The cost of just living is insane

[Stahlmann]

So i recently moved out of my parent's home into my first own place and it hit me like a truck. I mean of course i saw all the prices go up in the last 2 years, but i never expected the cost of living to be so ridiculous atm. After having my own place for 3 months now i genuinely understand why so many people are poor, even though they might also have a decent job.

 

Now i'm interested in what the cost of living is in different parts of the world, especially in relation to your earnings. You don't have to pull out specific numbers if you don't want to talk about your wage, but a percentage and some context about your living situation might give some insight. So share whatever you're comfortable with.

 

I'll start:

My monthly income is pretty much right around the average in my country.

I'm living in a 50 m² apartment, drive a middle class car, have one cat and live in south Germany.

My cost of living, including rent, heating, car, food, power, water, insurances, fuel etc. averages out at around 90% of my after-tax-wage.

That only leaves me with a few hundred € give or take a bit that i can save up or freely spend every month.

Bring in some random repairs or dying products every few months and that pretty much leaves me with nothing.

 

It's actually fucking ridiculous. You'd think someone earning the average in a 1st world country would be in a better financial situation. Maybe i just had to vent a bit. But i'm also genuinely interested in other people's situations.

[it_dont_work]

I live in semi regional Australia, it's a minimun of 2-3 hours to a city, I make higher than the average income for someone in my country and more than the average household income.

 

But I live in an area that is technically one of the poorer parts of my state, here I make twice the median household income and with my wife live very comfortably. This was until we began building our own house on a larger property where now its 'ok' but not always easy. 

 

All this considered, I've no idea how someone in todays day an age gets aherad or out of a static position, I'm one of maybe 5 people in my broader friend group or of a similar age who I work with who owns their own housing and in my region rent pricing is set by the city pricing which means that people here make less than half the average Australian income and pay just as much as people in the city.

 

Its difficult and I dont see it getting better for a few decades for most people, and Australia in all respects has been hit less than most of the world by price rices and the economic downturn 

 

 

 

[Stahlmann]

13 minutes ago, it_dont_work said:

All this considered, I've no idea how someone in todays day an age gets aherad or out of a static position

That's the main problem. How to get out of that situation where income = cost and you cannot save up anything?

[Mojo-Jojo]

1 hour ago, Stahlmann said:

That only leaves me with a few hundred € give or take a bit that i can save up or freely spend every month.

This is not that bad, right? Although I feel you that unforeseen circumstances, repairs, needing a replacement for something does tap strongly into savings. But that should be an exception, not a recurring thing. Being able to save at all, especially a couple €100 per month, seems to be a good position if you ask me.

 

Maybe my point of view is skewed. When I was a student / freshly graduated, my expenditures were equal to my income, even if I earned above average. This was after extensively selecting the cheapest providers for must-haves (Internet, phone, insurances), cutting out what I didn't need and extensive meal-planning and shopping at cheaper supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi only. So basically not allowing myself any luxury. I was not able to save for years and unforeseen circumstances really sucked, because I was barely able to fill my savings back up. I pretty much lived month to month, the only saving I could do was putting the holiday allowance / 13th month salary in my savings.

 

So from my point of view, saving a few €100 is definitely luxurious. I am in that position myself now (splitting mortgage with 2 people really helps) and consider it good.

 

But I get your core message. Stuff is expensive. I know people who had to move back in with parents because they could no longer afford rent/food/heating.

[Stahlmann]

9 minutes ago, Mojo-Jojo said:

This is not that bad, right? Although I feel you that unforeseen circumstances, repairs, needing a replacement for something does tap strongly into savings. But that should be an exception, not a recurring thing. Being able to save at all, especially a couple €100 per month, seems to be a good position if you ask me.

 

Maybe my point of view is skewed. When I was a student / freshly graduated, my expenditures were equal to my income, even if I earned above average. This was after extensively selecting the cheapest providers for must-haves (Internet, phone, insurances), cutting out what I didn't need and extensive meal-planning and shopping at cheaper supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi only. So basically not allowing myself any luxury. I was not able to save for years and unforeseen circumstances really sucked, because I was barely able to fill my savings back up. I pretty much lived month to month, the only saving I could do was putting the holiday allowance / 13th month salary in my savings.

 

So from my point of view, saving a few €100 is definitely luxurious. I am in that position myself now (splitting mortgage with 2 people really helps) and consider it good.

 

But I get your core message. Stuff is expensive. I know people who had to move back in with parents because they could no longer afford rent/food/heating.

