Any advice for getting the math figured out for how much I need to be making in a HCOL area to make the cost of living / taxes worth while? I've briefly lived in the Bay Area and can day with confidence I have zero interest in working or moving to CA. NYC is a much better balance.
NYC and CA both have the high paying jobs and HCOL. CA is probably more expensive in general when considering the taxes and housing, assuming you live in the areas with tech work demand. Comparing the two would really require specific jobs and locations. You can look at salary of job minus the sum of 1/30th average house cost and taxes to get a rough number for use in comparisons. You would also have to consider what "worth it" means to you.
To me, the $180k would not be worth it to live in either place based on my life interests and opinions. If I were single, it could be tempting for me to move there for a few years if I were making that sort of money and had a mortgage instead of rent. The idea would be that while the COL is high, a very large part of it would be housing. If at least a chunk of that was going to equity (and the housing market continued to climb or stayed steady) then I would have a lot of money accumulated when I would leave the area after say 5 years. Not to mention that all the benefits are geared towards staying in the area too. A 6% 401k company contribution is a lot bigger when your salary is that high (double mine). The trick is moving out of the HCOL after you've made a lot of money.
I definitely plan to get out if A) by next year I'm not at least making $180k or B) find more interesting work here. Unfortunately, a lot of the work in Austin / other parts of the country seems sort of bland. In NYC you can work for AI companies, urban automated farming companies, fintech and much more. If taxes go up more, I'll get tired of it and do something else.
