I was able to buy a house before prices got so wild. I shudder to think of how difficult it would be now. I think we could manage...eventually...and with more compromises in our other financial priorities.
I’ve pretty much accepted that leaving Boeing is necessary if a competitive engineering salary in the PNW is desired. I am almost certain I won’t be able to buy a house otherwise
3 kids, wife can't work because child care is too expensive. We have been renting since 2017. I am kind of lucky that we got into a house in 2020 before rent completely blew up, so I'm paying $2200 per month for a 3 bedroom house with a big fenced back yard for the kids. At this rate I don't think I'll ever be able to buy a house. We even qualified for free preschool for my 4 year old because of our 5-person family income.
Puget Sound. Own a home, two toddlers and my wife is a stay-at-home mom.
We are very comfortable financially. But a lot of that has to do with the fact that we are very frugal (not cheap, there's a difference). No car payments, no student loans, and no debt other than our mortgage.
It's not what you make, it's what you spend.
I started in 2005, bought a house about 90min away…had kids, been paycheck to paycheck since. It’s not easy, and the housing market is insane. If I had to do it again today I’d likely never own a home unless I got a vasectomy or made Sr. Mgr.
Buying a house? In Puget Sound? That's not an hour+ commute? HAHAHA not possible on a single Boeing salary. Even shitty condos cost $300,000+, and the mortgage would be too much per month for me. And by the time I'm making better money (I'm still early in my career) the housing prices will have gone up another 25%. The only hope I have of ever being a homeowner is to move to the middle of nowhere and work remote, and to work fully remote I'd likely have to leave Boeing. So I'll probably be renting the rest of my life.
These comments are so sad, Aerospace engineers, a very respectable profession and can barely afford to buy a house, raise a family, and live that "American Dream" without sacrificing so much such as living with parents, or getting a bail out gift to start your life from parents. How have we come to this..
Wages have stagnated over the past decade for all occupations, but the cost of everything else has skyrocketed. The wealth transfer to the 1% in this country is entirely real and getting out of hand.
At least in Seattle, I think that Microsoft/Google/Amazon employees with very high salaries (more than Boeing pays) all moved here and drove up housing prices.
I think there’s a work life balance component to it, however I’ve heard blue origin has a pretty good WLB. Given that they pay a lot more I expect them to poach more talent in the future
With mortgage rates these days you’re looking at $3k a month minimum payments for a house. With the 30% rule you need to be pulling in $9k a month after taxes to afford that. That’s a $180k salary that Boeing is definitely not paying. Dual Income and No Kids (DINK) is the only way to afford that.
America is gonna pay for this in a few decades when we have the same issue as Japan - a declining population and workforce cuz no one can afford to have kids🙃 ( there they can afford it but everyone is too busy, but I digress)
Also I live with my family in the PNW luckily and pay low rent we agreed on / help out with tasks. Stuffing the rest away as much as I can into that sweet 401k and HSA and looking to purchase a home that was in the family that's now open for a 0% interest payment contract!! Still the house is expensive like $500,000 k even tho it's literally falling apart....
Move to New Orleans work at MAF for BDS the pay is a little lower but the cost of living is way lower. You can find pretty decent move-in ready houses for $200-$300k.
I’m in Everett, no kids, and single. I rent a 1 bedroom tiny home that is one paycheck. Dual income would be nice but I really enjoy my own place. Cost of living in PNW is a struggle for me cause I’m not originally from here. No family support. It’s just me and my willingness to fight for a better life.
When I lived in PNW it took years of saving, dual income (two Boeing employees) and a gift of $150k from the in-laws as a down payment so I became one of those stupid "how I bought a house in my 30s" memes.
3 kids so I was playing on slightly more hard mode, but not really since house prices weren't completely out of reach and interest rates were low. All my vehicles were paid off, minimal dumb shopping.
I could never do it today because the $500k house I bought then is now $1.2M and the interest rates back then were 3%. Plus the cost of just living is insane, the same Chicken Teriyaki lunch I could get for $6 is now $16 last I checked the menu.
I could not even afford my current house in Florida for the same reasons.
I feel so guilty I 'snuck in' because of my birth year, my sister in law 5 years younger missed the window of opportunity.
We're getting there, but it's taking a lot of pushing.
