decent school. We could ride bikes to the beach, or we could even walk as we lived about a mile from the beach, or we hopped in the car and drove down. We lived a rather active outdoorsy lifestyle (surfing, snowboarding, fishing off Catalina, road trips, etc.) and had a lot of fun in the process. All of this during the run-up in real estate prices, and I wasn't making anywhere near 150k.

See, what I've noticed in SoCal, and most notably in Orange County (think Newport Beach area) is that you have a lot of pretentious, self-centered, egotistical people who will drive themselves into major debt just to keep up with the Joneses for no other purpose than just for show, and live way outside their means because they have to show to others they live like millionaires.

If you've made your fortune and live within your means as a millionaire, good for you. In SoCal, you're right in that you can't live like a rockstar on 150k a year, but to compare a family living off of 150k with migrant workers is... a bit too dramatic, especially considering that median income for the region is substantially less, about a third actually.

You can have a nice middle class lifestyle in SoCal on 150k a year by living within your means, and anyone who tells you otherwise is... a bit of a drama queen.

USMCFLYR

I know a lot of military families living quite well in the SoCal area. It isn't for everyone, myself included, and I think that everything there is ridiculously expensive, but unless you have some notion of how big a house you must have or what kind of car you must drive, or you have to save/ invest half your salary per year for retirement, then you can make it just fine. If you do need to accomplish the items above then you probably need to live somewhere else in the country to achieve them at the same pay. Choices.

USMCFLYR

NowCorporate

Yeah, there ya go...but you wont provide details on that 150K family of 4 in SoCal I see...take 5 mins and humor us will ya? You went from keeping up with the Joneses with your $8500 a month in cash to renting apartments pretty quick.

You lost this drama queen at living in an apartment with my family......Sorry, most of us didn't work hard to get to that point (G550/650 PIC in this thread) for that. Call me self centered and pretentious I guess...

Underpaid pilots are notorious martyrs, but I will certainly agree that one persons acceptable means of living if far from anothers. I know plenty of people in SoCal, and I know others who have tried going there (very recently) They only went there because they were forced to (relocation or unemployment) It's expensive and GOOD corp pilot opportunities are a small fraction of what they are in other major metro areas.

To each his own, and I'm sure they have plenty of applicants (qualified is another story) but I know that neither myself, nor any guys I know, would consider a 150K job in SoCal if the expectation was to move there with family.

Good Luck.