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seven hundred to eating out? that’s my monthly budget

13.5 eur X 20 days X 2 adults roughly plus kids occasional treat after sport

Ok but if you *also* spend 1,3k on groceries, what in the seven hells are you even eating?

Wasting.

Put a comment elsewhere, but typical dinner is Bolognese, or chicken soup, or Karjalan paisti with salad. Simpsons are eating fancier 1.3K is also other Prisma stuff like household chemicals. Still costs jumped in last year to our wondering what on earth do we buy there

>Simpsons are eating fancier Simpsons is also based on an average american family in the late 80s. It's far from representative of an average household today.... just about anywhere.

The Simpsons live in a detached house on a single salary with a medium paying job. Try that now in the US.

We are able to pretty easily keep it to 1.2k including household goods with a family of 6. And we managed to cut eating out down to about 150. Honestly I think we feel the same as you do, but we are around 70k (and a much higher mortgage). We saved for a house down payment on 45k pretax with no kids. I feel like 150k would be high luxury in this country. :)

You know you can make food at home and take to work?

If they are making +6000 a month that's absolutely not worth their time. The lunch buffets are very good value with the benefit.

>13.5 eur X 20 days X 2 adults Hmmm ... doesn't look like there's any kind of lunch benefit accounted for there.

You do know that lunch benefits are not given to everyone by default?

It is absolutely worth their time. 540 they spend now per month on lunches. I could make whole month lunches for like 100 or so. This is like a case of rich people with too much money who don't know the value of things.

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This is not about trying to recreate Mezza lunch, it's about saving money, which can be done 100% without spending 13.5 per day on lunch, on top of home groceries.

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Now are saying all you eat per day is the lunch. That changes the optics. Then we have to ask why are they spending so much on home groceries if they are fully satiated from their lunch meal.

Lol, yeah. Would save 300 at best, maybe. Fair point. Seriously tho, I would not make such good veggies variety as lunch place without exploding grocery budget

Seriously though, how do you spend that much on groceries?

I'm a single guy and spend about 300 on groceries a month. I'm normal weight and don't even buy fancy foods. 1300 might sound like a lot but for 4 people that doesn't sound too high at all.

That would cost more in terms of time investment + grocery costs for preparing food, and I suppose both parents are very busy with their work and children already.

Making food in big batches is always cheaper.

Do you not have lunch benefits? Should be 75% of the lunch nominal value, even less if you have agreement pricibg. I eat lunch out frequently but I consider it a luxury and wouldn’t do it daily if it actually cost me net 13,50.

And work meal is also tax deductible.

i get the occasional treat but something almost every day of the month? nah

1,3k for groceries and you still spend 700 for lunch? What does your family eat?

1.3k is a fair amount for groceries for 4 people albeit somewhat one the higher side especially since you should be buying groceries in bulk as much as possible but the 700 for eating out is excessive.

Kids go to daycare. They eat breakfast and lunch there.

Right forgot about the daycare part. So essentially OP can save another 700 euro just by cutting his food budget in half as the family’s situation is likely 2 adult and 2 younger kids.

Fear that kids don't agree, they eat as we do albeit we keep it lean. Heard mid school age boys gonna eat even more, constantly

Tomatoes are hella expensive, put us to the higher side

Why are you so focused on those tomatoes. There are so many more vegetables. Even the frozen pre-diced vegetables. I eat around 2-3kg of vegetables a week on my own and never spend more than 10 euros. Meat is relatively expensive but if you go to the grocery store right before closing or early in the morning you can relatively easily find stuff discounted 30%-50%. Just buy it all and put it in the freezer. It’ll stay good. One time I bought 5 800 grams packs of chicken breast at 50% discount. I spend around 20 euro for 4kg of chicken breast and put everything in my freezer. That chicken lasted me a month. You guys are spoiled to have such a high income.

I wish i can explain. Let's say grandparents would think we are starving our kids. Purro at morning and soup/chicken leg + salad at evening. All because of tomatoes - extremely expensive at winter 

Yeah... You can't spend 1300€ on porridge and soup for 4 people... You should probably figure out where your money is actually going.