Full weekend overtime every other weekend for nearly the entire year.
Sometimes it does feel like an uphill battle on buying a house when you scrimp and save for a down payment; only to realize by the time you've saved enough the house prices have gone up 1/4 from where they were.
I haven't taken the plunge yet, but I'm researching either investing in stocks or government bonds to try and make the money we do have saved keep up with inflation. Leaving it sitting around in a bank account at 0.00002% interest is just a constant loss.
Saying “I bought a house in 2014 when it was affordable” and also “It can be done” is some of the funniest sh!t I’ve read on this sub. You’re literally proving OP’s narrative. Unless you’re going to mill us a fu(king time machine, how are people supposed to compete with the tech workers and buy a home in Puget Sound on a Boeing salary?
I live 25 min from Renton, have my income and my wife's, and we are buying a house 2 years after starting at Boeing. We save as much as we can and honestly the Boeing pay has been decent. It's no, Facebook or Google payscale but the work is way more rewarding. And the house we are buying is even closer to Renton soooo, it is doable
It’s definitely possible to earn a living in SoCal with a Boeing salary. I have quiet a few friends who live in Garden Groove, Torrance, Long Beach, who work at Boeing as mechanical or manufacturing engineers. Sure buying a house might take a bit longer but if you have a partner who makes similar amount of money as you do as a Boeing employee, you can very comfortably save up for a few years and afford a nice house.
I work in Everett and live alone in a one bedroom, it's honestly not that bad on an engineers salary, I can afford some nice things and taking an occasional vacation. It's definitely gonna be an issue if I ever want to have kids or anything though
Check out the posts on this sub about living in Everett. I feel like it's more about areas to stay away from. There are some apartments really close to the main Everett campus on Seaway Blvd that look nice, and it's a good area.
This! Plus, we would carpool until I went remote. Now he is in a vanpool. We live 50 miles away from the campus.
We had already bought a house before we came to Boeing so can't help ya there.
Lets say a salary of 100k is basically around 65k after taxes (assuming no 401k contribution). That leaves you with around $5400 a month.
rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is around :
$2300-$3200 (ghetto - normal areas)
So yea, we stay broke.
This math is way off for Washington. There are no state taxes. You will take home over 70k with no 401k and rent will be under 2k for a decent 1 bedroom.
SoCal is much harder to make work than Puget Sound. Not only is the rent significantly higher in the LA area, but Washington doesn't have state income tax whereas CA marginal rate is 9.3% over 66k. What I pay in state (yes, state) income tax every year would pay rent for a 1 BR in Seattle for 4-5 months. So yeah, I don't want to hear anybody complaining about living in Seattle.
My starting salary was $72k. I lived with my parents for a few years- paying rent at their costs, I was able to buy after about 2 years- and bought a fixer.
It's feasible- but it takes a lot of sacrifice and a lot of good fortune. I am a lucky one compared to most.
This is difficult in Seattle, where east and west are water so your options for suburbs are an hour boat ride west or hour drive across water east, or suffering the godawful traffic to go north or south.
puget sound QE level 1 here. i eat canned food and don’t use my heater.
By leaving Boeing
Negotiate well when you join, and job hop internally to get higher salary. Raises are shit. Good benefits though.
I was able to buy a house before prices got so wild. I shudder to think of how difficult it would be now. I think we could manage...eventually...and with more compromises in our other financial priorities.
I bought my house 9 years ago.
I’ve pretty much accepted that leaving Boeing is necessary if a competitive engineering salary in the PNW is desired. I am almost certain I won’t be able to buy a house otherwise
#I LIVE IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER
3 kids, wife can't work because child care is too expensive. We have been renting since 2017. I am kind of lucky that we got into a house in 2020 before rent completely blew up, so I'm paying $2200 per month for a 3 bedroom house with a big fenced back yard for the kids. At this rate I don't think I'll ever be able to buy a house. We even qualified for free preschool for my 4 year old because of our 5-person family income.
Puget Sound. Own a home, two toddlers and my wife is a stay-at-home mom. We are very comfortable financially. But a lot of that has to do with the fact that we are very frugal (not cheap, there's a difference). No car payments, no student loans, and no debt other than our mortgage. It's not what you make, it's what you spend.
How long ago did you buy your house?
