Salaries in germany?

Question

I have a few salary questions about Germany.

1- what is a good amount of euro's (monthly) to comfortably live?

2- what is minimum wage, and what is considered to be high-class payment?

3- is it an expensive country?

4- this one isn't about salaries, but i just remembered it. so how big is the average house or apartment in germany? i'm told they are much smaller than american homes.

thanks!

Answer 1

1.  Again I echo that it depends on where you live.  Thinking about the US, if you live in New York or LA it may take you 5x$ to live as comfortably as it would in a smaller city in say the midwest like St. Louis or Cincinnati.  In an expensive city like Munich or Frankfurt, to comfortably live, if you're just renting a room and staying with other people I'd say a salary of aout 30,000 Euro/ year could be comfortable.  If you're renting your own apartment, I'd not say under 45,000 Euros would be comfortable.  But of course comfort is different for everyone.  For me it means I can go out to eat, buy things, travel aroud Europe during my time off work.  In general, I'd say take a comfortable US salary in dollars and just change the sign to a Euro.  Cost of living and taxes are both higher here.

2- I don't know what people are saying about 10,000 being a high class payment, unless that is per month.  10,000 a year would be barely scraping by.  One of my friends, a lawyer, who makes much more money than I and had an awesome flat in Frankfurt was pulling in over 150,000 Euro/ year.  I'd qualify that as "high class".  

3- Yes. :-)  Especially in the big cities/ esp. Munich/ Frankfurt.  Again, I'd say take the dollars you'd expect to pay, change that to Euros, and you're close.  A big city, double that, especially for rent.  It is very expensive to buy property.

4- On average people don't live in houses.  Most live in apartments or townhouse type places that are all attached to each other.  A typical 3 room apartment (that includes living room and 2 bedrooms) is usually between about 75-100 square meters.  (About 800-1100 square feet.)

Answer 2

Hi,

to answer your questions it would make sense to add few more information.

1) I was living in Germany with a monthly salary of 1500 Euro as a single person. Had to pay rent, telephone bills, waste management, water, electricity, food, transportation.

In the end it all depends on your living standard.

2) There is no minimum wage in Germany. High-class payment is probably a monthly salary of more than 10,000 Euros.

3) In comparison to what other country? In comparison to the USA I would say Germany is more expensive.

4) There is no such thing as an average house or apartment in Germany. People count the rooms, NOT bedrooms. So if you fall for a 3 room apartment in Germany, that means you will have 3 rooms in which you can do whatever you want. You will not have an extra living room like in American houses. When I was a child, my parents and my sister would live in a three-room apartment: one room was my parents' bedroom, one room was my sisters and my bedroom, the last room was our living room.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

1.) that totally depends on the area you want to live in. In Munich for example you would need a lot more money than in Berlin. Simply because the rents are much higher there and the prices for most other things are higher, too.

2.) There is no real minimum wage in Germany, but a very low hourly wage would be 6-10 EUR. High class I would consider everything above 10.000 EUR after taxes (which is probably 20.000 bfore taxes)

3.) again, that depends on where you intend to live and how much you expect. You can live reasonably well with little money. It is especially expensive for visiing Americans nowadays, since the dollar is so weak

4.) again, it is impossible to answer this question without considering the area you would want to live in. It's like comparing the tiny NCY-apartments with the huge L.A. houses.

Answer 4

1. depends on your expenses

2. there is no national minimum wage

3. it is not an expensive country

4. homes are smaller in germany than in the US