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Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#121

Post by nandemo »

winter_blue wrote: post #102

Dubai. - Zero taxes. You nearly double your income! - Low cost of living for a city of its caliber. Rent: - Easy to get a freelancer visa. You get freelancer visa by setting up a company in a free zone, and issuing a work visa to yourself. This can cost about $5-$7k yearly. Unlike most countries, there are no nonsensical visa rules, or caps (ahem, H1-Bs) -- you're pretty much guaranteed to get one if you apply, no qu…

> Low cost of living for a city of its caliber. Rent:

Eh, I suppose you can call that cheap if you compare it with NYC and San Francisco...

Even in Tokyo you can get a 1BR for <$1k/month, and you can spend <$300 on food if you cook (some people claim they spend half of that).

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#122

Post by lgieron »

emilsundberg wrote: post #34

I would recommend you to keep out of Eastern Europe. The people there wants to believe they have left their history behind but they haven't. When I visited Budapest the police acted as Stasi and on the local metro they only asks foreigners for valid tickets. Very unfriendly. I would never recommend anyone going there.

You might have as well generalised that experience to the whole northern hemisphere, would be as justified.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#123

Post by [deleted] »

tmuir wrote: post #109
ncc88 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more black people in the southern US than any other region, your analogy does not match up and is woefully ignorant.

If the southern US has not historically been more hostile to blacks than other regions of the US, then why did almost every major event of the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s take place in southern states? Why were most of the jurisdictions requiring preclearance to change their voting laws under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the south? Its because those counties and states have had a documented history o…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#124

Post by throwawayyyz »

albertoperdomo wrote: post #45

If you don't care much about a startup and tech scene (there is little) you can spend a nice time in the Canary Islands, Spain. It's not the cheapest place in Europe, you'll find cheaper locations in Eastern Europe admittedly. Still, you can find a nice 1BR appartment for €400-500/mo in Las Palmas City near the beach or share an appartment for somewhere around €200/mo for a room. The weather is really really nice thr…

What do you think about raising kids there?

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#125

Post by zebra »

cmdkeen wrote: post #16
forcer wrote: post #4

You can move to some low-tax or no-tax country. I can recommend Andorra, 0% income tax and reasonable prices for pretty much anything , rent, food, alcohol etc :) I also heard Belarus has almost no tax and its very cheap to live there, but there will be lots of bureaucracy :)

"lots of bureaucracy" being code for authoritarian dictatorship... I suppose if you want to learn about how you don't actually live in a police state in the West you could move there.

Not always - in Bulgaria there is lot of bad bureaucracy, but the regime is mix of democracy and oligarchy. The country is almost European country.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#126

Post by epsylon »

sebkomianos wrote: post #6

Depends on what you are looking for really. Are you a freelancer? Do you want to join a startup? Want to create one? Do you have clients already or are you on the hunt for some? Do you like big cities or prefer the countryside? Do you want a warm climate or want to stay in during cold nights?

Well, since this answer in this thread might interest people other than OP, feel free to make a suggestion where you explain the pros and the cons!

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#127

Post by winter_blue »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118
xtracto wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a lot of us outside USA, that sentence would describe several cities in America.

As an American living abroad, I've discovered that many American cities are actually quite nice to the synthetic alternatives. Ya, consumerism is worshiped, but as long as you are in a real city core (not the suburbs), its actually mostly quite nice compared to Dubai.

> but as long as you are in a real city core (not the suburbs), its actually mostly quite nice compared to Dubai.

In what way? (just want to know your perspective) I do prefer US cities myself (esp. NYC) way more than Dubai - mostly for the culture, people and the opportunities there. But the awesome H-1B cap and lottery doesn't help. After all, what other country conducts a freaking lottery for high-skilled worker visas?

