Thank you so much for gathering this information and posting it. It will help immensely. My husband is traveling their this weekend to discuss salary and find an area to live. This information will help give us some idea of what is needed and what questions to ask. We have two small children as well, and I hope to place them in a school where they will be happy. Change is always a little hard on the kids. Thanks again, Shannon
The original post is a pretty good guess - if you live in Zurich. Other areas are less expensive, in particular when it comes to rent. In Glarus you might pay ~CHF1000 for a 3.5 BR apt. But then your salary might also be less.
This Thread on ' How to survive in Basel on the cheap ' has some excellent tips and links in it.
I have found this website which compares prices around the world. It looks to be very comprehensive.
What surprised me was the differences between cities in Switzerland! I never realised that H&M, Macdonalds
and others have different prices!
There is a +70.83 % difference in a summer dress between Bern and Lausanne !
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living...y2=Switzerland
.
Thanks, that's interesting.
Yeah, that's fairly common. Starbucks at the Geneva airport, for example, costs more than Starbucks at Central in Zürich. In the US, you'll find 3 or 4 different prices for the same cup of coffee over a distance of 30 miles, as you move further out from a given city center.
Rents are cheaper further out for businesses too.
I've found the following one:
http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living
Been searching the forum and I recall there being a lot more but can't seem to find them. Would appreciate if people could post their links in this thread (perhaps make it a sticky?).
Looking for sites which give a clear quantified indication of COLA different between cities in europe vs. switzerland and within switzerland. E.g. Zurich is 50% more expensive in terms of COLA than Munich.
I saw somebody else indicating:
non-CH salary x 135% x FX rate = logical CH salary
That seems like a reasonable rule of thumb but obviously it'll be very different depending on city you are coming from / going to. Having a good list of source sites may then help narrow it down in individual cases (and help with negotiations...)
thx
Found this useful UBS doc here on EF, forgot where though
Page 8 contains high level comp between cities
More sources = better armed vs. HR!
Purchasing Power Parity data from OECD
http://www.oecd.org/document/47/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html
Probably a basket of sources should give a good direction.
According to the first source i posted, COLA adjustment would have to be 80% from where I live now!!! That seems very high to me. Few friends of mine moved Munich-Geneva and got a 40% increase before applying FX rate. That sounds more directionally right.
It really surprises me that folk have learned to get to a destination by typing a place name in a GPS device and cannot type 'cost of living' in the simple search on EF and come up with all the threads already on here on this subject, including the Sticky Thread!
Edit: This thread, with several other helpful ones, is within a Multi-Sticky called, oddly enough
Sticky: General Info / Cost of living / Consequences of Unpaid Bills / EF Library
Even more suprising is that a lot of this folk praises itself about being a high qualified academic and about getting wages over CHF 120'000.
ASA Consultants target mostly an Australian audience, but offers a very simplified calculator that compares any two popular cities:
I wouldnt rely on it as its conversion rate on Switzerland to Australia is pretty flawed to think you could drop by 30% to move to a place with costs mostly in line with switzerland is wrong. More likely you will need a pay rise to move to Australia in order to maintain lifestyle
Another Thread (May 2013) with more information on the subject.
Amazing Compilation!!!Great Job!
This website has up to date figures and more importantly you can compare prices between cities, between London and Basel, or New York and Zurich,
Article about cost of living on circa 6000.
thanks so much for the time and effort this took you!
https://www.ubs.com/microsites/price...ings/en/intro/
More recent link to Price, Earning & Purchasing power