Comment by FennNaten | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FennNaten | Hacker News Reader

Hum, I don't know how the system works in the US, but in France a lot of money is taken from the salary to cover for health insurance, unemployment insurance and retirement plan. Plus we have 5 weeks paid vacation automatically included. And I think cost of life is lower than in the US, even in Paris which is the more expensive area. To go with numbers, I currently earn 50k€ per year (gross), which makes for 3k€ per month (net). I don't have a car (no need in Paris). This income is enough for me to live my life without any privation, going to bars, cinema, restaurant, weekend trips, etc whenever I want, and still save 10 to 40% of it each month. Last year I bought a new computer, a new phone, and 2 weeks vacation in Iceland without even touching my savings account. All that knowing that if I go unemployed, I stay at full pay several months, if I'm sick I'm covered, and when I reach 65 yo I'll get retirement rent until end of life. Oh, and I'm only in my early 30's, meaning I get to get paid more and more. After my next raise, which should occur this year considering I got a title upgrade, I'm even considering stopping asking for money and asking for additionnal time off instead. So, I don't know how your 100k+$ reflect on your life in the US, but sorry I don't feel any need for it :)

I envy your positive attitude. 3k€ of disposable salary per month in a huge European metropolis like Paris seems very low to me. That's roughly what a web developer with 3-5 years of experience can get in a mid-sized (400-600k) city here in Poland and the prices of virtually everything are way lower. 700eur can get you a nice 2-3 bedroom apartment in a very downtown of such city and transport, food, groceries, restaurants, cinema tickets are probably all 2-3 times cheaper than in Paris. I personally feel developers in big cities of Spain, France and Italy are getting screwed big time comparing with their counterparts in US or other places in Europe and even Asia.

Well, maybe, I don't know, my only data points are personal experience and testimonies, which are not really the best building blocks for fully informed opinions. However, I'd argue that this depends a lot on what you value in life. If I get paid less than someone for the same job, but that "less" is already way enough to live my life in full, am I really screwed? I don't know. I think that yes, I am screwed if that makes me jealous and pushes me to want stuff I don't need for the sake of it. As I said, I'd rather take more time over more money. Or I'd be satisfied if I knew that additionnal wealth was given where it's useful. In my opinion, race to more and more personal wealth is damaging. But that's just my opinion, on an absolute scale, I may be putting in the same amount of work as others for less pay (aren't we all?), and that can be considered unfair, true. And it would surely bug me if the difference was high enough for me to struggle, so my 'positive attitude' may as well be just me not caring because I lack nothing anyway :/

In NYC a decent 2 bed apartment in second tier areas (ie not in Manhattan) is 3k€ a month, I'm surprised Paris is cheaper.

Depends on what you call decent and how far from the center you go. I'm currently outside of Paris, having 15 minutes on foot plus 15 minutes on train plus 15 minutes in Subway to go to work. I share a large two bedrooms flat (73 square meters) with a friend, and my share is 700€. (this includes water, electricity, heating, garbage collection and unlimited internet connection) Sure if you insist on having a big flat right inside Paris it may go up to 3k, but if you tolerate commute time you can find better rates.

Definitely not, my rent is much less than that and I'm 10 minutes from the city in a nice part of Queens.

Hip areas are expensive, but say, Staten Island is cheap af.

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