Having 200-300 € or so left over every month is not necessarily money that can be saved. Like i said, if you have a home full of electric devices, and especially a car where you have to pay for repairs and upkeep yourself (not a business car), having a few hundred you can put to the side every month is nothing. If anything comes up, your savings are gone and you're back to zero. Maybe the saving weren't enough and you had to ask someone else for financial help. Then you have to pay them back. Until they're paid back, you're not really able to save any money. The next time something breaks, the circle continues.

 

And even if you manage to save 200 € in a month, you didn't eat out once or hang out with friends at a bar. You basically didn't live, you merely existed. That's not a long-term solution.

 

A student or fresh graduate having no leftover income is something different than someone who has 6 years of full-time work experience and is still stuck in the same position. Maybe this is all a grim outlook from someone who only has had his own place for a few months now. I'm sure i'll get by, it's just very frustrating...

[Razercake]

I don't have a income atm, unemployed(recently graduated) so I get money from my A-kasse(unemployment insurance fund) which is 9766kr (~1438$) after taxes.

I just moved out on my own to Odense a city in Denmark, I got a 60m2 apartment, got no car & no pets.

rent is 5400kr (~795$) water included. about 75$ of the rent is for heating aconto(fixed rate monthly, that gets recalculated yearly. so might owe or get some money back depending on my usage) 

quick look at my budget spreadsheet, I spent about 87% of my "income" on cost of living. so internet, insurance, food, electricity etc.

so i got about 1250kr(~184$) left every month. 

 

will say though, afaik I got very lucky with finding a cheap apartment. if you have questions lemme know.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

You'd think someone earning the average in a 1st world country would be in a better financial situation.

I mean the working class in the US has been saying it for years. We literally have been getting bent over the barrel. We are also the ones being blamed for inflation, instead of the greedy corporations. God forbid the working class feels fanatically secure. 

[Holmes108]

59 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Having 200-300 € or so left over every month is not necessarily money that can be saved.

 

For sure. Unless you have a really nice "entertainment" section built into your budget, if this is what you have left over (I can relate), you deserve to spend it on some joy. Yeah, you can save it if you just want to sit on your couch, day in and day out doing absolutely nothing and buying yourself absolutely nothing.

[mr moose]

Can't talk about other places in the world, but I'm nearly 50 and lived in both rural and city Australia.  I have spent the last 24 years paying off a mortgage being self employed, full time employed and on a carers pension for a time. I have spent a lot of time talking to the older generations about life before I was born and younger generations just starting out in the last few years.  Basically it's always been hard starting out, in majority of cases you start with nothing, no savings, no work history, no credit history and no assets.   What has changed over the generations is that we have swapped income size with job security, meaning 50 years ago the income was much lower however if you had worked in a place for more than 5 years there was an exceedingly high chance you'd retire from that job.  which means getting a loan was easier and rent was slightly cheaper. Nowadays you have way higher earning potential but job security is worse and getting a loan is harder.  Hence the rentals are higher too.  for me cost of living (not including a house because I own outright now) is about $2000-2500 month give or take, this is 3 cars and 5 kids but doing most things on the cheap, I.E I do all my own mechanical, maintenance and repairs,I do not have credit for anything (all cars are owned outright) we mostly eat budget food and my hobbies either earn me cash or are funded through non taxable fringe benefits.

 

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

And now imagine how an average salary used to be enough to feed a family of four while owning a house. Yeah, that's what people complain about when they talk about how productivity has increased, prices have gone up but salaries have stagnated.

 

I'm in a fairly lucky position. My dad bought a couple of apartments a little over a decade ago, because even he, a software developer with 30 years working in the banking sector, saw that his pensions and social security weren't enough to finance his retirement, especially since he decided to retire at age 58. I've been fortunate enough to live in one of those apartments for 13 years now, so I pay a little less rent than he could charge if I weren't related to him. It's not nothing, he still has to cover the mortgage interest, after all, but I could easily be paying around $400 more for an apartment of similar size and comfort.

 

I earn a bit above the median income for Switzerland, so you can look it up if you care to know how much that is. Here's a breakdown of my expenses related to my net income, rounded a bit:

 

Rent for the apartment (incl. water and heating) - 25%

Rent for 2 additional parking spaces - 5%

Rent contribution for the place I use to hang out with friends - 3%

 

Taxes - 12%

Retirement fund - 11%

Food  - 10%

Health insurance - 4%

Fuel - 2%

Phone and Internet service - 2%

Car insurance - 2%

Motorcycle insurance - 1%

Other insurances - 1%

Electricity - <1%

 

That's basically 75% of my income gone. Add maybe another 10% for other odds and ends, at least if there's no emergency and the rest usually stays in my bank account to save up for something later down the line.