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#128

Post by winter_blue »

charlesdm wrote: post #117
winter_blue wrote: post #102

Dubai. - Zero taxes. You nearly double your income! - Low cost of living for a city of its caliber. Rent: - Easy to get a freelancer visa. You get freelancer visa by setting up a company in a free zone, and issuing a work visa to yourself. This can cost about $5-$7k yearly. Unlike most countries, there are no nonsensical visa rules, or caps (ahem, H1-Bs) -- you're pretty much guaranteed to get one if you apply, no qu…

What does $1k/mo actually get you and in what part of town? I've visited Dubai before, and actually really really liked it. The fact that there was so much diversity was interesting. Seems to be a lot of cool things happening as well - Startup Weekends, Make hub, etc. Food was great as well. I also looked into getting a visa. The $5-7k for the freelance visa - is that with the Dubai Internet City free zone? Technical…

One of my relatives stays in Dubai with his family (wife and child), at a really nice 2-bedroom apartment in a high-rise, that's got parking within the building (the first 4 floors have been converted into parking spaces). He pays AED 38,000 a year for it. Air conditioning is included in the rent, so his electric bill is significantly lower than that of most UAE residents.

AED 38k translates to $10,345/year, or $862/month. He had to hunt a lot for this apartment though. It's not easy to find, and if you're unfamiliar with Dubai it's especially easy to end up paying Manhattan-esque rents.

With regard to the freelance visa -- I haven't gotten myself one (yet), so I'm no expert. But I don't think working from home will be a problem. You're right that you can't do business with non-free zone companies. But if you're a freelance programmer or web designer, you can basically work out of your home, and bill your client for you work as you normally would anywhere else. And you'd get the full amount, since the UAE has no income taxes.

As far as I know, you do approach a free zone company like DMTFZA. I've actually spoken to a rep at another free zone (RAKFTZ). The reason it costs $5k is because you can't just register a company with a free zone -- you also have to pay at least some office rent. With RAKFTZ, I basically explained my situation -- that I'd be freelancing, and that I was looking for the cheapest option (in terms of visas), to stay in the country. They said the cheapest options was a "Flex" plan, where I am allowed to use one of the meeting rooms in the RAK Free Zone building for up to X hours a week (X So you're looking at $7k the first year, $5k the next two years, $7k again, and so on -- which is not bad, considering you're not paying taxes (assuming you're making at least $5k/mo). The Dubai free zone authority probably charges, but I most likely not too much more (in order to stay competitive). As a side note; Gulf News, a local English daily in the UAE, had a piece where they described how freelancer visas costs around AED 25,000/year (~$6.8k/yr), and how this was exorbitant and what not. Note: most foreigners in the UAE earn a lot less than first-world country wages. I would wager a guess that the median income of a resident of the UAE was between USD 15k to 20k (i.e. quite close to the US poverty line). The wealth distribution in the UAE is sadly, quite uneven.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#129

Post by enneff »

winter_blue wrote: post #108
enneff wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but then you have to live in a totally artificial environment that is a living monument to consumerism.

What are you implying here anyways? That the buildings, malls, water theme parks, etc. are artificial? Well then, I'd say most cities are artificial. Unless you want to move into a jungle. Does that count as natural?

I'm implying that the city seems to mostly cater to people whose primary leisure activity is spending money. There's no natural environment to explore there, and it's mostly culturally bereft.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#130

Post by k-mcgrady »

igravious wrote: post #99
k-mcgrady wrote: post #5

I live in the UK and we use Pounds Sterling. When I travel to any country using the Euro prices are always relatively higher so I would recommend against a country using the Euro. I found this list showing Euro/Non-euro countries: http://www.aph.com/news/knowbeforeyougo/euro_countries.shtml

topic: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply? > I would recommend against a country using the Euro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone Dude, 17 out 27 EU member states use the € with Latvia joining 1 Jan 2014 and Lithuania 1 Jan 2015. Population of Eurozone: 330 million. Good luck coming to Europe and avoiding the Eurozone: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gr…

>> "Good luck coming to Europe and avoiding the Eurozone" >> "Dude, 17 out 27 EU member states use the €"

10 countries don't use it. That still leaves you with quite a lot of choice. And as I said I was just speaking from personal experience that goods Euro using countries tend to be more expensive. This probably doesn't apply to every one of those countries but it has in every one I've visited.

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