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Comment by doug1001 | Hacker News Reader

i lived for two years in Oslo, Norway, but also spent time in Bergen in Stavanger (west coast).

it's a beautiful country, but for a start-up? I have my doubts.

i have also lived in the Bay Area; live here now in fact.

Norway is the most expensive country i have ever lived in or visited--more than SF, more than Manhattan, perhaps about the same as Tokyo, although i have only made brief visits there for work.

Taxes are insanely high: income tax is on the level as Switzerland; VAT is 24.5%. Petrol prices are the highest in any country i have ever driven in.

lastly, working start-up hours (or even normal hours) is not easy during the months of October through February when daylight's non-existent or negligible

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I don't think Norway ends up more expensive than SF or Manhattan for most people. Yes, petty expenses like buying beer in a pub are high, but the really big expense for most people, rent, is far lower. You can get a nice, modern, centrally located apartment in Oslo, without roommates or rats, for $1300-1500/mo ($10-12k NOK). And you can get it down to more like $1000/mo ($8k NOK) if you're willing to commute a bit. Try getting something with that budget in SF or Manhattan!

Taxes are high, but for entrepreneurs that's largely offset by: 1) no self-employment payroll taxes, and 2) your taxes cover your full health insurance costs. Once you add in the U.S.'s 15% payroll tax and health-insurance premiums you don't really save much in many scenarios.

Most entrepreneurs are after capital gains, not salary. The 24% rate seems acceptable, however, the wealth tax that then follows will force most successful entrepreneurs out of the country once they've made their fortune.

That said, how much is an "average" salary?

For 2016, the overall average salary in Norway was about 5500 USD per month.

Source: https://www.ssb.no/en/arbeid-og-lonn/statistikker/lonnansatt...

The way I always put it is that it's better to be rich in America, but most definitely, inarguably better to be poor in Norway, by almost every metric.

Scandinavia is great if you are rich. Sweden for instance would be a great choice for anyone with a trust fund. You would have to pay almost no taxes and still get all the services. It is becoming rich that is hard. Though you could argue that a lot more people get the chance. The problem is that it has also become increasingly hard to be frugal. Especially when it comes to cost of housing, but also the cost of a good quality of life in general.

> Norway is the most expensive country i have ever lived in or visited

I visited Scandinavia (Bergen was one of my stops) a couple of summers back, and between the currency conversion and prices it was easily the most expensive place I have ever been. It's an amazingly beautiful area, but I doubt I'll ever go back because of the prices.

I remember sitting in a restaurant in Stockholm and commenting that maybe the prices would go down some in Norway, and a couple next to us started laughing. The other couple then explained not only were they not going down, but they are going up.

Yup, I live in Stockholm and almost wherever I travel I feel my money is worth more than at home (that includes cities like Amsterdam, Munich, etc., so quite expensive places), the only exceptions have been Oslo and anywhere in Switzerland. My gosh, it hurt a bit paying for €8-10 shitty beers or €6 cappuccinos at the train stations.

Tokyo is or can be significantly less expensive. It's just that you'll live in a smaller apartment of lower standard.

Less English speaking in Japan, and a lower quality of life generally.

> lower quality of life generally

The quality of life in Tokyo can be quite extraordinary, depending on your point of view.

As a westerner imitating the salaryman lifestyle? Absolutely terrible, primarily for work-related reasons.

As a westerner doing basically anything else that doesn't involve employment at a massive Japanese conglomerate? Excellent.

If you can deal with the lack of English and gain some modicum of comfort with Japanese culture, it's a fantastic place to live.

Agreed! Here are some of the quality of life improvements I've observed between NYC and Tokyo:

- Minimal honking for the amount of cars on the road

- Clean, timely trains, subways, and buses

- Clean streets and sidewalks (unless you go to the busy areas of Shibuya/Shinjuku, it can get nasty there)

- No tipping but you still receive excellent customer service

- Modern apartments with things like auto-filling baths, digital temperature control for hot water, delivery boxes at apartments for package delivery when you're not home, contactless IC cards to unlock your door/mailbox, door video monitors, Toto washlets

This isn't to say NYC doesn't have some of these, it's just less common and you'll be paying more. I do wish Tokyo had more NY pizza and bagels though.

Heath care costs are quite low as well.

Where I lived (in Osaka) there was a cap of 80,000 JPY* / month for hospital bills - no matter how much the procedure cost.

*80,000 JPY = 721 USD

And can deal with the racism towards "kaijin"

I assume you mean gaijin and not actually kaijin, which is a fantastical sea monster ;)

In seriousness, there is a decent amount of racism but it’s really not that much worse than other places in Asia - that’s part of what I meant by adapting to Japanese culture. It also gets much better if you speak Japanese.

Quality of life as a measure is a societal measure and not an individual measure.

Quality of life could equally be great if you moved to any nation where the economy of your country of origin is relatively stronger to your current one... that, and you choose to ignore the quality of life of your surrounding community.

> more than SF, more than Manhattan, perhaps about the same as Tokyo

I live in Tokyo, there is no way SF and Manhattan are cheaper. I've visited NYC and found this to be quite obvious. And although I haven't been to SF except for the airport, most people I've talked to who live there always mention the high cost of living.

Wow really? How much is your apartment, and how many bedrooms?

I'm not OP but the biggest cost driver for foreigners in Japan is actually living like a foreigner. If you adapt to the Japanese lifestyle it can be good value; otherwise, you're gonna be paying $15 for a bottle of mustard.

What kinds of things do you include in "living like a foreigner" besides buying foreign foods that aren't commonly eaten in Japan?

Food can be a surprisingly large component if you try to eat a western diet, even if you aren't specifically buying foreign foods. Other things off the top of my head:

- A centrally-located western-style apartment can easily run 2-3x what it would cost vs. compromising on one of those axes (live Japanese style or move farther out)

- Taking taxis or Uber instead of trains

- Going out partying / drinking often (especially to more western-style places if you can't speak Japanese)

My apartment is about $980 at the current JPY-USD rate, just one bedroom and 280 square feet. It's not big by any stretch of the imagination but it's located in Shinjuku ward which is one of the "central" city areas of Tokyo (there are many such as Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Ueno, Roppongi, etc.). Keep in mind this is living as a single person, I can't comment on the cost of living as a family in Tokyo.

Food is fairly cheap here and not having a tip system is a big cost saver in my opinion. Fruits and veggies are fairly expensive, unfortunately, but I still think I can confidently say it costs a lot less to live in Tokyo compared to NYC or SF. There are details of national insurance and city taxes and all that which can make individual cases cheaper or more expensive than the average but I don't feel like getting into all the details.

I'm paying about the same in Stuttgart (Germany), and NYC or SF is definitely two or three times the price for comparable apartments to mine. I rented a small hotel room in Tokyo (a bit outside, but good metro connection) and it was about the same price as in Germany as well. I really think Tokyo is by far cheaper. But the salaries are probably also not on SF or NYC level.

> But the salaries are probably also not on SF or NYC level

You got that right!

> Taxes are insanely high: income tax is on the level as Switzerland; VAT is 24.5%.

What's the employer payroll tax?

For comparison: in Sweden, the employer payroll tax is 31.42%, the income tax is ~30% (depending on where you live) and the VAT is 25% for most goods (food is 12% IIRC).

The employer payroll tax is a bit interesting. As an employee you never see that money, but you more or less pay it (lower wages).

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