 

I'm not complaining, as I said, I'm fortunate. And if needed, I could cut down on the rent by getting rid of the parking spaces and use public transportation to go to work and save even more. But I completely understand how people who have less than me can feel fucked by an economic system that completely doesn't benefit them and ruins their lives. A friend of mine married 4 years ago and now has two kids (we're both in our mid-30's). His wife doesn't work, so he has to pay for all of that. I can tell that it's not easy for him to make enough to comfortably feed his family on a salary that's a bit lower than mine. It's why I vowed to not have kids until I've already bought a house, because I can't fathom saving up the dough to get that done after having kids. I don't care if kids have to wait until I'm 40, I'm not gonna fuck myself over financially just to have kids, I want my own backyard so I can become a grumpy old man and yell at other kids to get off my damn lawn.

[BetteBalterZen]

I'm a full-time IT Supporter, with a bit over average income. 

I have a home, 83m2 apartment that I own, and a VW Polo from '15, living in Denmark.

After I have paid all bills, I have around 45% back of my wage (after tax) from which I take around, idk, 15% from and put into savings accounts. The rest I use for food, diesel, general stuff here and there, and if I have "left over" money at the end of the month, I put these into savings accounts too. 

This home I have now, it's also my first own home, I also lived at my parents place for a bit long time, had to sort some things out first in my life before I was able to finish my education and stuff. But yes, I also got a wake up call when I saw how much things cost. I'm genuinly more happy for everything that I own now than when I lived with my parents. 

[8tg]

All my expenses each month for rent, utilities, internet, groceries, insurance and gas are around $2000/month

For a 3 bedroom 3 bathroom two story home with a 2 car garage in a nice area in Indiana.

[Radium_Angel]

I've got an 1800 sq ft house on a private lake. My mortgage is under 900$ a month (but I live hell and gone from civilization) 

Power is seasonal, but the vaulted roof isn't as insulated as I'd like, so electricity is 200-300$ a month

water is cheap, as is sewer and trash (50$ every few months)

Food...well I've started my own greenhouse to help offset the cost, and my nearest neighbor raises chickens, and gives me all the eggs I want for free, so that's nice.

Gas currently sits at ~3.50$ a gallon, which living in the middle of nowhere and commuting to work kind of hurts, but I do alright.

 

But yes, living on your own is rather expensive as of late

 

[thrasher_565]

16 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

Having 200-300 € or so left over every month is not necessarily money that can be saved. Like i said, if you have a home full of electric devices, and especially a car where you have to pay for repairs and upkeep yourself (not a business car), having a few hundred you can put to the side every month is nothing. If anything comes up, your savings are gone and you're back to zero. Maybe the saving weren't enough and you had to ask someone else for financial help. Then you have to pay them back. Until they're paid back, you're not really able to save any money. The next time something breaks, the circle continues.

 

And even if you manage to save 200 € in a month, you didn't eat out once or hang out with friends at a bar. You basically didn't live, you merely existed. That's not a long-term solution.

 

A student or fresh graduate having no leftover income is something different than someone who has 6 years of full-time work experience and is still stuck in the same position. Maybe this is all a grim outlook from someone who only has had his own place for a few months now. I'm sure i'll get by, it's just very frustrating...

i dont drive and i dont no if you need the car or not but in these days a car is luxury. with out the car you could save a ton of moeny. even if you got a good nice ebike or something. 

 

im lukey as my sister owns the house i rent and has not gone up. but she could get way more if they wanted too. even thow im caped on pay with my job the minimum wage is inching closer. 20 years of work for nothing... but i have about 1500 can a moth to spend or save (mostly spend...) but i started at 9.33 and hour so... well i did siding under the table for $8 an hour...

 

i do get vacation hours thow so that's nice. atm im spoably caped with that so i get to go home an hour early.

Edited April 22, 2023 by thrasher_565

[Donut417]

31 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

i dont drive and i dont no if you need the car or not but in these days a car is luxury. with out the car you could save a ton of moeny. even if you got a good nice ebike or something. 

That really only applies if you live in an area that has the infrastructure to support bikes. Where I live you have a 50/50 chance of getting ran the fuck over. Plus it's like winter time 6 months out of the year and not really great for biking, especially if you have to travel a decent distance for work. 

