I’m typing today’s entry from the Westfield mall in San Jose, right across the street from Santana Row. It is invariably the most crowded part of this city by far. It’s also Tuesday – and it seems like a lot of people have this week off, judging by the amount of people around me.

Sometimes I’ve wondered what it’s like to live up in the Bay Area. I’m quickly reminded whenever I consider this option just how much it costs to live around here. Someone earning $90k a year in a salary in SF is equivalent to someone earning $40k in Los Angeles (some parts). I was talking about this topic with my buddy Dan, who lives in Campbell- a now-discovered gem of Silicon Valley.

The common story I always hear is “we got lucky” and landed this house, or this job, obviously before the market got too crazy. These are the happy cases – because now they’re somewhat dialed in for the next few years at least. The other stories I hear are the ones paying $3-5k for a tiny apartment somewhere in the city. How this is sustainable even for a young single professional is a mystery, let alone what it’s like when they become married with children.

The Bay Area seems to be laden with these kinds of stories – yet I know so many who insist on living in this place. There must be something about this place that I just have zero clue about, even though I am from northern California.

Whenever I visit the Bay Area, I feel an underlying sense of desire for consumption, whether it’s the latest tech, or fighting for a scarce parking spot, or battling a throng of people in line to eat at the latest trendy foodie fad spot – it’s a constant need to get, get, get, go, go, go- I see it in the eyes of people around me here. It’s almost as if there is a delirium in the air – from the way people consume to the way they drive down the 280 freeway.

My buddy Dan and I briefly discussed what it really takes to live comfortably in the Yay Area. The number hovers around an annual income of $400k per household. Surprisingly enough, that’s actually attainable with 2 incomes from experienced workforce folks. But even then the household needs to be frugal to make ends meet. You know what’s really crazy, $400k is not even that much in the grand scheme of things, when you’ve got some super high earners living right next door to you, inflating the price of everything and anything in the area.

If $400k/yr is the number one needs to make to live like a human being in the Bay Area, I won’t be living there anytime soon, for sure! I don’t know how my friends up here do it – unless there’s some lucky secret I’m unaware of. I’m not about to live like an Asian immigrant laborer either, packing into a room with 5 other people.

So crazy what it takes to live right these days.