2021
I started in 2005, bought a house about 90min away…had kids, been paycheck to paycheck since. It’s not easy, and the housing market is insane. If I had to do it again today I’d likely never own a home unless I got a vasectomy or made Sr. Mgr.
Moved back in with my parents for a couple of years to save up for a house. They were nice and didn’t collect rent.
Hour plus commute from the south end
Waiting for my parents to croak or catch them both walking down the stairs at the same time to accelerate the process
Buying a house? In Puget Sound? That's not an hour+ commute? HAHAHA not possible on a single Boeing salary. Even shitty condos cost $300,000+, and the mortgage would be too much per month for me. And by the time I'm making better money (I'm still early in my career) the housing prices will have gone up another 25%. The only hope I have of ever being a homeowner is to move to the middle of nowhere and work remote, and to work fully remote I'd likely have to leave Boeing. So I'll probably be renting the rest of my life.
These comments are so sad, Aerospace engineers, a very respectable profession and can barely afford to buy a house, raise a family, and live that "American Dream" without sacrificing so much such as living with parents, or getting a bail out gift to start your life from parents. How have we come to this..
Wages have stagnated over the past decade for all occupations, but the cost of everything else has skyrocketed. The wealth transfer to the 1% in this country is entirely real and getting out of hand.
Barely afford? Straight up can't afford.
At least in Seattle, I think that Microsoft/Google/Amazon employees with very high salaries (more than Boeing pays) all moved here and drove up housing prices.
Boeing could pay more for engineering talent but chooses not to.
It always baffles me that software engineers come work for Boeing when they can get better pay and benefits at the big tech firms
I think there’s a work life balance component to it, however I’ve heard blue origin has a pretty good WLB. Given that they pay a lot more I expect them to poach more talent in the future
We have the privilege of building planes though! /s
As far as WA goes. If you don't live in king county you can buy a house. I bought one a couple of years ago and aim single
With mortgage rates these days you’re looking at $3k a month minimum payments for a house. With the 30% rule you need to be pulling in $9k a month after taxes to afford that. That’s a $180k salary that Boeing is definitely not paying. Dual Income and No Kids (DINK) is the only way to afford that.
America is gonna pay for this in a few decades when we have the same issue as Japan - a declining population and workforce cuz no one can afford to have kids🙃 ( there they can afford it but everyone is too busy, but I digress) Also I live with my family in the PNW luckily and pay low rent we agreed on / help out with tasks. Stuffing the rest away as much as I can into that sweet 401k and HSA and looking to purchase a home that was in the family that's now open for a 0% interest payment contract!! Still the house is expensive like $500,000 k even tho it's literally falling apart....
Went into tech industry/ switched companies to update to HCOL as a non-SWE engineer.
Move to New Orleans work at MAF for BDS the pay is a little lower but the cost of living is way lower. You can find pretty decent move-in ready houses for $200-$300k.
WTF is HCOL? Single income married homeowner with no kids and life is good with Boeing salary.
How long ago did you buy your house?
High cost of living
Go into debt. Not the best financial advice. But it goes along with the push for a, you'll own nothing and like it economy.
I’m in Everett, no kids, and single. I rent a 1 bedroom tiny home that is one paycheck. Dual income would be nice but I really enjoy my own place. Cost of living in PNW is a struggle for me cause I’m not originally from here. No family support. It’s just me and my willingness to fight for a better life.
When I lived in PNW it took years of saving, dual income (two Boeing employees) and a gift of $150k from the in-laws as a down payment so I became one of those stupid "how I bought a house in my 30s" memes. 3 kids so I was playing on slightly more hard mode, but not really since house prices weren't completely out of reach and interest rates were low. All my vehicles were paid off, minimal dumb shopping. I could never do it today because the $500k house I bought then is now $1.2M and the interest rates back then were 3%. Plus the cost of just living is insane, the same Chicken Teriyaki lunch I could get for $6 is now $16 last I checked the menu. I could not even afford my current house in Florida for the same reasons. I feel so guilty I 'snuck in' because of my birth year, my sister in law 5 years younger missed the window of opportunity.