[thrasher_565]

7 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

That really only applies if you live in an area that has the infrastructure to support bikes. Where I live you have a 50/50 chance of getting ran the fuck over. Plus it's like winter time 6 months out of the year and not really great for biking, especially if you have to travel a decent distance for work. 

ya i guess. i live in albrta and there you could drive your snowmobile to work. or quad. maybe not on the hiway but i dont think they cared much. just dont go over farm land.

 

the place i grow up with they would pull you over and give you a ticket for riding your ebike... maybe that changed now... but were i live people do it all the time. people also bike all the time too. there one guy on thing one wheel thing going 50 on the rads. looks weird. i mean i bus and its $35 a moth as work pays the other half.

 

[it_dont_work]

On 4/21/2023 at 7:55 PM, Stahlmann said:

That's the main problem. How to get out of that situation where income = cost and you cannot save up anything?

 

Well that's got a few 'answers'.

-"Cut back" realistically you can only do so much, cheaper options, live with roommates etc. 

-"Look for a higher paying job" Crap thing is no one tells you this may take years.

-"invest" use what little savings you have to try to generate more income, there's risk here.

-"partner up" live with someone and help support each other...can't really choose this option on your own 

 

All in all, if you've a place to live, food heating and clothing, it's secure and you know you'll be there in a few months to a year. You're doing pretty damn good. If you have no liabilities you'll also ride out the hard inflation period better than someone who does, or has just entered into a prolonged loan

 

Also it doesn't help to get bogged down in other stories, use them to help think but don't put too much into it (I lived in my car for a time when I first moved out as a young man, doesn't mean the story helps someone now).

 

Cost of living is difficult at the moment, and shit thing is it could be a decade or more before you're really in a 'better' place than now, this is part of life and young people find it frustrating and that's perfectly normal. 

[Rocketdog2112]

On 4/21/2023 at 6:57 AM, Donut417 said:

I mean the working class in the US has been saying it for years. We literally have been getting bent over the barrel. We are also the ones being blamed for inflation, instead of the greedy corporations. God forbid the working class feels fanatically secure. 

And here's why we, the consumer are to blame for high inflation... 

 

"And the killer is ...

As it turns out, consumers might be the guilty party in the inflation mystery. We've at least been aiding and abetting. "Inflation is coming from demand," says Wolfers.

In spite of inflation, demand hasn't really blinked. Companies have been raising prices and we have been paying them. In fact, in many parts of the economy, spending has been rising right along with prices."

 

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/29/1139342874/corporate-greed-and-the-inflation-mystery

[starsmine]

Roommates

I never minded roommates. I live in a 4 bedroom and two smaller rooms are 800 a month (including internet and water and electricity) with two "masters" that are 850 a month. Hampton roads area (Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Newport News/Chesapeake) Any studios you end up with less space and spend like 1200 a month. 

You talk about how everything but 10% is budgeted out, that's just kinda the norm for most people. People on this forum are generally a privileged bunch (which is why I get so mad at some of yall when people are budgeting out a system or upgrade or troubleshooting and some of yalls first reaction is to spend multiple hundreds more for 10% gain based off gut feelings). Hell its even the norm for people making 100k a year because of lifestyle creep, but obviously its worse for the families trying to live off 40k, you just have to make do. 

I Dont know what a middle class car means to you in germany. Just run one that is cheap to run. I been using a 98 Lesabre for the last 10 years so I never had car payments and the amount I have invested in it for repairs is very minimal as GM part bin parts are easy to come by in the US... generally. Most expensive fix I had to do was all new steel brake lines. If cars are not your hobby, a solid 15 year old Toyota or honda will do you well in general, but each model and year are their own beast so always do research there. 

 

 

[YellowJersey]

One thing that has helped me deal with the cost of living is to keep detailed spreadsheets documenting all my spending. (I do it all manually because I enjoy doing it. Yes, I'm weird)

Expenses Spreadsheet:
List each expense, how much, where you spent it, and date spent. Colour code it to separate "necessities" from "luxuries." I generally describe necessities as anything I reasonably need (ie, groceries, rent, utilities, petrol, insurance; things I'd need to buy regardless). Luxuries are anything I couldn't reasonably go without (ie, restaurants, camera gear, computer gear, holidays, etc). I also have a third category called "professional" as I have to pay licensing fees to maintain my accreditation. Each month, I tally up how much I've spent in total that month, how much I've spent in total so far for that year, and then do the same for my necessities and luxuries. This way, I know exactly what I'm spending my money on and where I can make cuts. I also set myself a monthly and yearly budget goal (this year, I'm trying to spend less than $46,000 CAD in total and am, so far, a little bit under budget).

