In article , "John A. Weeks III" wrote:

Yes...just think how well off you would be if you had a
big city job at 2/3 the salary, but a nice home at 1/3
the housing cost. You would be sitting pretty. We
have lawyers, doctors, and realtors here in the midwest.
In fact, the factory down the street is planning to get
a computer this year. They might need a computer whiz
to turn the crank on the side of the computer to make
it run.

Mmmm-hmmm. About fifteen years ago, I was at a computer conference where a
handful of guys from New York City, about my age and doing the same kind of
work, were bragging about their high salaries (about 75% higher than mine).
Finally, I'd had enough. I asked the biggest loudmouth how much his house
payment was. Seems he doesn't *have* a house... he's paying $1200/month for a
750-sf apartment.

So I described where I lived at the time: rural area 15 minutes outside
Indianapolis, 1700-sf 2-story farmhouse with 2-car garage and 2000-sf 2-story
barn on nine acres of land including a fenced pasture where we kept our own
horses, little over a mile from an interstate on-ramp, 25-minute highway
commute to work, 35-40 minutes from the center of downtown.

How much, I asked, would that cost in New York?

$800K, the guy answered, to be immediately corrected by his friends: "never
mind the house, the land alone is worth over a million" - "*two* million" said
another - "IF you could even find it, that close to the city" said a third.
Spirited debate ensued among the New Yorkers. They finally concluded that such
a property, if it existed in the NYC area, might be worth $2.5 to $3M.

I said, "I paid eighty thousand."

I didn't hear anything more about high NYC salaries the rest of the week. :-)

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?