Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[gogis]

This is informative private life details thread, mostly I want you to share about your life expenses and other goodies in a differtent country than mine. I am deeply interested in how your daily life going and how good it is, on average basis. I am currently interested in my body relocation, mostly due to climate and inner hatred to concrete jungle called Moscow. Information with details is surprisingly scarce in internet, usually some obscure blogs.

So lets start

33, single, coder (web)

Location - Moscow/Russia

Climate - quite awful, think 3 months of summer, otherwise it's snow or rain. I get cold often and miss atleast 2-3 days a month atleast. My primary reason I want relocation. I lived for 8 months in Goa and never had a sniff. Thats rang a bell.

Residency - I renting a one bedroom flat in inner city for a 30k roubles/month (1k$/month, later all sums in US dollars for convinience). Thats an average price for one bedroom `not so bad` flat in city fairly close to metro. If you want to change place you have to pay forward triple monthly price - one to broker, one for first month, one for last month. All other stuff usually is not paid, but I do pay electricity bill, which is about 300$/year. Usualy landlords not paying taxes from their rent, but I don't care, ya know, Russia is shady country.
I do change flats most of the time when I change work - travel time is important to me, so if I need more than 30-45 minutes to get to a job I am starting to become unhappy.

Moving my body around - I dont have a car, I actually have no license and I have no idea how to drive. I use a buses and metro. Ticket price is about 1$ one way. My current route - bus/metro/work/metro/bus. So it's cheap and reliable. Traffic in Moscow is pretty sick and you can easily get into jam for 3 hours, any day. And as I said - travel time is very important to me.

Job - I am most senior of my other php flock in one of the biggest sports web sites in Russia. They pays me about 4k$ monthly, past taxes, so I pay for my rent 1/4 of paycheck, which is important for me. Well you know, we want to save some. It's not biggest salary I can get in Moscow, but relative to most other people it's quite high. Russians is not wealthiest folks, you know.
Usually I am in office from 3pm till 8pm. Most regulations force you to stay 8 hours at work but I try to avoid such places. I dont want to spend my time on facebook just to meet that expectation. Anyways, after 5 hours of coding your head is not working.

Expenses - daily lunch is about 10$ in cafeteria. Usually its a salad, soup and some macaroni/buckwheat/rice with meat/fish. My evening meals costs higher but I just hate cooking, thats why. Cigarettes - 2$ a pack, bottle of vodka 10$, hooker 150$, wait what? where am I?

Also there is alot of shops working 24/7, inclduing food delivery. I really value ability to buy food in the middle of night, I keep hearing horror stories that you can't shop around in europe after 6pm.

Entertainment - I dont do entertainment aside from movies/series/games and very rare club stints(night life in Moscow actually very good if not best in Europe). I don't care views, I was on red square first time after living in Moscow for like 5-6 years. And Kremlin is boring. Give me good climate, thats matters.

Okay, give me more details!

[ChairmanPoo]

I wonder, if you've never been outside Russia, how do you know that Moscow's night life is best in world, or the hell that it's Europe because of the shop scheudles they have? Srsly, you sound like this guy

[gogis]

I wonder, if you've never been outside Russia, how do you know that Moscow's night life is best in world, or the hell that it's Europe because of the shop scheudles they have? Srsly, you sound like this guy

When did I stated that I've never been outside Russia? Seriously. I stated what I have, you tell me what you have, it's a matter of topic.
Even more, I sound like `this guy`?  I said I want a relocation, how wrong can you be here ... wait stop, did you actually read what i've wrote?

[ToonyMan]

Cigarettes - 2$ a pack

My parents should never know this.

I wonder, if you've never been outside Russia, how do you know that Moscow's night life is best in world, or the hell that it's Europe because of the shop scheudles they have? Srsly, you sound like this guy

When did I stated that I've never been outside Russia? Seriously. I stated what I have, you tell me what you have, it's a matter of topic.
Even more, I sound like `this guy`?  I said I want a relocation, how wrong can you be here ... wait stop, did you actually read what i've wrote?

