As a contractor though, you kind of need to specify how many hours you work on average. I know some who make close to what you make but are killing themselves every week. Know plenty making much less, but work an easy 20hrs. Can you go into more detail on both your schedule and what tech you use? How you market yourself? 190 is quite a good number, so congratulations. Many of us could learn from you

I'm not killing myself for the contract income, but the effort to get the product stuff rolling might do me in.

I'm in a similar situation to yours with similar numbers now. Just curious, what technology are you using? I'm on Rails, outside the valley, but my clients are inside. Ironically enough, 2 years ago I was working for $500/week, and working twice as hard as I am now

Current contract is 80% PHP. I usually prefer to stick with Python, Clojure, and Go. Most of my past work has been Python (including when I was CTO at a funded startup).

How are you arranging your gigs?

You know, I tell people the same thing every time they ask me this, and they respond the same way every time.

Networking, a knack for sales, and a reputation for delivery.

You know this post is from an entity that claims to teach you how to do this, right?

http://signup.goodsense.io/

(I just signed up out of curiosity.)

Just trying to understand but what does that 190k look like post tax in the valley?

I generally do my finances month to month, soooo:

$16,000 per month

$11,500 left after federal and social.

~$10,000 left after California takes its pound of flesh

$1100 for rent (I am frugal and live with a roommate), utilities, cellphone

$170/month for health insurance, $25 a month for motorcycle insurance

Rounding monthly spending up to $2k.

Roughly $8000 left over at the end of each month, meaning I stack up about ~3 months of runway for every month I work.

My biggest indulgence/non-required expense is Instacart. I justify the expense of Instacart as a way of incenting myself to cook from home. (And I do.)

A salaried programmer out here, if they live by themselves and eat out often could quickly find themselves living paycheck to paycheck. God help the people that have families, you need both parents working (now you're coping with the cost of child-care).

Here's how somebody else's story out here looks:

$90,000 a year in salary

$5,500 a month in take-home after taxes.

$3,000 for rent and utilities for a two bedroom apartment for the wife and kid (most people out here have fewer kids. Can't a afford a house for more than one or two).

$600 a month in groceries for a family of 3. If the programmer resists the peer pressure to eat out, the food costs can be constrainted to this.

$1,900 in slop month to month so far.

$150 a month in health insurance premiums (insuring a family is expensive)

$400 a month in car payments + insurance

If any of them are commuting any distance, easily $100 a month in gas.

$1250 left per month.

And you haven't bought your kid any clothes yet.

If you want a decent house in Mountain View (where I live) or Palo Alto you're generally looking at at least $1 million.

$150/mo for insurance for a family is super low unless your company has really good benefits. If you're working at a startup, you're more likely to be putting in $800/mo on top of the employer's contribution.

I'd edit it if I could, good catch!

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I always wondered what tax was along with cost of living because to me Silicon Valley salaries look ridiculous! But I can see how being in the valley can be important for many companies and therefore the higher cost per employee is also justified. Of course, I'm sure there's also a good talent pool making it more worth it.

So I guess a good ballpark would be that most people in the valley would pay ~35% taxes in total. Then, the cost of living but I'm sure the quality of life is also pretty great :)

It's a trade off. It's only worth it me to be out here because I'm a founder. I think being here as a consultant could potentially be advantageous but it hasn't factored into anything non-entrepreneurial/job related.

Also I did the detailed break-down because I hate it when people drop vague numbers without any background detail. Drives me nuts. I know people are curious as to what the cost of living is like in SV, so I figured I'd hammer it out.

My goal is to found something consistently profitable and move back out to the country so I can go back to shooting and tooling around on dirt bikes.

Are you able to have a decent place for $1100/month in rent + utilities? That just sounds awfully low to me even with a roommate. I could see swinging that if you didn't spend much time in your apartment, but it sounds like you do a lot of work there. I'm impressed, nonetheless.

I do think your comparison would have been a little better, though, if you had assumed the second programmer was single as well. Also, a salaried engineer at, say, Google, is going to get a lot more than $90k/year.

Second comparison's health insurance for the family was too low and I was using the salary a lot of startups pay around here.

I like my apartment. We're really lucky with this place. We pay month to month for this two bedroom in Mountain View. Slightly higher rent wouldn't really change the equation though.

Thanks for sharing that. Just curious, how hard do you have to work for that $16K?

In my experience, the pay was independent of how difficult the work was. The hardest job I ever had (technically) was the lowest paying one.

However, the stress has consistently gone up with any increase in pay and/or responsibility. Being a startup CTO (which I was before going back to contracting) was a total barrel of monkeys for example.

By the grace of exercise, diet, sleep, and vitamin D supplements do I keep my sanity intact.

Edit: I just noticed you're one of the Goodsense people. Could you elucidate your question a bit better so I can answer more completely? Do you want to email me instead?

Your answer was perfect. I would be interested in learning more about how you manage to sustain your sanity. Where can I email you? Or you can just use my contact form - http://blog.goodsense.io/contact

I sent my info in with a mention of who I am.

Any proof? Stories to link to?

I don't feel particularly compelled to prove anything to anybody, but here's an anecdote:

I had to stop scanning my client checks using my bank's mobile app because I exceeded the $12k per month limit they instituted.

Now I have to take my checks to the bank like a prole.

Edit:

Since I know HN's humor parser is broken, the "prole" thing was a bit of humor. I grew up very poor and have memories of waiting in line at the bank with my mother when I was young.

It's the internet, a little bit of scepticism is my first gut instinct.

I have a question if you wouldn't mind answering. What did you do to find new (well paying) clients and why?

P.S. I had to look up wikipedia for the definition of prole.

Do you feel you could have reached this stage from outside the Valley?

100% yes.

I stay in the valley for the sake of risk aversion and because I am planning to start a product company soon.

How would you be able to network as effectively as you do now, if you were outside the valley?

The same way I do now? None of my consulting contacts are in the valley.