> Because life is incredibly cheap compared to most of Europe, your odds of making a decent life are much greater - the bar can be set much lower. To give you an idea - my monthly paycheck at my first job was just over 700 euros(underpaid even for a developer with little to no experience). I had rent, bills, transportation and food to take care of and even with that, I was still able to save up around 250/month. Something unthinkable for most European capitals on such a tight budget. Now, many years later, things look really well for me.
I think you're mistaken about software salaries. In the US, even for entry level positions, you can save up several thousand dollars a month, living just fine.
I was HEAVILY underpaid out of college (due to growing up in a shitty part of the states and consequently going to a shitty university). I graduated in a decent amount of debt, too. Even still, I was able to pay of $15k worth of debt, and save another $10k on just a $70K salary -- in Boston in 2010 (which at the time was just as expensive as NYC or SF).
At the time, that was double what my parents made put together, so it seemed unbelievable to me. I knew people at the company were making double and triple that, but for some reason I thought that I'd never make that. How could I? My parents were making 1/10th of that...
I'm now saving close to $200k a year at Google. My friend just got a job in SF. He's got 0 experience -- just graduated from a coding bootcamp. He got multiple offers for ~$150k. Almost everyone in his class got similar jobs. Even as expensive as SF is, he's going to have a nice apartment, be able to eat out at restaurants and go on vacations, and still save thousands a month.
I know salaries are really shitty in Europe compared to the US -- which is sad, because even here inequality is absurd.
Starting out, it's easy to think you're wage won't grow, so it's tempting to think you need to live more affordably. Or else how else would your life be sustainable?
When I first started working, I was always thinking about leaving the city and going back to my shitty part of the States and working remote jobs for peanuts. In hind-sight, that would've been a terrible decision.
I'm doing better than most people I know, sure... But virtually every person I worked with at my first job is now making $200k+ somewhere. Same thing with my second job. At Google most people are making $300k+.
I would've never dreamed making this type of money. Part of the problem -- for me at least -- is that if you grow up somewhere pretty poor, it's easy to think you're "lucky" even when you're underpaid. I never negotiated for higher salaries when I started. I always thought I was getting paid so much it was absurd.
But then I started looking around at what other people were getting paid, and realized if I have the same skills, I should get paid just as much, too.
Now I can literally buy my mom's house with 8 months of savings. I'm planning to retire both of my parents a few years early. If I wanted to go back to my hometown now, I could join them in retirement in another 3 years or so.
But I won't. I like my job. It's easy to find a good job now. Where I grew up is fine, but it's filled with people with no hope -- because that town has nothing to offer anymore. It's sad, but it's true.
Starting out, it's really tough. Looking back on it now, I was basically living in poverty in college and almost certifiably my first year in Boston. As an anecdote, I literally didn't have heat because in Boston a lot of houses are heated with oil, and oil was almost $150 a barrel at the time. Heating the apartment was like $1k a month. I couldn't afford it. So in the Winter, which is long in Boston, I literally was in my sleeping bag any time I was home...
What a shitty life! It felt like things wound never get better. I told myself, I can't deal with this shit. Working my ass off and living in a Goddamned sleeping bag! I never thought I'd get promoted -- there wasn't much growth at the company so not any opportunity. House prices would never go down (it was 2011, so they were already half off compared to 2008, and still way out of my range). So I'd never be able to have a home, I thought.
At least for me, everyone I knew who stuck with it, it paid off really well.
Despite working at Google, I'm not particularly smart either. It's just how it is, if you can stick with it.
In the end, it's a rat race, and I can see why people get out of it. My story isn't to shame you, but I think you can make a lot more money even in Bulgaria, and if you can, you deserve it.