I think he means how you're typing makes you sound like a stereotype, how do I say this, you speak like Russian man.

I don't feel like sharing my living conditions either (spoilers, they're fine) so I would recommend looking at places with temperate climate.  I don't believe Russia has any of that (there might be a small amount of land they own in Europe that is C climate but I don't remember) and it's probably what you want.

[gogis]

Cigarettes - 2$ a pack

My parents should never know this.

I wonder, if you've never been outside Russia, how do you know that Moscow's night life is best in world, or the hell that it's Europe because of the shop scheudles they have? Srsly, you sound like this guy

When did I stated that I've never been outside Russia? Seriously. I stated what I have, you tell me what you have, it's a matter of topic.
Even more, I sound like `this guy`?  I said I want a relocation, how wrong can you be here ... wait stop, did you actually read what i've wrote?

I think he means how you're typing makes you sound like a stereotype, how do I say this, you speak like Russian man.

I don't feel like sharing my living conditions either (spoilers, they're fine) so I would recommend looking at places with temperate climate.  I don't believe Russia has any of that (there might be a small amount of land they own in Europe that is C climate but I don't remember) and it's probably what you want.

Well, thats because I am Russian
But I want spoliers, as I said, information is scarce over there. Temperate climate is present in Russia, but there is shit wages, or no jobs at all for my professional area. Thats why I am thinking another country.

[Il Palazzo]

Poland, Kraków. Maybe not the best climate you can imagine, but it's no Moscow either. Right now is pretty cold, which means ~-6 deg Celcius. The summers are hot but not scorching, and it's generally pretty mild.
The prices are not that much different.
A 1 bedroom apartment rent goes for around $800, a single room in a shared house/apartment is around $200.
Cigarettes are twice as expensive, alcohol is a bit cheaper ($7 for a 0.5L bottle, $9 for a 0.7). Meals are ~$8, or as cheap as $5 if you don't mind eating with the students. Don't know much about fallen women though.
Single bus/tram fares are in the vicinity of $1, but you can get a monthly pass for $15 - or less, if you only use specific lines.
Kraków is Poland's major cultural and business centre, so you can expect all the benefits of living in a large cosmopolitan city. Open-minded, English-conversant people, 24/7 shops, theaters, cinemas, operas, clubs, nightclubs, independent and not-so-independent concerts - whatever floats your boat.
My friend working in the similar position to yours says he gets ~$3500/month.
All in all, life is a bit cheaper while you earn a bit less. Ends up pretty much the same as you've described.

[gogis]

Poland, Kraków. Maybe not the best climate you can imagine, but it's no Moscow either. Right now is pretty cold, which means ~-6 deg Celcius. The summers are hot but not scorching, and it's generally pretty mild.
The prices are not that much different.
A 1 bedroom apartment rent goes for around $800, a single room in a shared house/apartment is around $200.
Cigarettes are twice as expensive, alcohol is a bit cheaper ($7 for a 0.5L bottle, $9 for a 0.7). Meals are ~$8, or as cheap as $5 if you don't mind eating with the students. Don't know much about fallen women though.
Single bus/tram fares are in the vicinity of $1, but you can get a monthly pass for $15 - or less, if you only use specific lines.
Kraków is Poland's major cultural and business centre, so you can expect all the benefits of living in a large cosmopolitan city. Open-minded, English-conversant people, 24/7 shops, theaters, cinemas, operas, clubs, nightclubs, independent and not-so-independent concerts - whatever floats your boat.
My friend working in the similar position to yours says he gets ~$3500/month.
All in all, life is a bit cheaper while you earn a bit less. Ends up pretty much the same as you've described.

Thank you for sharing. I am really surprised about `english-conrvesant people` because I could swear that less than 1% of russians speak english, which is kinda sad. Is it euro thing or is it just happened recently? I also heard from my ukrainian friend that your languages is almost same (true?). Also I heard that poles generally hate russians for all that Soviets stuff happened in the past, but I've never been in Poland to know. Is it persistent or just `old enough to know` people?

[gogis]

I'd much rather keep my private info to myself.