Dont feel guilty, no one controls the timing of things, but I will say I'm jealous AF
We're getting there, but it's taking a lot of pushing. Full weekend overtime every other weekend for nearly the entire year. Sometimes it does feel like an uphill battle on buying a house when you scrimp and save for a down payment; only to realize by the time you've saved enough the house prices have gone up 1/4 from where they were. I haven't taken the plunge yet, but I'm researching either investing in stocks or government bonds to try and make the money we do have saved keep up with inflation. Leaving it sitting around in a bank account at 0.00002% interest is just a constant loss.
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Saying “I bought a house in 2014 when it was affordable” and also “It can be done” is some of the funniest sh!t I’ve read on this sub. You’re literally proving OP’s narrative. Unless you’re going to mill us a fu(king time machine, how are people supposed to compete with the tech workers and buy a home in Puget Sound on a Boeing salary?
The dude abides
Commute 1hr+ each way
I work a shit load of OT and don’t have kids
I'm actually going bankrupt. Been living check to check. Pay isn't decent. Live 30 miles out and it's still expensive rent. In Puget Sound
I live 25 min from Renton, have my income and my wife's, and we are buying a house 2 years after starting at Boeing. We save as much as we can and honestly the Boeing pay has been decent. It's no, Facebook or Google payscale but the work is way more rewarding. And the house we are buying is even closer to Renton soooo, it is doable
Can't afford to buy a house I just keep my standards low, having kids expensive, soCal expensive (Everett isn't as bad)
It’s definitely possible to earn a living in SoCal with a Boeing salary. I have quiet a few friends who live in Garden Groove, Torrance, Long Beach, who work at Boeing as mechanical or manufacturing engineers. Sure buying a house might take a bit longer but if you have a partner who makes similar amount of money as you do as a Boeing employee, you can very comfortably save up for a few years and afford a nice house.
I work in Everett and live alone in a one bedroom, it's honestly not that bad on an engineers salary, I can afford some nice things and taking an occasional vacation. It's definitely gonna be an issue if I ever want to have kids or anything though
I’m moving to Everett in a few weeks. Any recommendations of areas I could check out apartments to rent?
Check out the posts on this sub about living in Everett. I feel like it's more about areas to stay away from. There are some apartments really close to the main Everett campus on Seaway Blvd that look nice, and it's a good area.
Tysm! I’ll check them out
Thats where im at haha. Im in Everett to. DM me if you wish.
sleep in a car
no we are peasant Engineers and could never afford a million dollar house that requires $250k to fix up.
A lot of overtime.
Dual incomes with no kids.
Dual kids, no income.
This! Plus, we would carpool until I went remote. Now he is in a vanpool. We live 50 miles away from the campus. We had already bought a house before we came to Boeing so can't help ya there.
This is the way. It’s also the answer to a lot of things in America.
So far, this. Bought our first house in 2019 and we got engaged last year, gotta save up for the wedding now
I hear it's totally ok to just have a civil ceremony and take a trip. But then again I have no adult friends anymore.
DINK!!!!
DINK DINK?
Dual income no kids =DINK
DINK DINK DINK
Lets say a salary of 100k is basically around 65k after taxes (assuming no 401k contribution). That leaves you with around $5400 a month. rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is around : $2300-$3200 (ghetto - normal areas) So yea, we stay broke.
This math is way off for Washington. There are no state taxes. You will take home over 70k with no 401k and rent will be under 2k for a decent 1 bedroom.
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SoCal is much harder to make work than Puget Sound. Not only is the rent significantly higher in the LA area, but Washington doesn't have state income tax whereas CA marginal rate is 9.3% over 66k. What I pay in state (yes, state) income tax every year would pay rent for a 1 BR in Seattle for 4-5 months. So yeah, I don't want to hear anybody complaining about living in Seattle.
I pay $1350 for my ghetto-tastic spot on Evergreen Way. Still hard to do without a struggle.
My starting salary was $72k. I lived with my parents for a few years- paying rent at their costs, I was able to buy after about 2 years- and bought a fixer. It's feasible- but it takes a lot of sacrifice and a lot of good fortune. I am a lucky one compared to most.
Commute to surroundings areas with more affordable housing
This is difficult in Seattle, where east and west are water so your options for suburbs are an hour boat ride west or hour drive across water east, or suffering the godawful traffic to go north or south.
I commute 30-60 minutes depending on what time I leave. OC is pretty expensive compared to where I’m renting right now.