[Clug-work] C/C++ and Perl developers needed

[Alan McKinnon]

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:25 PM, Jonathan Carter (highvoltage)
<jonathan at clug.org.za> wrote:
>  * I earn more than that and I can barely program at all (not that I'm
> in a programming-specific job though), and I can in absolutely no way
> afford a nice home or to have children or even support a wife. Some
> months go by where I even make a loss if I add up all my income and
> expenses. When my father was my age (oh my God I sound like him now), he
> could do all of that with a very simple income. These days, you should
> really not even be thinking of raising a family, imho, if your combined
> salary is less than R60000 a month. Men usually make more than women, so
> unless you have a rich wife (or parents, etc), you'll probably have to
> make quite a bit more than that.

> Wow. You must have some expensive habits or something... Both my wife
> and I usually earn less than the much discussed 25k (before
> deductions), and we own 1.5 properties (the other 0.5 is owned by a
> family member). But then again, my 10-year old car is paid off and I
> live in a sub-million-rand house ;-) Suppose it has something to do
> with choices as Adrianna said.

But you aren't going to the bank today and asking for the money to buy a house 
today. I have the misfortune of having to do that right now.

The house I want is a million bucks. It's not a flashy house, it's in a nice 
suburb with 3 beds, 2 "california garages", 2 bathrooms, a playroom for the 
kids and a pool. It's also far away from father-in-law up on Northcliff hill, 
which suits me just fine. But I digress.

A million bucks is a big number but it's not a lot of money for a house. The 
million bucks is what I negotiated the price *down*to* after the insanity in 
the market of the last 18 months. I shudder to think what you guys are paying 
for houses in Cape Town - my ex tells me what she paid for hers and I wonder 
how you can afford to live if you are not already halfway through the 
mortgage.

Jonathan's numbers are not out the ballpark at all. Actually, they are 
spot-on.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com