If I've tried to keep it away from corporations and dislike governments coming along and taking it, I don't see why I should suddenly make it available to them.

Just my opinion, though.

Oh sorry I missed your entry. They already know everything about you 

[Il Palazzo]

Thank you for sharing. I am really surprised about `english-conrvesant people` because I could swear that less than 1% of russians speak english, which is kinda sad. Is it euro thing or is it just happened recently? I also heard from my ukrainian friend that your languages is almost same (true?). Also I heard that poles generally hate russians for all that Soviets stuff happened in the past, but I've never been in Poland to know. Is it persistent or just `old enough to know` people?

It's not like everybody speaks English here, if that's what you think. Still, there's quite a good chance of being able to communicate with a random person, especially from the younger generations(like yourself). There's plenty of native Anglophones around here - Kraków somehow attracts them the most of all Polish cities - and a lot of skilled jobs require at least rudimentary English knowledge, so it's no surprise, really. As far as I'm aware it's a relatively recent development, maybe 20 years old or so.
Other large cities are not too bad in this respect, especially Warsaw and Wrocław, but still not as English-friendly as Kraków.

So you've never heard Polish? It's indeed very similar to Russian. I used to live in a shared house with a Russian once, and (to my surprise) we were able to communicate by speaking each our native language. The phonetics are almost the same, lots of words are similar in sound and meaning, also many from the older generations used to have Russian in school, so in a pinch you should be able to get by using your mother tongue.
Granted, it's hardly a fluent conversation, and it works better with large amounts of alcohol flowing, which might not always be an option.

As for the attitudes, there is indeed some resentment towards Russians, and the unfavourable stereotypes are rather pervasive among the general populace, but you're unlikely to see that in Kraków. As I said, it's a cosmopolitan city, plenty of foreigners around here, so people tend to be more open-minded and welcoming of diverse cultures.
On the other hand, I've had little chance to talk to a Russian and get his or her impressions first hand, so it's all but a speculation.

[Xantalos]

Revealing personal info would expose me to do-gooders who seek to prevent my annihilation of my treacherous creations, so no thanks.

[misko27]

My life costs, $532 in food, $963 in non-food purchases, including rent, and power, and other non-food related purchases, every month. I'm one of three, so divide that by 3.
 
$498.33 a month. A total of exactly $5980 annually. In manhatten. That was easy.

[DJ]

Jajce, Bosnia here.

I live with my parents, but if I could afford my own place it'd cost me 75-100€ a month.

I give 100€ a month to my parents, but it's for food and utilities rather than rent. If I were living on my own food and utilities would cost me 150-200€ a month. It's cheaper here because of economies of scale are a big deal in cooking, and we have a vegetable garden and a pig stay here which wouldn't be an option if I was renting a flat.

I've got a fairly long commute to work, so I spend around 150€ a month on gas.  The roads are absolutely dreadful and my car is almost 24 years old, so I also spend about 50€ a month on repairs.

I set aside about 50€ a month, for the occasional big expense like my yearly car registration.

So the grand total in expenses is 350€, and my pay as a postman is 450€. The remaining 100€ are spent on entertainment, which is just enough for a month worth of pot and a couple of 2l beer bottles on Saturdays. I can afford to go to a bar maybe once a month, other Saturdays it's drinking in the park. Last night included, even though it's mid January and it was -15°C last night. And I make more money than most people do, I got a friend who's working at a sawmill and he makes just 300€ a month.

[Muz]

Approx $1000 a month, in Malaysia. Bare minimum.
Salary just about barely breaks even on that (which means I lose money on days with car/house maintenance, events, etc). But on the plus side, it includes a substantial investment so I can cut from that if starving.
I'm not even paying for a house/car/education loan. Fuck living costs, seriously.

This is just me, my wife/mother/family all have their own expenses, and it includes money I owe them.

[RedKing]

Posting to watch and record everyone's personal information. Carry on.

[misko27]

Posting to watch and record everyone's personal information. Carry on.

Transparent is a thing you know. Yeah, look it up.