just (another) cost of life question

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sigurd
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Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2017 11:01 pm

just (another) cost of life question

Post by sigurd » Wed Sep 06, 2017 11:09 pm

Hello Friends,
I am in need of your assistance. I have a job offer for Helsinki which i am trying to evaluate. The offer is 5000 per month BEFORE taxes.
I believe this must be around 3500 net, is this correct?
How much might a family of 3 (kid 8 years old) leaving in Espoo will need?
For rent in Espoo i estimate 1200-1500 per month
I checked with numbeo and it gave me 4000 per month, do you think this is correct?
NUMBEO
I will have a company car and phone, but i pay the gas on my own. I will also need 1 month a trip to homeland so - 300Euro

Thank you very much



just (another) cost of life question

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Upphew
Posts: 10748
Joined: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:55 pm
Location: Lappeenranta

Re: just (another) cost of life question

Post by Upphew » Thu Sep 07, 2017 12:24 pm

sigurd wrote:Hello Friends,
I am in need of your assistance. I have a job offer for Helsinki which i am trying to evaluate. The offer is 5000 per month BEFORE taxes.
I believe this must be around 3500 net, is this correct?
How much might a family of 3 (kid 8 years old) leaving in Espoo will need?
For rent in Espoo i estimate 1200-1500 per month
I checked with numbeo and it gave me 4000 per month, do you think this is correct?
NUMBEO
I will have a company car and phone, but i pay the gas on my own. I will also need 1 month a trip to homeland so - 300Euro

Thank you very much
Company car and phone will be added to your wage and taxed, so your take home pay will be less (as one can't pay taxes with car or phone, only with money). Why use third party websites for those calculations? We have nice Tax administration who even redirect you to their English pages if you type http://www.tax.fi to your preferred browser. From there you can find: tax percentage calculator, gross income calculator. If you have questions what numbers to put in those, shoot a question.

edit. messed up my message
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sigurd
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2017 11:01 pm

Re: just (another) cost of life question

Post by sigurd » Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:40 pm

Thank you very much for the update
I am trying the Gross Income Calculator found https://prosentti.vero.fi/BPL/Sivut/Las ... x#Laskenta here

I am not sure of the following option
- Working as "au pair"
- It is agreed that the employer will pay pension & unempl. insurance
they havent clarify these kind of details yet.
Also dont know what the fringe benefit will be - io estimate for a car its around 2000 per year.

In any case, a family of 3 with a rent of around 1500, how much will they need for average life.

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wolf80
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Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:43 pm
Location: Helsinki

Re: just (another) cost of life question

Post by wolf80 » Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:49 pm

sigurd wrote: For rent in Espoo i estimate 1200-1500 per month
That sounds about right, depending on the exact location and apartment you choose. I guess with that salary you would aim for one of the nicer regions. Not too long ago we paid 1200 Euro for a 75 m2 apartment with 2 bedrooms close to Kauniainen, so in a rather nice Swedish-speaking part of Espoo.
sigurd wrote: How much might a family of 3 (kid 8 years old) leaving in Espoo will need?
That is very hard to say and depends a lot on your personal needs. For example, food is expensive in general, but even more so if you go for high quality items or niche market foods. The kilo price for a wole chicken can be 8-10 Euro/kilo for a conventional chicken, and up to 30 Euro/kilo for a local organic chicken. Even with a good salary you might find that you have to look more closely at prices when you buy food.

I would say that with that salary you should easily support a family of five. Nevertheless, Finland is expensive, and even with a good salary you might wonder at the end of the month where all the money went. It's not an easy country to put money into your savings account!

chickensexer
Posts: 1248
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2006 8:50 pm

Re: just (another) cost of life question

Post by chickensexer » Sat Sep 09, 2017 9:39 pm

Hello Sigurd

Brutto salary of 5000 plus a car without gas would leave you with less than 3500 but more like 3000, 3200 max. The fringe benefit of car is probably a lot more than 2000 per year. For example, I've got a quite modest company car, although with fuel included in the benefit, too and the taxable value is about 600 a month.

The rent estimate sounds about right, although depends on a district. Where in Espoo you are planning on renting?

And yes, Finland is expensive. For example, a single public transport ticket within the capital region is 5€. Monthly unlimited ticket within the same region is around 100 if I'm not mistaken. Office lunch 8-10. A simple restaurant (outside the lunch menu hours) about 10 for a starter, 20 for a main. The cheapest wine in Alko (state monopoly of alcohol retail) close to 10. About 15min taxi ride around 40€. Gents' haircut 30-40. Ladies hair coloring job for medium length hair 80-100. Decent childrens' winter shoes 70. Children's rain clothes (and boy will you need those) also around 70...

As for supporting a family of 3 with that salary in Espoo... I'm not sure, depends on your spending habits I guess. Personally, we are on the same level now with single income during my maternity leave with our toddler and it feels quite tight.

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theelephantmum
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Re: just (another) cost of life question

Post by theelephantmum » Tue Sep 19, 2017 10:40 pm

It's totally enough. We lived as a couple with 1700 euros/month after taxes. Didn't save anything but got even every month.
Finland is a great country with kids, all kids-relates expenses are low and fair to your income... unless you plan English-language education for your child, then be prepared for awful school fees. I think it's a good offer... maybe you won't live the good life until you have two salaries, but you'll definitely manage.
If you plan to stay few years, I recommend considering buying a house: it's an excellent moment and Finns tend to buy and move quite easily, so it should be easy to resell or rent if you move away. Rents are more expensive than mortgages here.
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FinnGuyHelsinki
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Re: just (another) cost of life question

Post by FinnGuyHelsinki » Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:45 am

theelephantmum wrote:If you plan to stay few years, I recommend considering buying a house.
5k€ gross salary and a house in Espoo just does not compute, unless one has loads of cash and/or collateral otherwise. An apartment, maybe, a two-bedroom one easily runs into the 300k€ range (that's 1k€/month for 25 years, without interest).

Rosamunda
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Re: just (another) cost of life question

Post by Rosamunda » Thu Sep 21, 2017 12:07 am

FinnGuyHelsinki wrote: (that's 1k€/month for 25 years, without interest).
...which is well inside his rental budget estimate of 1200-1500e/month.

FinnGuyHelsinki
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Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:52 pm

Re: just (another) cost of life question

Post by FinnGuyHelsinki » Mon Sep 25, 2017 8:58 pm

Rosamunda wrote:
FinnGuyHelsinki wrote: (that's 1k€/month for 25 years, without interest).
...which is well inside his rental budget estimate of 1200-1500e/month.
Rental is not the same as a bank loan payment, the latter will have to be approved by the bank first. With the said details (usable income, family of three, length of loan term), it would be pushing it. And of course, they will be charging interest and there's the minimum 10% cash/collateral as mandated by law. But no harm in trying, I guess.


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