Comment by swiftcoder

> Work a US job for 4 months, quit, take the next 8 months for holiday/vacation, and you still save more money than a European SWE.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that you have a decent software job in the Bay Area, so you earn somewhere in the region of $350k. That little 4 month stint earns you just $116k (since quitting after 4 months means you'll have to return any signing bonus).

Now in the Bay Area your median mortgage is around $3,500/month, so with modest living expenses we're talking a burn of about $5,500/month, meaning you need to spend about $66,000 to cover the year. Plus $17,000 in state and federal taxes, you're now down to a cushion of 33k/year.

That's assuming, of course, that you are happy sending your kids to public school in a dodgy district (private school fees alone would wipe you out, as would the mortgages in a good public school district).

The math doesn't math here chief