When I was a student, I got by with around 25K CHF. Amazing what one can do if you don't eat or dress well.
I remember when I got my first real job at 60K CHF, I felt rich!
But then I got a form from the canton telling me I qualified for health insurance subsidies.
My boss took pity on me and gave me yearly salary rises.
Now I earn enough like an expat.
I tell you, youngsters nowadays they don't know 'ow good they 'ave it.
Regardless of where you live,
if you have a pair of shoes,
a change of underwear,
and can choose from two or more foods to eat,
you belong to the top 10 percent of the world’s most wealthy.
If you have food in your refrigerator,
clothes on your back, a roof over
your head and a place to sleep,
you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank,
in your wallet, and spare change
in a dish someplace, you are among
the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
Makes me feel pretty rich in a 10 m2 room with no bathroom or kitchen
Do they have it in M-buget format?
Several times I managed to find coins in SBB's ticket machine dispensers.
Don't worry, there are plenty of us who'd need to tick one of the first couple of options on the salary list DB quoted.
There is a way to do it, how well you live depends upon your definition and where you choose to spend vs save. Hubby and I shop at Aldi A LOT in order to be able to spend money elsewhere. Watching my mother cook for a family of 7 (and copying some of her doings) has helped be able to make some of the thriftier options into pretty good meals.
Finding things to do which cost little or no money is possible... finding people who are also interested in doing them seems to be a bit harder though, at least until you make friends with sufficient number of like-minded (or funded) folks (local or otherwise).
Probably because I know just too many people here who do have an expat contract and a new house with only one salary and a wife who spend time at the gym, sauna, massage, go to the hairdresser every week or so, spend money like water AND complain that life is expensive here....
Or when both are working with a salary higher than 100 000 chf each, send their kids to full time daycare, have a cleaning lady and travel around (all those expenses from on salary) and the other salary goes in saving... Still find the life here too expensive...
And some of those people love to complain about the cost of living when I have to cut my hair myself and can't afford to send me daughter full time to a daycare, etc... And you know what? I have a much better life then the majority of people here!
Thanks for this wake up call!
Could it be, that most of you live in a parallell society and hardly get in touch with the real life here?
I think is the fact that when you are used to ''normal'' prices of goods, you can't get around the fact that here it is so expensive for the same goods. I don't think it is because people are greedy, but it is people are used to and know that for the same things, you pay the half of it outside of Switzerland border.
It has nothing to do with what you earn, yes it should, since you earn much more here. But earning much more doesn't automatically change your spending habits (not for everyone) nor it change your previous experiences and life before Switzerland.
And for us, living here wasn't a salary boost. Yes we earn much more here that we did before, but believe me, we have less in our pockets than what we had before with a much lower salary.
This expats living in Wonderland doesn't apply for all of us.
Yes, that's totally me. Thank God.
However on this topic, I'll throw in my two rappen because I actually have some valuable input.
Yes, you can live in CH on 70,000/year. Yes, you can raise a family here on that much. Yes, you can be happy and comfortable. We have six kids, earn a lot more than 70.000, but we usually spend about 80.000 a year. It's all about choices. Our choice is to save, invest, provide a solid financial foundation for our family. We have a lot of fun, most of it free (hiking, swimming in the lake, sledding, home movie nights, game nights). We do not go skiing or eat out or go to movies. Things are expensive here yes, but just because it costs a lot does not mean I have to buy it. People often talk about splitting the one income earner between two if one spouse doesn't work. BOGUS. My job as a SAHM (Super Awesome Hot Mama) is to work like crazy to make sure the money doesn't fly out the window. That's my job and it's tax free. My "work" though is something different; that would be raising my six kids and giving my husband all the support he needs. Some might call this old fashioned, out dated, whatever. I call it living the good life.
Ok, that's my input on this. I hope it gave someone encouragement, that yes you can live here on much less than the typical expat salary. Other people do it all the time
- One way to compensate it is to have a much higher revenue/savings that the average local who did none of these sacrifices.
- It could be that other expats value more the quality of life (landscape, order, clean & safe etc...) here and see it as a compensation.
- Other expats/immigrants value the fact that they have a job if their home country is hit by high unemployment.
Depending on which category you fit in, you'll complain or not about a 70'000chf annual income to answer the question if the move was worth it.