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

You can live cheaply and well. It may not be the cheapest cheapest in Europe, but is good value for money. For example at a restaurant opposite our office for only 5€ you can have a freshly grilled Sea Bass or a steak. Office rents are cheap as well. Expect to pay from 6€ to 10€ per m3. So you can out source the cooking and even the driving cheaply. A taxi to the airport will set you back just 8€.

Somebody I know just rented a two bed apartment in the centre of town for 440€ per month.

There is a vibrant Start Up Community. Some really good people.

For us the decision was more than just cost, but also standard of living.

You can find more details here in why we decided to open an office here: http://blog.webnographer.com/2010/10/an-rd-office-in-lisbon/

It's a really amazing place. As the parent says, Turks are incredibly friendly. Having said that, corruption is fairly rife and people will constantly try to rip you off in business transactions. It's not unusual in some jobs to forget being paid your last month's salary (or indeed several months of salary leading up to it) and taxi drivers are mostly the scum of the earth (although it is improving).

There's been a big influx of poorer, less educated and more islamic-oriented people from the east of Turkey for several years and while they may be nice people they're culturally very different to the "white turks" of Istanbul. Taksim's fine, but Cihangir, Galata, Besiktas, Ortakoy and Etiler are (in no order) where I would look to live if I wanted to stay somewhere permanent.

Oh and it goes without saying that the Istanbul police force are not your friends.

I'd recommend Prague: http://www.istorical.com/cities/prague/experiences/127

[Are you able to afford a better standard of living in Prague than in other places you've lived, or able to afford less?]

"Money certainly goes a lot farther here. For one thing, the shops are terrible, so there's nowhere to indulge yourself if you want to go crazy with your credit card. Parking in the city centre is next to impossible but the public transportation system here is safe, clean and a pleasure to use so there's no need to drive a car. The rent compared to other European cities is pretty cheap although times are changing and costs are going up in general. When I first visited Prague, a beer was less than a euro and you only needed to work three days a week to live like a king. But just like anywhere else, you can either pay through the nose for an apartment or get one really cheap by developing the right contacts.

The drugs and clothes are more expensive and much poorer quality than in the UK but everything else is generally much cheaper.

We live right in the centre of the city so I'm not sure how that compares to the outer edges of the city but we pay 18,000.00 CZK = 698.377 EUR for 90, sq meter apartment with 1 large bedroom, kitchen and living room plus a decent-sized balcony that looks out over the street. That price includes all janitor services, wi-fi and cable TV. This is way more expensive than what I was paying for a three-bedroom house on the outskirts of London but hey, it's Prague."