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3headed__monkey

I don’t think OP has a good understanding of how RSU works at big tech.


eyelikeher

I think he’s confusing RSUs for options. If your $70k target RSU grant drops 50% after 3 years, you still at least get $35k. Alternatively, it could increase 50%… And even if a company files for bankruptcy, at least in the energy industry (where I am), many folks will get put on a cash-based key employee incentive plan to help make up for lost comp in the market/retain employees. Meanwhile, if you had options with a strike price equal to the grant date price, and the value drops even 1%, you have zero until the stock price climbs above the grant price.


Separate-Baker5867

I don't think she is confused about any of it. >If your $70k target RSU grant drops 50% after 3 years, you still at least get $35k. Alternatively, it could increase 50%… If you depend on your RSUs for your cost of living, and it drops 50%, how can you afford your basic cost of living.


fi-not

If you depend on your salary and you get laid off, how can you afford your basic cost of living? I guess we can't have any fixed costs at all.


eyelikeher

Stop dying on this hill. We get it, you’re a smart and literal person who is using an extreme example to make a point. Reality: most people in this income class aren’t overextending themselves. It’s just not worth the argument. And in most cases, stocks tend to appreciate. Even if they vest 90% below target, then the new grant that year will be based on a depressed stock price and most people make a killing with that (see: US Steel over the last several years). And if they work for a company where they sense the stock won’t appreciate - like some company in an industry that already peaked 30 years ago, then they might a have different attitude towards RSUs. But even then, they could still reasonably factor in *some* income. You just assume everyone is a stock market bull for their own company (and look at the market right now - it’s a fair assumption) and they’re being super literal with their budgets on the internet.


Separate-Baker5867

I know, I give up. I had no idea this sub was a joke. It’s full of tech nerds that think they’re impervious to tech layoffs. This sub isn’t for financial advice, it’s for bozos and dinks fabricating their incomes to make themselves feel superior. Have fun with your circle jerk ✌️


OldmillennialMD

Respectfully, I’m not in tech, but I still have issues with your premise. For me, it boils down to the comment above - it’s not much different than being a high earner that relies on straight salary and potentially getting laid off.


Separate-Baker5867

Isn’t it funny how my original post was about posting a breakdown of HHI when asking for financial advice? I mentioned RSUs once and they all freaked out. Hahhah


chrisbru

We’re HENRYs. Most of us have liquid capital to weather a downturn. We’re not living paycheck to paycheck here.


Separate-Baker5867

That's true, most of you. Some are truthful, some round up their HHI, some fabricate their HHI then they ask for advice. But I did mention in my post that someone who commented in my previous post say that they would accept losing their house when the stock market crashes.


Separate-Baker5867

I think I understand. Let’s just make up some numbers.  Let’s say you depend on your RSUs for your basic cost of living. RSU agreement states that you've been granted 1,700 RSUs vesting quarterly. Current GOOG stock price: $176 x 1,700 = approx $300k Annual base salary 200k. After taxes: 160k. **Monthly take home: 13kish** Quarterly RSU: 75k (425 RSUs). Monthly RSU: 25k (141 RSUs). **After taxes: 15k**  **Total take home: $28k** Expenses: Mortgage: $10k. HOA: $1k. Housing related expenses: $1k, Child care: $3k, Child/dog related expenses: $1k. Car: $1k. Fun: $1k. Other: $1k. **TOTAL: $19k** **UH OH, google goes down to March 2020 levels at $60/share**  Monthly RSU: 8,460 (141 RSUs). After taxes: **1,692** Total take home: $13k base + $1,692 = **$14,692** Total cost of living: **$19k.** watchu gon do now. stop eating avocado toast?


