Fortune cookie: a niche IT job in Eastern Europe will, with high probability, grant you the best life standards available worldwide.
Yeah, moving to a place like London would most probably get you 2 or maximum 3 times the salary you are now getting, but you'd also have to pay rent which is 8 to 10 times higher in London, going out is outrageously expensive (7 pounds for buying a beer in a pub after a day's work is pure robbery), the general geographic area is quite nice around these parts (we have mountains, seaside, nice rivers for fishing), all in all they're doing quite ok. They won't ever be able to buy a $100,000+ car, a small boat or a small air-plane, like I see many of the SV engineers doing, but that's not that huge of a sacrifice to make. What's letting me down, personally, and what would convince me to finally take the plunge and emigrate to a Western European country is the health and the education system, which right now is in shambles in Romania (and I guess in Bulgaria, too).
7 pounds beer is shi£ there, normal beers start at double that price
Except for the few lucky ones in SV who cash(ed) out in time, these toys are mostly bought on credit. Salaries are high, but so are the costs.
An Indian friend who lives in London (this was some years ago) told me that a single naan in London cost about 3 pounds then. Anecdote, of course; how well you manage there will also depend on how much pay you get.
It might not be much by SV standards, but in my neighborhood (which is a capital city of one of CE countries) it is top 2% income. It's enough that after maybe 5 years of saving I'm now able to buy 1 bedroom apartment in the city center WITH CASH. Buying 2-3 bedrooms would also be possible if I needed it and decided to live further from the city center. Add cheap healthcare, free education, overall low living cost and that's really hard to top.
I get job offers from UK on regular basis, but never seriously considered it for that reason.
I was an expat in Poland for some years (unfortunately non-STEM job) and with that money your only limit is yourself.
I'm also dreaming of doing this, though currently on the other side of the world.
Yes, retiring in Poland. My plan is to go broke at 90-95.
I'm thinking 5000-6000 PLN per month ($1300-$1500), plus owning a property, will allow for a great living. This should even cover a very good nursing home (well as far as these places can ever be very good) when I'm unable to take care of myself. (I dont' and won't have children).
BTW there seems to be plenty of people from the UK who moved permanently to SE Asia (I imagine it can be cheaper than Poland + no winters) and who are sustained via rent from their London flat/house.
I would like to retire in Europe. Thanks for your answer, it's nice to have a realistic ballpark figure.
Yes. There are accounts in Poland which pay around 0-2% post-tax above inflation (the number vary year-to-year, depending on current economical conditions), which will help the capital still earn a bit of money.
Most of my Polish friends working in Poland as programmers(ranging from C++ to Web development) make about ~$2500-3500/month, and that's considered extremely good for where they live(Krakow and Warsaw).
But still, you can work remotely for a US company and make that kind of money. That's pretty realistic and was probably the source of the fortune cookie wisdom.
How does one do that, except by working for infamous Crossover company?
Interesting. Is this working for a Western European or US company, or a local one (CE - assuming it means Central European)?
Prices are not as low as you might imagine, but it will give you a very nice life standards. You are not going to be able to afford luxury cars or other luxury items (those costs the same everywhere), but otherwise you would be set.
The fact that you would not have the same position abroad (i.e. your cash savings are large locally but small if you lived in a rich country) is not a loss of any kind, it's just a fact that has no bearing on daily life.
You can afford none of these earning $100k in SV, but most of these earning $30k in Bucharest or Minsk.
Of course if you are after material goods, the opposite is true - if you don't care about a nice house but want a new Tesla, a new iDevice every year, Hermes bags and a Cessna instead, then you are better of living in a flatshare or a shoebox in San Fran or the Valley.
Yeah, except that the going rate for a good junior developer in SV is about $150k (Google, Facebook) and in Romania it's $20k. I recently moved away from Romania because while I could find a job in Western Europe paying more than $100k, there was no way to find something in Romania (or remote) paying even 30% of that. And not for lack of trying.
Also, $300k a year in SV is much more achievable than $100k in Romania or Bulgaria, and with that sort of money you start caring about other stuff than housing (luxury goods, exotic vacations, investments etc.) whose stuff doesn't depend on location.