Transcript

Transcript

Transcript
I’m Raymond Zang. I work as a software engineer making $306, 500 and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m going to be sharing all of my finances. Between my bills and my investments. This is cost of living. I’m a software engineer working at Meta. In terms of my role, I earned $306,500 on average. After taxes and retirement contributions, I am currently taking home about $4000 a month. I currently do not have any other sources of income. I work anywhere between 40 to 50 hours a week on average. In terms of my day-to-day, it can be really anything. My role is fairly dynamic, so I could be doing anything from software engineering and actual coding to some of the more sort of project management or product management stuff, as well as some data science sort of analysis. Prior to joining my current company, I had spent two years living in Dallas and I moved here about 7 or 8 months ago, back in July of 2025. In terms of base rent, I am paying $2600 a month. Amenity fees are included in the base rent. Utilities will cost anywhere between 150 to $170 a month. My electricity bill here is about 50% higher than it was in Dallas, from about 20 to $30.00 per month to about $50.00 a month. I feel like I am getting good value, a lot of the comparable. Areas that are closer to my work could run anywhere between 3500 to $3700 per month, and I’m getting everything that I wanted out of this apt. I live a little bit further away from either the major cities of San Francisco or San Jose or Oakland, but still within commutable distance of all three. Even though I had access to a relocation expert, I decided to do a lot of the research on my own, taking a look at all the things that I wanted to focus on from a living perspective. And after making the decisions, I decided to sign the lease sight unseen, without actually having seen the place in person. Hey, welcome to my apartment O. This is the main kitchen area, it’s quite spacious compared to my last apartment. The only complaint that I really have are these countertops aren’t exactly ideal for the amount that I’m paying, but it’s alright in terms of fridge and freezer. I’ve got some meal prep stuff from the night before as well as a whole host of. Drinks and mixers. In the freezer, very similar thing where I’ve got a couple of frozen things as well as some dumplings that I actually wrapped myself when I was really bored one day. Over here we have my main sort of living slash workshop area. This is where I get all my work done as well as my personal projects. The decision to do without a Cal Jenner TV is really just based on my own needs. I don’t really watch a whole lot of TV, I just use my computer. I don’t host people in my apartment, obviously. If I do decide to hang out with friends, I’ll usually go to their place or maybe a third place, and in the case of hanging out with my friends in virtual reality while everyone sort of split off in their own physical space. We’ve also got a couple of other things over here, just the DJ controller because I really don’t have a lot of other space to put it, as well as my robot cleaner, which gets the job done. It’s not perfect, but it definitely helps out in terms of having to clean over here. We’ve got just the bedroom. I mean, there’s really not much to my bedroom. It gets the job done for me. I have my blanket, my pillow. A filing cabinet doubling as a night stand, as well as my charger there. It’s all that I really need at this point. And this is my bathroom. The highlight of this is really the bidet that I installed. It was about $400.00 or so, but it was a really, really nice quality of life improvement for myself. And outside over here, we’ve got a little bit of a balcony. I don’t spend a lot of time out here, as you may be able to tell, but it is a nice way to get some fresh air in. I’ve been told by many of my friends that my living situation is very Spartan, but really it’s an intentional choice to pick and choose parts of my life that I decide to spend more or less money on. O Even though my living situation right now is fairly sparse, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to stay that way, say, if I decide to have a partner or have kids. Between ride sharing and public transit I will sometimes spend around $30.00 per month, but most of the time it’s zero. I live in the Bay Area without a car and so I think one of the big things to me is the accessibility to public transit. I live about 5 minutes away from the nearest Bay Area Rapid Transit station. I’m actually quite used to living car free. I had lived previously in Dallas for two years without a car and got around in very similar ways. I picked out this apartment also specifically for its proximity to all of the things that I would really want to go to on a regular basis. So that would be a Cafe, boba shops, as well as the grocery store. For those I just walk and for anything else I would either take the public transit or in certain cases, take ride share. Our company, like many other companies around the Bay Area, have shuttles that go around the area and I utilize those to get to and from work. I spent about $300 per month on groceries. I usually budget $75 per month for eating out, but I usually don’t hit that maximum. I used to get online delivery for my groceries, but not anymore. Given that it’s so close to my apartment, I should I should stock up on some more instant noodles. In terms of what I cook on a daily basis, I don’t really have a set plan because of the fact that my company subsidizes both my breakfast and my lunch. Ohh yes, beef short rib 14. 34 or 1099 per pound. This is a cut that usually isn’t super widely available in western grocery stores, so always nice to pick some up from the Asian grocery store. In terms of dinner, I’ll usually meal prep some sort of protein as well as vegetables. So that could be chicken, it could be some fish, it really just depends on my mood. See. This stuff, this stuff is gas. So also a ton of sugar in there, but really really good. So a pack of 6 for 399. I’m lucky enough to be in a situation where food prices have not really affected how I socialize or make these decisions around food choices. Alrighty, let’s go ahead and make our way to the other grocery store. Round 2, Let’s go in terms of cooking versus eating out. I am almost always cooking at home. I very rarely dine out. Man, people are fiending for the Coke Zeroes. He ran out of the of the large ones. Here’s what I got at the Western Supermarket. A loaf of white bread. A bag of white rice. A dozen eggs. A bottle of Coke. And. A gallon of whole milk. In total this came out to be $22.34. Now this isn’t necessarily what I would get on a regular basis, but it’s just to give an idea of how things how much things cost in my area. What do you do for fun in your free time? That’s a that’s an excellent question. In terms of what I do in my free time, there are really three major areas that I spend my money on. The 1st is finances. So really a lot about the credit cards and churning and that sort of thing, as well as my personal finances. There’s also a big aspect of travel, whether that’s domestic or international, and I am also an active participant in the furry community. I currently spend about $1000 a year just for the privilege of owning the credit cards that I currently hold on to. In terms of my hobbies, I generally spend. Between 4:00 and $500 a month across all of them, though in certain cases I will spend a little bit more money and I’m currently saving up for a fursuit. On average, depending on where your maker is, as well as how reputable they are, a fursuit will generally cost between 4:00 to $7000. The furry community means a lot of different things to various people. To some people it’s a way of expressing themselves, sometimes in adult ways, and other times it’s just a way of designing A fictional character and sort of living in a bit of a mascot costume for a while. To me, being part of this community really means designing my own characters as well as embodying them in the form of either commissioning art or in some extreme cases, commissioning pursuits. And all of this faux fur, or at least part of it, will eventually. End up on the head. This is a bigger part of the project, especially since I’m not super familiar with sewing, but it’ll eventually end U on there O My character currently is a bit of a Cyborg hybrid between a canine as well as a robot known in the community colloquially as a protogen. I think for for really anything mentioning furry in the furry community as well because of it being a sort of historically marginalized community in the social space, there are a lot of concerns around doxing as well as in general people not necessarily being super comfortable with being public with this. I just happen to be one of the stupid people that decided to go public with this.