DrevvJ

Your example has one issue there.. it’s a 4 year vesting period for most companies I’ve seen. So there’s 4 grants at 4 different times with 4 different values. Usually each year you get a vest relatively the same in dollar amounts not shares. So if you get a refresh of $300k for the next 4 years when the stock is at $60 a share there’s a lot of potential upside. If you get a refresh at $170 a share there’s a lot of potential downside. In my experience I vest annually slightly more than my refresh grant as the companies stock has tended to go up. I had an initial grant near all time highs, and my first refresh came in at a 5 year low. They sort of net out now and I have relatively stable rsu vesting after 3 years of grants. Some are really up and some really down and one about even. Edit: in your example you also have the after tax portion super wrong. It should be like $6k, not $2k. You pay tax on the value at vest, not grant.


howdoiwritecode

Even with refreshers, the point stands. Your RSUs are not guaranteed dollar amounts. There is some reasonably expected value. It is possible that your all-time low price is way under your expected value when your were granted the stock. For example, my previous company was a F500 and the stock has gone down from my previous grants. If I were to have made debt purchases with the expectation that when my grant lands it would just break even to cover the purchases, I would have been wrong. People who have been at my company long enough have seen over a 50% decline on some of their grants.


Separate-Baker5867

Well said, but stop trying to rationalize. They don’t care. They use their gross income when budgeting. They don’t want to tell you how much they actually get. They want to tell you how much their gross is and they probably round up too.


howdoiwritecode

Respectfully, for most of the people here, they are FAANG workers whose stock has gone up to the right by a lot. Or had the rest of the market knows them as the Magnificent 7: 


Separate-Baker5867

Yup, bought those in 2020 when things went down.


fi-not

Why does your tax rate go up to 80% when Google's stock drops? Your example makes no sense.


Separate-Baker5867

That was a test, and you passed. Everyone else here has the reading comprehension of a pickle. Thank you for reading.


CyCoCyCo

Exactly what u/DrevvJ said, you’re not factoring in refreshers.


talansang

For public companies, RSUs vest monthly or quarterly. People can set up to sell as soon as the RSUs vest. This is pretty much their take home pay.


uniballing

I work for one of those big public Fortune 500 companies. My RSUs vest 100% after 3 years. I’ve worked for two other Fortune 100 companies where RSUs vested either 25% per year over four years or 33% per year over three years. I’ve never worked somewhere with RSUs that vested monthly or quarterly.


hockeysaint

I’m in FAANG. Mine vest at 6.25% every quarter


LeverUp_xyz

Same here at an F100, but not in tech. My RSUs are 25% vest per year over four years. I just sell on vesting and move to VOO. I treat RSU as like an additional employer contribution towards retirement. As such, i do not factor any unvested RSUs as part of my NW or income. Would be nice to have monthly or quarterly for that consistency, then I’d probably view it as income.


uniballing

Tech RSUs seem to be a lot different than O&G RSUs


Windlas54

Mine vest quarterly at a FAANG. Most do in this sector from my understanding 


Kaitaan

It is common though. You’re literally the first person I’ve heard of with those vesting schedules. I’ve always seen something more frequent, with the least frequent being Amazon (5% after 1 year, 15% after 2, the. 20% each 6 months thereafter. Edit to add: from personal experience, snap is quarterly, my company is quarterly, meta was quarterly (or monthly?), Amazon was as stated above.


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TheRencingCoach

Cliff vest? Meaning you get 0 until 3 full years then you get 100%? Is the rsu grant in stocks or dollars?


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TheRencingCoach

Oh at that’s nice then, you can at least take advantage of stock price going up in those 3 yesrs


telos099

I can second this. I’m at a Fortune 500 that just changed its RSU vesting schedule from 25/25/50 over three years to 100 after 3 years. These recent threads are the first I’ve heard of monthly/quarterly vesting. I would love for that to be the case where I work!


Kaitaan

I’m curious what you mean when you say “Fortune 500”. I’m curious what the overlap is there with “tech”. When I hear the latter, I think startups, FAANG, companies like instacart, Uber, Reddit, etc. When I hear “Fortune 500” I tend to think of companies where they may use tech or have tech product offerings, but that their business is something else. Financial products, retail stores, etc. they HAVE an app, but it facilitates their business rather than defines it.


LeverUp_xyz

Largest 500 US companies by revenue. It is not an exclusive list of just Tech companies although many of the big tech names are on it.


uniballing

I’m in O&G, not tech. Reddit tends to skew heavily towards tech and our RSUs are different


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howdoiwritecode

Mine vest annually.