Banking spreadsheet:
Simple enough: list all debits/credits by date, which account they went into/out of, and total balance (I have multiple bank accounts). Each month I tally up my total debits for the month and total credits. The goal is to have more credits than debits each month (not always possible). This way I get an idea of how much money is coming into and going out of my bank accounts each month.

Summary spreadsheet:
I've been doing this for eight years now, so I have a third spreadsheet where I breakdown things like cost per month per year broken down by the various spending categories, so I know what an average March, for example, would cost. I also have another bit where I adjust it all for inflation (using 2016 as my baseline since that's when I started doing this) so I can see how much I'm spending over the years.

 It's a bit of work, but I actually enjoy it. I've worked out what I reasonably need to live. It requires discipline, though, and a fondness for spreadsheets and data, so it's not for everyone. But, it has really helped me get my spending under control, especially as the cost of living as risen. 

[Stahlmann]

23 hours ago, starsmine said:

Roommates

I never minded roommates. I live in a 4 bedroom and two smaller rooms are 800 a month (including internet and water and electricity) with two "masters" that are 850 a month. Hampton roads area (Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Newport News/Chesapeake) Any studios you end up with less space and spend like 1200 a month. 

Yeah roommates wouldn't work for me. I need peace, quiet and privacy, which is the reason i moved out in the first place.

 

23 hours ago, starsmine said:

I Dont know what a middle class car means to you in germany. Just run one that is cheap to run. I been using a 98 Lesabre for the last 10 years so I never had car payments and the amount I have invested in it for repairs is very minimal as GM part bin parts are easy to come by in the US... generally. Most expensive fix I had to do was all new steel brake lines. If cars are not your hobby, a solid 15 year old Toyota or honda will do you well in general, but each model and year are their own beast so always do research there. 

I have an Audi A3 from 2016 that's fully paid off. (Luckily i at least used the cheap living situation with my parents to pay that one off) So i only pay repairs that might come up and diesel.

[starsmine]

14 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Yeah roommates wouldn't work for me. I need peace, quiet and privacy, which is the reason i moved out in the first place.

I never hear my roommates in an intrusive way and have plenty of privacy, your room is your room alone still, sure if you are doing stuff in the shared spaces, they can join. (failure of the english language here, roommates just mean people who share the house/condo/apartment, not the bed room necessarily)

 

[Stahlmann]

2 hours ago, starsmine said:

I never hear my roommates in an intrusive way and have plenty of privacy, your room is your room alone still, sure if you are doing stuff in the shared spaces, they can join. (failure of the english language here, roommates just mean people who share the house/condo/apartment, not the bed room necessarily)

That's basically how i lived the last 2 years with my brother before i moved out. It's just not for me.

[Fluph]

In September last year i was at the end of a 2 year deal for Gas / Electric at £67.
This went up to £85 after the deal ended.
By December this was £140.
In April this is now £204.

That is just Gas and Electric for a small 3 bed house (and small as in 2 bedrooms and a box room that doesn't fit a single bed).

[Razercake]

On 4/21/2023 at 1:01 PM, Razercake said:

I don't have a income atm, unemployed(recently graduated) so I get money from my A-kasse(unemployment insurance fund) which is 9766kr (~1438$) after taxes.

I just moved out on my own to Odense a city in Denmark, I got a 60m2 apartment, got no car & no pets.

rent is 5400kr (~795$) water included. about 75$ of the rent is for heating aconto(fixed rate monthly, that gets recalculated yearly. so might owe or get some money back depending on my usage) 

quick look at my budget spreadsheet, I spent about 87% of my "income" on cost of living. so internet, insurance, food, electricity etc.

so i got about 1250kr(~184$) left every month. 

 

will say though, afaik I got very lucky with finding a cheap apartment. if you have questions lemme know.

Update on this, just got a Job starting June 1st. so from there on I'll earn roughly 38000kr(~5634.47$) a month, before taxes. should be about 3000$ after taxes. so new numbers would be about 42.5% of my income spent on the cost of living(most likely will go up as I might buy more varied food items) & I'll have 11500kr(~2225$) left every month.

 

A lot of the taxes stuff is a rough estimate, cause there is a bunch of deductibles from being employed, and the distance from me & the office (2 hours each way). etc etc.