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Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

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221–230 of 269 posts

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#221
I would recommend moving to Germany elsewhere. Berlin is certainly the worst place in Germany, Dresden or Leipzig are much cheaper, and have extremely nice quality of life attributes.

w/o cold winters/island: On an island you are on an island. Lots of germans moved to the Baleares, Canares, Portugal, Spain, or some richer Caribbean island, such as Kitts and Nevis or Bahamas. But generally they prefer New Zealand over that.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#222
post #28

> that allows us to buy / rent a quality house (which is close to impossible in Berlin even making 200k/year [due to neck breaking tax and cost of living]). This is more likely to be due to the tight situation on the housing market with several monopolists than to excessively high taxes.

It makes no sense. At 200k/year you should easily be able to afford a very nice house indeed. Perhaps op is spending it all on luxury, travel, ...?

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know Italian politics, you know it won't happen. None of the future candidates has the standing to pull something like this off, without considering that - outside Europe - Italy has nowhere else to go at the moment. Even the popular sentiment is not there as we're already past our no-EU years and even then it was an empty electoral promise.

I am italian :) Do you remember the very first phase of yellow-green government? They had choose as economy minister one crazy old man that already had prepared a plan to exit from euro in one weekend. Luckily for us, the president Mattarella stopped it.

> They had choose as economy minister one crazy old man that already had prepared a plan to exit from euro in one weekend. Luckily for us, the president Mattarella stopped it.

That "crazy old man" (Paolo Savona) is an economist, academic, previously minister for the economy and he is now the CONSOB president, so trust me he is not crazy, he has a better CV than both of us combined, it's just that you disagree and your view of him is overly simplistic. Furthermore I don't see what right the reactionary Mattarella had to veto him, but that's another story.

Nevertheless, even with the best intentions no party/government has the right standing and foreign support to leave Europe succesfully, even the yellow-green government didn't have any actual chance. If we try, the best we can hope for is a scenario a la Tsipras' Greece.

That's why I don't believe there's any chance that Meloni will attempt something like this, and even if she promises Italexit and a majority of Italians votes her for it, the reactionary Mattarella will stop it. No worries, Italy is a democracy only as long as people vote "correctly", and by correctly I mean in a way that doesn't scare the markets.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#224

> that allows us to buy / rent a quality house (which is close to impossible in Berlin even making 200k/year [due to neck breaking tax and cost of living]) Just, how? If you have 200k/year, taxes and Berlin's low cost of living should have almost no impact on you. That's like more than than 4 times the median German salary, in one of the cheapest city of the country (rent is of course expensive, but that's mostly dep…

Berlin is not anymore one of the cheapest places to live in Germany, since the rent went up 100% in the past 8 years, it is now the fourth most expensive large city in Germany.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In UK, can you please tell me how at 200K pounds, the taxes can come down only to 35-40% especially at 125K or above, the 60% tax trap kicks in. [1] If you can specify any tax saving tips or refer to some consultant, I will be grateful. Really the only way in UK is to put in a large part of your earnings into pension contributions which effectively makes it out of bounds till 55 or 57 from 2028 onwards, which means e…

What 60% trap is that? The linked page looks very suspicious and doesn't offer much information.

Between 100k and 125k you lose £1 of your tax allowance for each £2 you earn. Which greatly increases your tax in that window.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#226
the trick to living in Europe as a software engineer is to work remotely and live in small town / village outside of big cities with overpriced properties and people of questionable morals and goals.

special achievement for tough lads / lassies is to move to dodgy eastern countries like czech republic, croatia, romania to save on tax. forget about doing the grown up stuff in english there and when your child gets sick or needs education you need to fly right back to daddy germany.

portugal and ireland also have tax incentives but I dont think the quality of life, services or health care are comparable to germany.

all in all since brexit, interesting and realistic solution seems to be switzerland, but it has its own quirks.

in my opinion you would do better to stay in Germany but move to a more sensible location than Berlin. Get a piece of land where still possible. Germany is a safe bet and will be last one to crumble of the EU states, on paper...

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#227

the trick to living in Europe as a software engineer is to work remotely and live in small town / village outside of big cities with overpriced properties and people of questionable morals and goals. special achievement for tough lads / lassies is to move to dodgy eastern countries like czech republic, croatia, romania to save on tax. forget about doing the grown up stuff in english there and when your child gets sic…

Quality of life in Portugal is amazing if you have internationally sourced income - local wages are low. Effective tax rate for Freelancers is 15% + social costs. Private healthcare is superb and remarkably cheap, public healthcare good for emergencies. Infrastructure is amazing, beautiful beaches, superb food & wine, lovely climate, widespread English, Work Visas very easy to get, Large vibrant Friendly Expat community, what more do you want? I moved to Cascais from UK 5 years ago because of Brexit and I love it here.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to understand how come Dutch people allow such levels of drug production in ther soil.

What is there to understand? Drugs = money

Such a small country full of illegal production points. I guess there is sufficient data to find them, I am sure others with geospatial experience share this thought.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#229

I am also leaving Germany. Today I chatted with a Berliner who pointed out how loud and unsafe Berlin has become. Months ago I talked with a lady with kids that moved out cos too much drugs in parks. Not surprised to read your story! I am going to the land of tolerance and innovation: the Netherlands!

If i was moving away from Germany because of too many drugs, the Netherlands wouldn't be my first choice.

It doesn't affect daily life much unless you live in the south or one of the big cities.

Netherlands has higher taxes than Germany, there's also wealth tax and soon some others. But foreigners can deduct their taxes by 30% the first 5 years (the 30% ruling)

Basically OP can move to these places without visa (excluding UK). https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c6/38/10/c63810cb1a63e6529835...

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#230

Cambridge, UK - A solid tech hub so you should have enough opportunities - Good options for your wife as well to work - You can also work in London (only 50 minutes by train to King's Cross); I do that - High quality education for kids While we don't have kids but from friends who do have, they find Cambridge to be great place to work, live and raise a family. And while you won't get warm winters, they should still b…

OP would need a work visa to work in the UK because of Brexit. Low salaries for perm roles plus high taxes make him worse off.
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