If you think that "crunching the numbers" is an appropriate way of comparing the cost of living in two completely different environments - you must be insane.
If you have the fiscal responsibility and live a completely ascetic lifestyle - you can easily save most of your free cash flow. But that is an extraordinary person.
If you are a reasonable person and are going to actually live in SF - you have to adjust your expenses accordingly. Your rent/mortgage, your shopping trips, your recreational activities, etc... and you realise that your social outing costs you $200, instead of $30... and you don't have the ability to host it at home, because all of your friends live 2-4 hours away or you have a $5000 p/m home in a convenient location.
The reason why I say this - I lived in Helsinki, Dublin, London, NYC, San Francisco, Palo Alto and back to NYC. Me and my husband are both SWE, well paid. I literally went through the change of attitudes towards "living a life".
>If you think that "crunching the numbers" is an appropriate way of comparing the cost of living in two completely different environments - you must be insane
I'm under no impression the lifestyle would be the same. Just that it ought to be possible from what I can tell. Where I live in my home country I'm optimizing for a reasonable level of comfort / quality of life. If I'm dragging myself halfway across the world for the top salaries in the industry, I'm not optimizing for comfort or quality of life, I'm optimizing for as much savings as possible over a short duration.
Unfortunately the value of going to Bay Area is long term, not "short duration". It's not just - I'm going to SF for a project and a payout. If you're moving there - it's going to be for a few years.
Also - if you're "dragging myself halfway across the world", it limits your ability to optimise efficiently. You don't have an easy fallback. (I'm from Lithuania and live in NYC. Optimising my living arrangements was not a possibility for a long time, because there's no family or LPR status)
If you have the fiscal responsibility and live a completely ascetic lifestyle - you can easily save most of your free cash flow. But that is an extraordinary person.
If you are a reasonable person and are going to actually live in SF - you have to adjust your expenses accordingly. Your rent/mortgage, your shopping trips, your recreational activities, etc... and you realise that your social outing costs you $200, instead of $30... and you don't have the ability to host it at home, because all of your friends live 2-4 hours away or you have a $5000 p/m home in a convenient location.
The reason why I say this - I lived in Helsinki, Dublin, London, NYC, San Francisco, Palo Alto and back to NYC. Me and my husband are both SWE, well paid. I literally went through the change of attitudes towards "living a life".