250k in Miami vs 500k in NYC
If you have an offer for 250k in Miami what would you need to be making in NYC to live the same lifestyle?
Costs of Miami is skyrocketing as people continue to move there, yet these cost of living calculators say you need to make 500k in NYC to live the same quality of life.
No state income taxes
3k 1bdr in Miami probably costs 5k in NYC
Kind of need a car in Miami
Food costs the same/ tastes worse/less options in Miami
So 325-350k?
Anyone else kind of skeptical of those COL calculators? Seems a bit excessive.
I’d be in the 275-325k ball park to choose New York over Miami 250k, would really appreciate the weather.
They don’t scale well with income imo, if you’re making 50k in say Charlotte it actually probably is 100k in NYC (2x) but once you already make 250, your disposable income % is significantly higher, and shouldn’t be affected by COL
This is a great answer and often unappreciated by people who are comparing COL across cities. To demonstrate with an extreme example:
Is $1 billion in Miami = $2 billion in NYC? Absolutely not. Even if the food and rent were free in Miami you’d still be better off in NYC because almost all of your earnings are disposable income.
So try to get too hung up on cost of living once you’re in the top earnings bracket.
I actually think it’s worse at estimating at higher incomes, not less, specifically because housing costs skew so much higher.
In places like Manhattan and SF you can be priced out of the housing market entirely for what you want / need even at nominally high incomes ($300k ish), i.e., there may not be a single 4 bedroom you could afford.
These calculators usually look at metro area averages and derive a value from there. This is pretty worthless and will pick up home prices for houses you’d never consider buying because they’re in awful neighborhoods. While this happens in both cities, you’re likely to still have some options in the lower cost one.
500k in NYC. No brainer. Manhattan is just way better a lifestyle and much easier to command a higher salary when you move because you’ve already be 500k.
I made my own version of a COL calc - plug in rent for each city, and then scale other spend categories up or down accordingly. Also be sure to account for differences in taxes
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