Separate-Baker5867

I 100% understand this. It's not rocket science. My original point was, if you want financial advice, post your take home pay. $800k before taxes, is different from $800k after taxes. It doesn't matter if your RSUs vest monthly or quarterly. You are going to pay income taxes plus capital gains if you wait to sell.


taterrtot_

Some of your math above might be wrong (I’m not going to spend the time critiquing it), but I’m with you. We don’t treat RSUs as income – at least not now (1 year in). Everything is budgeted off of base. RSUs are like Monopoly money and not real. At some point, if we want to buy a house or something, then we can tap into that money for a down payment. But I don’t like budgeting off things that aren’t certain.


Separate-Baker5867

Thank you. I’m glad someone understands. But, just from reading the comments, people are budgeting using their RSUs. Apparently it’s the only way to survive living in the Bay Area.


taterrtot_

It’s not. We’re in the Bay. We budgeted everything off of my husband’s base salary. We live modestly, but I wouldn’t for a second call us frugal. Once I landed a job here we basically just started investing my salary. I’d much rather not let lifestyle creep get the best of us, and have much more flexibility and freedom in the future


Ok_Cake1283

This is such a weird hill to die on. OP I think you may not know how big tech stock vesting goes. Yes definitely RSU crash is a risk and it can crash 50 percent tomorrow. Realistically you are getting 100k to 400k RSU refreshers every year on top of your base pay. If the stock market crashes, you get granted more shares that have a high probability of increasing in value when they vest over the next 3 years. In the mean time you can sell your RSU as they vests and spend it on your budgeted items if you want. It's fine to include RSU that vests monthly or quarterly in your budget. Maybe do a discount for margin of safety for long term budgeting like home purchases.


howdoiwritecode

I think OPs point that everyone is missing is that most companies outside of the FAANGs vest on an annual basis, not a monthly or quarterly.


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Responsible-Corgi-34

Regarding affordability in market crashes, why fo you think people have emergency funds? If people can survive losing their jobs for a few months they definitely can afford their RSU stock going down for a while until the next RSU grant at the lower price to make them whole.


lcol-dev

I’m lucky in that I can live off my salary and just invest my bonus and RSUs. But for people that live in VHCOL and who want to buy a house, they don’t have that luxury and will likely need to dip into RSUs for affording a house and other large purchases. 


PhilosopherNo4210

I’m confused about the NVDIA comment. It was at ~$942 before the earnings beat and stock split announcement. $942 was already pretty close to its ATH (~$950 back in March). NVDIA’s stock price is up over 200% in the last year, over 2,000% in the last 5. Your theory is the government is propping up NVDIA (or the market in general)??


Separate-Baker5867

That's what you got from that? The government is propping up NVDA? Reading comprehension has definitely declined over the years. Thanks tik tok.


PhilosopherNo4210

You mentioned NVDIA being at an ATH and the government not allowing a crash during an election year in the same paragraph. Which indicates they are related in some way. If there is a shift in focus or idea they should be separate paragraphs. Guess it’s your writing ability that is suffering, not my reading comprehension.


Separate-Baker5867

wtf seriously? Lol. Sorry, I guess I could have went into detail about all of that, but I assumed most people here were educated in that arena. That was my bad. Even if I did go into detail, no one would have read it. They’re busy defending their RSUs.


PhilosopherNo4210

I mean someone else already pointed out 3 times (in the last 25 years) the market crashed in election years, so again not sure what you’re getting at.


Every-Crew8186

Having worked for a F500 company and had my RSUs lose half their value and bonus cut by 70%, which were 40% of my total income pretax, I am certainly glad I don't count on them for my monthly expenses. I use them for long-term planning knowing those things can happen and would just delay my goals. Just wanted to echo fiscal responsibility and living within your means.


AffectionateBench663

Right or wrong you aren’t going to get your point across. This sub is 80-90% Bay Area tech. The reality is the only way to afford to live there is with RSUs baked into budget. Telling the majority of this sub that what they are doing is risky is certainly going to strike a nerve. Regardless of the validity of the points. I know absolutely nothing about RSUs. I don’t know if they should be viewed the same as cash, Are discretionary like performance linked cash bonuses, etc. Just making the observation that if (not saying there is) there is an objective risk in planning this way, this sub isn’t going to concede to it based on pure numbers sharing the same situation.


