Hi guys,
I need to ask you all this question, people who live in Zurich. I recently got a job in there and I might have made a mistake negotiating the salary (mainly because of ignorance) and also because I've been looking to move to Switzerland for the last 6 months and this offer was a good opportunity. But this is quite worrying me. My salary will be 70.000 CHF a year and I don't know if I'll be able to survive with this salary and also if I'll be able to find an apartment since this salary might not convince landlords.
I understand I'll have to look for an apartment outside Zurich and I was wondering which locations are good to live in and how much rent I can afford to pay with this salary.
Thanks a lot
Fran
Yes, it's fine. Not brilliant, but fine.
There are tons of threads on the forum asking about this. Just put "salary" into the search box in the top right corner.
Depends on your circumstances. Are you bringing a family and kids along with you? What is your lifestyle?
You can find a reasonable apartment from about CHF 1000 per month, sign up for the cheapest health insurance and live off a low budget for food and limit your visits to restaurants.
If you need a 3 bedroom flat in a trendy area and live off lamb fillet twice a week and eat out for the rest of the time, and bring a stack of chronic illnesses with you, you'd better go back to the negotiating table.
Good lord, another dig at Cali!?
Thanks for the answer guys. No, I'm not bringing anyone with me and I don't have a luxurious life style. I don't usually eat meat but sometimes I like going out for a pint of beer...
Any advice about good areas where to look for an apartment ?
Thanks
Fran
You are best to trawl through some of the websites which have apartments for rent (Google on google.ch for "immobilien"). Look for places outside of the city centre.
There are a lot of threads containing good links if you use the search function on this forum.
Normally for a flat the letting agent will only consider applicants whose monthly salaries are two thirds or more than that of the monthly rent.
I hope I explained that clearly enough, so if you're getting 6k a month then 2k is your limit.
Another way to look at it is to view the job as a stepping stone. You say yourself that its a good opportunity, and its got you into Switzerland, so that's two positives already.
Once you're here and settled, you can start applying to other companies when you know what the market rate is for your job in Zurich. (That is, if you can't renegotiate a raise at some later date, etc. etc.)
Kash.
Cheesus christ...
I am new here but how many of these do you get per day?
Some people will tell you you can live with 30k and some that you can live 120k so I would say: Yes you can live with 70k.
Now getting serious, how many pints did you say?
On finding an apartment, start by looking at
this excellent compilation of housing related threads as put together by one of the EF Moderators, Longbyt. There's masses of helpful information and resources there to help you.
Is your future employer able to assist and advise you regarding finding somewhere at all? Are they providing interim accommodation for you when you arrive?
On a salary of CHF 70,000, you can find decent sized apartments within your budget outside of Zurich Center and within a reasonable commuting distance.
Realistically, no matter what people post here, you will live ok Lower end middle class living ,not much traveling, and probably pack your own lunch to save money.
If people asked 'Where's the brown sugar?' as often as they asked 'Can I live on X CHF/year?', there'd probably be a few more canings and bannings and auto-deletions.
Sorry guys, I noticed that this has been asked many times already and that I should have first used the search before posting it. Sorry about that. I landed on this forum and I dropped the question without doing any search.
Anyway, thanks for the answers, quite useful and encouraging, although I understand I will have to tighten my belt.
@terco, I've been living in Ireland for the last 4 years and even though I'm from Spain I regard myself as a half Irish, so I'm talking about quite a lot of pints ;-) . This weekend I'm going to Zurich so I'll find out about the price of beers.
Fran
im on around the same salary, and pay 1500 a month on rent.
I can comfrotably pay for my monthly pass, food, and i go out once or twice a month (proper friday night benders), and eat ou a few times a week.
I tend to buy my food in bulk, i dont have a super precise budget, but i can fairly say the salary is "ok", i also go on weekends away every 5/6 weeks,
even after all this I can easily save 1500 a month.
hope his helps, but individual lifestyle is what makes the impact vary, bu on the whole u will be fine with 70k
Another way to look at it is are you getting what you are worth or did you leave money on the negotiations table. You don't mention what you will do for that salary and what your competencies are.
If you are an "investment banker" then you are not a very good one if you negotiated 70,000 CHF @ year. If you are an experienced IT person, you are probably more interested in technology than money and/or your calculator was probably fogged up.
On the other hand if you will be the assistant to the file clerk at the local news kiosk then people should seek you out and ask your advice on salary negotiation strategies.
Hi @3.Ocs
I'm actually the second case you mentioned. I'm an 7-year experienced Web Developer. I was quite more interested in the position this company offered me than the money I negotiated. As I said in my first post, it was also because of ignorance about cost of living in Switzerland. I basically negotiated the same salary I'm getting now in euros, 54k which is good salary in Ireland.
Fran
this is a very low salary for someone with your experience. In the Zuerich are you should be on 95,000 minimum
Just to reinforce the last post, fresh computer science graduates from EPFL (Lausanne) get 80,000 CHF per year as a starting salary. At least that's what the EPFL web site claims....
if you take banks the average is more like 90k ... with a few lucky (read good) being over 100k... but who is counting right? (and I was already marked as evil for saying that in another thread)
But we still don't know enough to say is he not getting a fair salary. Web development means many things. From doing websites for bakeries to designing distributed systems for stock exchanges.
My advice is: don't worry too much about the salary, in one year you will see if you like city, you will now how much your peers are payed, you will speak the language and you will have experience in the country. Then you start looking for something and negotiate until you are satisfied. Nothing wrong with taking this year as part of the cost of moving to a new place.
Good luck! Zurich is nice, you will like it.
Shize man! That wont even pay for my cocaine habit and hookers!