Moving from Milan to Zürich

[thims]

Hello, I’m planning onto moving to Zurich from Milan, I’m already doing some interviews and the salary for my role on LinkedIn goes from a minimum of 90’000.- to a maximum of 140’000.- but I’ll consider the lower one to not create false expectations, also the applicants are not many, like 2-3 on average.

Can I afford to live outside the city with a salary of 90’000 gross? What’s the saving rate I could achieve by my self?

By some calculations I think I’d spend around 5’000-6’000 just for living.

Also my girlfriend already lives there with her parents so the expenses like rent, groceries etc. are divided by two and we’re planning to go together.

 

[ariel04]

@thims Just as a heads up, this kind of question "Can I afford.. with this salary" tends to irk people on this and similar subreddits (e.g. r/Switzerland r/zurich ) the reason being, plenty of people earn below these amounts and are making things work. There are plenty of stats around average salaries and such around Zurich.

The answer to these questions is always "yes, you can afford it"

You're probably thinking about if you can afford to maintain a certain lifestyle and to maximise your savings rate but only you can determine what type of lifestyle you'd be happy with (e.g. commuting distance to your place of work, how big/small your apartment would be, amenities like having an elevator or your own washing machine).

How I would suggest you go on about answering this question in your personal situation is to make an imaginary monthly budget and see how things fit.

1. Figure out your "take home" salary (post taxes, pension contributions) https://www.lohncomputer.ch/en/calculator/
2. Figure out the cost of your top 4 expenses, typically housing, food, transportation and health care
   1. For housing, use https://www.homegate.ch/en
   2. For food, make an online shopping cart for the type of food you would typically buy for yourself in a week, and multiply by 4 for the month, use https://www.migros.ch/en
   3. For transportation, having identified the "address" of a home you would rent, figure out the cost of travelling to your place of work at https://www.sbb.ch/en
      1. If you think you will need a monthly/annual pass, you can get the prices here: https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/de/abos-und-tickets/abos/netzpass.html
   4. For health care, use this site to get quotes on the cost https://www.moneyland.ch/en/health/index
3. What ever is left over would be largely for your going out, savings and investments (whatever you prioritise in your life).
4. You can further refine this budget with anything special you may have (e.g. car ownership, child care etc.) and perhaps, if you are struggling to find online sources for these costs your follow up questions can be more specific about these.

You mentioned you have a girlfriend that already lives here, she should by all means already be a good source to find the cost of living for her current lifestyle that can help guide you and further refine your personal budget.

 

[lazilyelegnatcupcake]

@ariel04 I only have 10.6mio for a studio apartment in olten, can I afford it?

 

[curtiscurrier]

@thims With two income it is not too bad. But! an important aspect for an Italian is that don’t expect to have aperitivo and dining out often, it is very depressing here. If you don’t care about this you will do fine.

 

[thims]

@curtiscurrier That’s something I noticed, but at least once a month I’ll be in Italy for my monthly aperitivo

 

[mwj]

@thims Non aver paura di quanto guadagni perché qui le persone ti diranno che se non prendi almeno 120k non puoi fare nulla. Personalmente sono arrivato che prendevo 87k e risparmiavo soldi vivendo ben sopra rispetto una persona che guadagna 35k/40k a Milano. Essendo già fidanzato non vai incontro al problema principale della città cioè la vita sociale (e lì puoi spendere facile entrata in discoteca 30chf e 20 chf a cocktail, etc etc) quindi hai solo da guadagnarci. Detto ciò naturalmente cerca di capire quanto puoi chiedere! E ricorda che puoi sempre cambiare dopo 2 anni se va male o guadagni poco!

 

[thims]

@mwj Al momento ho 23 anni e sono sui 30K di RAL, per quello non so quanto chiedere. Mi scoraggiano molto i prezzi degli immobili.

 

[mwj]

@thims Comprare è impossibile, comunque 30k su per giù si traduce con 90k a Zurigo ma a Zurigo metti da parte molti più soldi

 

[thims]

@mwj 90K a Zurigo sono quindi un poveraccio (?) visto che 30K a Milano mi fanno sentire così. Dovrei puntare ai 120K per fare il pascià?

 

[johnstalling]

@thims Pascia? Ci vogliono 250k… non scherzo. Anche con 150k se ti compari aglu altri a zh sei davvero nulla.

 

[hope2find]

@thims If expenses are divided by 2 it s perfectly fine, we lived with 110 a couple in rent for 2.8.

Our life was a bit misarable to be honest and decided to move back, but that’s good money.

 

[thims]

@hope2find I found some small apartments for 2’400-2’600 which weren’t bad. Thanks for the hint, what I’m scared the most is not understanding the real cost of living there and ending up being underpaid and with economic problems. Maybe I’m just anxious.

 

[hope2find]

@thims If you have no other expenses like a leased car or other loans from bank you should be fine.

 

[thims]

@hope2find Thanks!

 

[hope2find]

@thims Anytime and have fun, it’s a good experience

 

[stillsearchinggod]

@thims Don’t aim for the normal apartments if you are looking at places in the city and you don’t want to spend months trying, there are service apartments that are a bit more expensive 2-3k but 100 times easier to get and you can focus later on finding a more stable place

Edit: if you have a girlfriend here this probably does not apply

 

[windcatcher777]

@thims Relax

 

[zaphnatpanea]

@thims I seriously don’t understand you OP. You are worried about being underpaid, but on the other hand, you are going to ask for the low range salary?

 

[johnstalling]

@thims 90k (brutto) in ZH is like 40k (net) in Milan. Good but nor great I mix brutto and netto since in the two country people talk about salary differently.

Living outside the ZH city will be quite sad, specially if you live in Milan. If you were in "provincia", no big deal then. It will be similar or better (in ZH).

I would aim for at least 110k (brutto) in order to have real increase of life quality and if possible try at least to live in the outside area of the "central" city, like Oerlikon.

 

[caspet]

@johnstalling Oerlikon is still in the city of Zurich and is pretty dumb from a financial perspective because you are going to pay the Zurich taxes. Opfikon, Wallisellen and Dübendorf would all be better choices and cheaper, because it‘s still close to the center and well-connected but has a lower cost of living.