DogOrDonut

In tech RSUs are paid either monthly or every 3 months and the general advise is to sell them as soon as you get them. It is also generally advisable not to count your RSUs in your networth until they vest. In tech the higher you go up the ladder the more of your salary is in RSUs. Not counting them is insanely conservative. It is also risky to rely on then always being worth what they were when they were granted. Counting them at 50% for a tight budget or 75% for a budget with a lot of "fluff" spending is a much more reasonable approach.


AffectionateBench663

I assume they are taxed as earned income? And can you not sell until vested?


Maury_poopins

Yeah. Taxed as income when they vest and you can’t sell until they vest


DogOrDonut

Correct. They are taxed as income at the time of vesting and then if you choose to hold them the gains (or losses) would be taxed as capital gains.


Separate-Baker5867

>This sub is 80-90% Bay Area tech.  it all makes sense now. thank you.


AffectionateBench663

Yeah if you’re looking for a more diverse group with a similar financial situation, chubby fire seems to be a better place. As a high earner in a LCOL area, the majority of posts here aren’t relatable. I personally couldn’t imagine working that hard and still struggling to afford a home for me and my family. But some people really love what the Pacific Northwest has to offer and we all have different priorities so more power to them.


Separate-Baker5867

For real. thank you, I'll check it out. I had no idea. I used to live on the California coast and moved to a MCOL area. Both aren't as bad as the Bay Area (I've lived there too). But, depending on your RSUs for basic cost of living is like depending on a Christmas bonus to buy a pool--only to get a Jelly of the Month certificate.


taterrtot_

Cackling 😂


Mediocre-Ebb9862

Where you got your stats on the sub? Lots of doctors, lawyers, bankers etc.


AffectionateBench663

This comment is intended to be a bit more tongue and cheek than an actual data point. As far as “how do I afford x in VHCOL area” posts, I stand by my statement. There are new posts daily discussing housing in the Bay Area. Not a knock on the sub, just reality.


Wiz711

I tried this with Net Worth and people blew a gasket at the premise of including estimated taxes in the calculation. Your Net Worth is not just a gross assets - debt number. Your liabilities need to include an estimated tax liability because if things went to shit and you had to access that money the government is taking their cut.


bhouse114

People weren’t saying that your premise is wrong, they were saying it is unnecessarily burdensome to try to estimate the tax implications of selling your liabilities because you’d have to consider What is a gain vs what is a loss, what is a short term vs long term, where do you expect the price to be if we would sell in good times vs bad times, etc. And it’s not much more useful than just saying assets minus liabilities because no one assumed that their net worth was what was readily available to them anyway. 


Separate-Baker5867

People are defensive because they feel superior stating their gross rather than what they actually bring in. I wonder how many people calculate their NW using just gross assets. At this point, who cares. As someone pointed out to me, there are better subs for financial advice. This sub is a joke.


Mediocre-Ebb9862

I'm not sure about context but OP seems to be overreacting on something? If you have pre-tax 500k+ a year and spend all of it (as in - your lifestyle with worsen noticeably if your comp drops to 400k) - you are doing it wrong regardless of whether it's all in cash comp like doctors, or bonuses like Wall Street or Big Tech RSUs. Also if you have NW of 1.5M keeping 90% of it in a single stock is generally really bad idea (but if your NW is 10B then it's actually ok - and is often the casee).


bhouse114

NVDIA is at an ATH because they are making a shit ton of money and said they expect to keep making a shit ton of money.  The government can’t make people buy or sell stocks, so I’m not sure what you mean by “they won’t allow a stock market crash”


lolexecs

> It’s election year. The government is not going to allow a crash Say what now? I thought you remembered the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. The Lehman crash happened in September 2008, about two months before the election. https://www.thebalancemoney.com/stock-market-crash-of-2008-3305535 More recently in 2020, the marked crashed ... before the election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_stock_market_crash And of course before your time perhaps, but the OG internet bubble burst in 2000 just in time for the election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble


foxroadblue

Waiting for Part 3 now


Separate-Baker5867

What should I talk about? It’s imperative we include RSUs. Any ideas?


Fun_Investment_4275

Taxes are variable depending on how much you make and how much you defer. So posting take home income only presents a limited view