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Comment by eXpl0it3r | Hacker News Reader

> All in all just getting the business prepared ended up costing me about 550 more dollars than I was expecting. That's one month out of the 4 taken out.

Either I'm misunderstanding this statement or he really calculated $550 for a whole month. How or in which country is that enough to survive a whole month?

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Romania - without paying rent - 550 USD will suffice for 1 month of daily spending. He mentioned that he has a low mortgage which probably splits with his girlfriend and for a 1 bedroom apartment can be as low as 250 USD per month. 750 USD is the average gross monthly income (before taxes ). Usually software developers earn double that.

Okay, but then it's just naive to think that it's enough to have the most minimum amount of money to survive. Before I'd quit my job, I'd make sure that I have at least x months of at least the average income on the side, plus calculating all the required spending for taxes and fees.

Totally agree with you. But based on my experience most Romanian people do not have a very good "plan ahead" culture. Usually they start something as soon as they have the minimum requirements met and that is because they really want to not let the opportunity pass, because in the past opportunities were very very scarce (in every domain) . And this lack of opportunities made a very deep dent in the Romanian culture.

I took a break from work to try out some personal projects this year and I got easily by with around that amount of money. As a student I lived on maybe half a that a month. Of course it would be different if I had mortgage and/or kids to take care of.

And before you say "wow, that's perfect, you could work remote, ..." consider that electronics and software (including games) cost more than it does in US.

(While I live in EU I think the most important part is that I live in former Eastern Block)

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