By comfortably I mean: renting/paying the mortgage for a nice 1br for yourself (or a 2br with your partner), not needing to scan the price tags when grocery shopping, going out occasionally to eat/dine/have fun, taking public transit (or paying for a car if needed), buying nice things for yourself every once in a while, & having some spare money at the end of the month for savings or traveling.
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Helsinki area, Finland. In my opinion gross salary of €3,500 to €4,000 per month is enough for the majority to live comfortably. That translates to net salary of ~ €2,500…€2,900 or so. If you include a car, then I’d personally say it’s closer to gross €4,500 per month. Parking cost alone is €10 to €100 per month, really depends where exactly you live.
It depends a bit because earning less can sometimes end up to have more because you can get certain benefits. For example when you have a low income you could qualify for subsidized housing.
I think the minimum required salary for a starter to be able to get a mortgage is 70k gross. However, it’s common to save some money to make a down payment.
Another thing is transportation. Lots of young people don’t own a car when they live in the city. Cycling is common and cheap. While most employers pay for their daily commute using public transport.
All in all depending on your lifestyle, children and so on but well over 2k net is the minimum to have a somewhat decent lifestyle.
In Bucharest, I would say, with the current very high inflation, around a net 5500-6500 ron (~1100-1300 euros). Two or three years ago the situation would have been different, but right now inflation is very high, food prices have almost doubled in the last 3 or so years.
But if you have a partner, than the cost is less than that. Take rent for example: it is cheaper to rent a 2 bedroom apartment with someone (provided you each pay 1/2) than to rent a one bedroom apartment by yourself. Food and household items are cheaper when bought in bulk etc.
In my experience, €2,000 after tax is enough for a relatively comfortable life of a childless couple in Yerevan. €1,500 is doable but not exactly comfortable.
It used to be way less than that two years ago. Prices grew by a lot after the influx of Russian anti-war immigrants, especially when it comes to rent.
I live alone, no partner or kids, I have car and a nice, 70m² apartment. Never had any money problems since working and I have enough over to go on vacations and to festivals every year. My current salary is 3700€ which comes out to 2500€/month after taxes.
Area: Rhein-Main-Gebiet in germany. The area in and arou d Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Mainz.
I live in one the most affordable areas in my country and I very much doubt the minimum wage would be enough. I used to be on minimum wage for almost a year and did live comfortably, but I was living at home with my parents. I gave them some money for the bills, but the mortgage had been paid off whilst I was at university. And this was before the energy price rises we have seen in the past year or so. If I had to factor in those rising utilities + inflation + paying my own rent, it would have to probably be double the minimum wage.
France varies massively depending on whether you’re in the parisian metropolitan area or not. Housing around Paris is so expensive you’ll need a much higher wage (like +30%) to live “comfortably”. But Paris pays more by default, so it somewhat evens out.
In Barcelona, you’d need to earn 3,000 euros net per month to live by yourself. 1 bedroom flats begin at around 900 euros per month. If we take the rule of not spending more than 30% your salary, 3,000 would be the amount.
Sadly, the average net salary is 1,500 euros net per month, so most people (me included) are screwed and forced to share.
>renting/paying the mortgage for a nice 1br for yourself (or a 2br with your partner)
What is considered a 1b? Just a living room or living room + bedroom?
Renting is currently cheaper and you are looking at 350-500€ plus around, on average, 70€ for bills (water, electricity, gas, internet).
>not needing to scan the price tags when grocery shopping
Around 300€
>going out occasionally to eat/dine/have fun
Fun can vary a lot, and depends how many times. I’d say 200€. That should be enough to eat out once a week. And go to movies or drinks a couple of times.
>taking public transit (or paying for a car if needed)
Public transit in my city which is the capitol is 48€ per month
>buying nice things for yourself every once in a while
Difficult to determine, since it can vary from a nice cheese to a watch. If I could have some example, I could be more precise.
>having some spare money at the end of the month for savings or traveling.
So, like 200-300€?
The total would be from around 1200€ net to around 1400€ net. Hard to tell you any more specific since you weren’t specific. Total is without buying something nice here and there, and without the car.
I’d say 90k makes for a comfortable life in Zurich for a single person if you moved into your flat 5+ years ago, but that depends on your definition of comfortability. And it’s still far from luxurious. You need a lot less if you can share cost for rent with someone.
It depends on where you live. The closer you are to a major city (like a county capital or a city with tourism) and the closer you are to Budapest or Vienna the higher the rent. Just in Budapest living in the outskirts or just outside the city vs renting in the city centre is night and day in rent costs. The average is the just before heavy urban are like 19th or 10th districts. If you rent a commie apartment there you’ll need around 450-500 euros per month, including utility if you get a good deal. Groceries got really expensive recently (price of bread tripled/quadrupled at most places) so I’m gonna be pessimistic and say you’ll pay 300 euros if you don’t scan stuff and just buy what you want to eat. Public transit is dirt cheap. In Budapest the most worthwhile is the monthly Budapest pass because with that you can use any BKK or MÁV transit in Budapest as much as you want. It costs 9 euros for students and 26 euros for anyone who’s not a student, over 16 or below 65. Bars raised the prices in the city centre but there are still really cool places with great alcohol for cheap and the same is true for restaurants. if you earn 1500 euros a month (after taxes) you can live comfortably and put money away if you don’t spend it all on drinks and food, but 2000 (also after taxes) is a really comfy wage where you can eat out, drink, maybe have an apartment closer to the city centre and/or go to vacation every 1 or 2 years. The average wage compared to that is around 1200 euros. (or if you’re a teacher you get 500-550 a month after taxes 💀)
Rule of thumb is that rent takes around a third of your income. In my case, me and my partner would need … 2700 each? That doesn’t sound right.
Anyway, a comfortable salary lies in general above of 5000 Fr.
Sochi, Russia.
The ruble just devalued 20% and will use current rate. 105/€.
Couple
1000€ flat & utilities
500€ groceries
200€ car
500€ fun money
= ~2200/m
Typical Local poor salary: ~500€/m
Typical local not poor salary: 2,000+€/m
Lots Of housewife’s here
In Warsaw to live comfortably renting/paying off a nice apartment, going out, having a car, vacations and savings it’s got to be at least 2150€ net (~10,000 zł), which amounts to around 3000€ gross (~14,000 zł). It varies widely throughout the whole country though, pretty sure half of this would set you up to be quite comfortable living in a small town.
I used to live in the Paris suburbs.
My rent was 900/month for a very nice 30 sq m flat to myself (I could have paid a good 50-100 euros less, but it was a nice place and I wasn’t that keen on moving out) and I lived on around 2000/month net which later increased to 2400/month net. Even on 2000/month I lived very comfortably, ate out/got takeaways around once a week on average, went on holidays around France and back to the UK via Eurostar (it was the pandemic so couldn’t go much further afield) and had plenty of money left over at the end of the month to save. I never had to think too much about money. So I would say anything above around 1600 net a month and you’re doing OK. Might not have a massive rainy day fund, but the French government’s pretty generous with unemployment benefit.
In LA you would need at least twice if not three times that.
I live in a medium sized town in rural Denmark (~25.000 inhabitants). I live with my partner and we used to earn ~4000€ net a month and that was enough for us to live comfortably according to your criteria. Multiple holidays abroad every year, buying a car (although an older one), owning a holiday home etc…