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Comment by koevet | Hacker News Reader

These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. I live in Zurich, Switzerland and I have a similar salary (~200K) but the high cost of living (which, I assume, is similar if not lower than the Bay Area) make my salary comparable to an "ok" salary in other European countries. Just to give you an idea: the overall cost of school + a nanny for 2 kids under 6 is around 70K year in Zurich.

As other have mentioned, the sign up bonus is quite awesome, but I assume is not the standard in the US either.

edited: nannies -> nanny

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There are people in Zurich who live happily on 1500 CHF a month which would be 20'000 CHF a year, a tenth of what you're making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1oeSs67myA

You might say "yeah sure, as a bachelor, it's easy to save money but with family it is expensive here". Well, I know a computer science PhD who lives in Zurich with his wife and two kids on 60k CHF a year (Phd salary).

Also living in Switzerland. I have to comment that ~200K is not "normal" salary here either. To be fair, most people also don't have a nanny for their kids (or more than 1 as you do), and do not pay for private school. Average salary for a Software Dev with >10 years experience in Zurich is somewhere around 130k - 150k.

There are no public Kinderkrippe in Zurich. If your kids are under 5, the only option is a private kita - and if live in Zurich you should know how pricey they are.

In any case, my point wasn't about "me". I was trying to highlight the fact that in certain places, a high salary is driven by other factors, such as higher-than-average cost of life, low security (Saudi Arabia), etc.

Bern, Switzerland here. I know plenty of people with families and sub-100k the are perfectly happy with their respective salary as well. I'd say it's a matter of personal spending habits what's an "ok" salary. After going back to uni, I'm also happy and ok with < 50k (of course this wouldn't be all that ok if I had kids rather than a cat).

Unless the culture is wildly different than here in the US I don't think it's reasonable to consider private school and nannies as part of "cost of living"... Those are both unnecessary luxuries.

In Zurich, there are no public kindergarten. The monthly fees ranges from 2.500 to 3K+ a month. A nanny is necessary, when both parents have a full time work and family is not around (like in my case).

I think what you are talking about are "Kindergrippen" (when kids are 2-3 years old). Kindergardens are public and free.

This Kindergrippen-age is really the only moment when kids in Switzerland cost you significantly more than in the rest of Europe.

Think it this way: From the actual kindergarden age (4 years old?) you won't pay anymore. It's even free to send the kid to the best technical university in mainland Europe, which is supposed to be ETH (think MIT of Europe)

Yes, my mistake, I meant kindergrippe (I have actually used the right word in a previous comment).

In any case, kindergartens are not entirely free. If the kids have to stay after 12.00 it gets very expensive.

Most people/families in the US don't hire nannies...

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