Quote: (11-21-2018 05:19 PM)MikeS Wrote:
Quote: (11-21-2018 12:06 AM)flyinghorse Wrote:
One of the biggest factors was also that I will only earn 1,100 euros per month online.
I have to pay 17.5% tax and I have to pay 80 euros health insurance so that takes me down to around 800 euros per month.
I read many people (foreigners too) can live off 500 euros per month in Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria (Croatia and Slovenia are more expensive).
Now, this is the lowest I can earn, and I will earn extra due to private tutoring, but I think its wise to plan to your min income so that the extra cash is just that (i'll save the extra cash).
So still thinking it will be Plovdiv as it meets all my needs and its still slightly bigger than my home town in the uk.
Any reason you wouldn't choose Sofia over Plovdiv? (Edit: Saw your other post about rent differences. You're probably right, although when I checked rent prices in Varna before I moved to Bulgaria they didn't really seem much lower than Sofia.)
While Plovdiv is a very nice city, it's also a city with around 350,000 people compared to 1.3+ million (likely significantly higher unofficially) in Sofia. Which obviously means more of most things you could want to do, whether it's bars, clubs, restaurants, cinemas, malls, parks, whatever.
I went from a city in Denmark around the size of Plovdiv to Sofia, and for the time being - even though I only use a tiny fraction of the things available in Sofia - I would have a bit of a hard time moving to a secondary city, except for seasonally in the summer, but then I would choose Varna on the coast instead of Plovdiv.
As far as your budget goes I pay €350 in rent quite far from the center, but you can realistically find apartments down to around €150-200. Although they might not be very nice ones.
Additional monthly costs of living - utilities, TV, internet, phone, public transportation and a few taxi rides now and then, as well as supermarket purchases (food, other necessities) - amount to around €300. So for me around €650 per month for basic living costs. But that can certainly be done cheaper here, since that's already more than an average monthly income for a local in Sofia and more than twice an income for many locals in small towns.
And then of course all the other more or less necessary "life expenses" on top of that, some of which are much cheaper here than in Western Europe (eg. restaurants, bars, pretty much any type of entertainment and some types of goods, local hotel stays if you want to travel the country a bit) and others which cost exactly the same (TV, phone, computers etc.).
Very helpful to read.
I come from a city of only 80,000 and moved up to a city of 250,000 which felt huge in England and met all my needs. A city much bigger than that just feels excessive.
Big cities make me feel claustrophobic as well.