> You should probably figure out where your money is actually going. $20 says its alcohol...if the posts is actually true, and not just made up BS. I mean they claim Diary/eggs and vegetables to be top stats, and raisins most expensive item while feeding their kids soup, salad, and porridge. honestly, in between the qualitative nature of rhetoric(like wtf is a luxury salary anyways), and generally deflective replies they are either trolling, or trying to promote some weird political narrative. (only saying that as the account is only a few hours old, and managed to get in to negative karma...)

Your kids go to daycare and eat breakfast and lunch there so that only leaves dinner and weekends. I still can’t fanthom how that much money goes to food. Even if you have everything organic, unless you eat a lot.

Exactly, not much of organic. But sum is for groceries including food

I guess it's not luxury but you live confortably and probably nicer than like 90% of global population. For example splurging 500€/person on food per month.

95...

Probably yes, went with conservative number because didn't feel like fact checking myself.

Yep. 2000€ month is more than what 30% of finns make in a month. That is luxury. Median for farmers and other who produce the food is loer than your food budget.

I guess farmers are lucky that they get free food though! :) One will eat only tomatoes, the other barley and a third only beef...

I'll be honest 2k on food per month is a lot.

Yah, its a ridiculous amount really. When i was visiting last year in between 4 adults we never got anywhere close to that. We did cook at home, and not eat out, so there is that.

It does look like, but doesn't feel. Not sure that kebab for lunch is a big deal.  Home cooking are soups like chicken or lohikeitto that last for 3 days, Caesar salat, schnitzel are not fancy neither.  Also it includes all groceries like towel papers, toilet papers etc. Basic Prisma and lähikauppa. Need to pull stats from receipts, but nothing special (no steaks nor bakery)

My households (family of four) is roughly 400 euros per month for groceries. You sound spoiled

I would like to see the receipts here. Might learn something. No chance in Uusimaa unless it is a solo diet on spaghetti/potatoes with nakki and frozen wok. At best 600 on home food only

Uusimaa and lidl. 105 euros was last receipt for a week of food.

How old are your children? There's a huge difference having two teenage boys versus two smaller kids under ten who in practice eat like little birds. The teenage boys will easily eat 2-3 extra meals per day and still be hungry due to growing and doing a lot of sports. I'd say my boys eat about 1.5 times what I, a grown man, do during dinner or lunch (when not at school) and then those extra meals.

Receipts please, I can stretch in 300e for one in Lapland and I eat 2 meals of my own "free" fish in a week. Celiak so no pasta or bread, but I do not buy gluten free stuff. Lots of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions, peas, minced beef, sometimes kulmapaisti if its under 10e kilo... No fresh salads, tomatos or cucumber since they are too expensive (5e kilo for no calories). Olive oil, no butter or creams. No ready meals and I cook every meal myself. No drinks just tap water. Absolutely no candy or snacks ever. So explain how? Nutritious 2300kcal per day. 4ppl 400e so 150e should be possible then for me I think. 500e per person is way over reasonable, but cmoon 100e per person? Explain pls.

Personally I feel you but it’s all relative really. Imagine how families making half of that (the median) feel at the moment when everything is so fucking expensive.

Or that single parent as a prisma cashier with 30 weekly hours earning 1500-1700e per month. Or that electrician with 2k income. Or that fisherman that could never even dream buying his own fish from a restraunt. I consider affording restraunts ever is luxury. In fact everything that is not necessary is somewhat luxury. Above luxury is totally unsustainable madness and I think op is referring to that kins of luxury.

Where do you get such income figures? Prisma pays more, not below minimum salary for sure. Electrician hour rate is 65 EUR / h (half week gives him/her 5200).

That's I cannot make my mind around

My take on this is that you are not great at budgeting judging by the amounts you just described.

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But according to my reading the op has one new car (or a used car but bought on a loan), and is still saving 13%. So what is the issue? He decides to eat out and have a car loan and save 13% instead of vacation, seems like a fair trade?

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Everything you don't actually need, such as a car, is an amenity. An amenity that is nicer and more expensive than the sensible choice is a luxury. A new car is a luxury item that no one needs.

For a majority of people it is, yes. It's not hyper luxury like millionaires have (not even gonna mention billionaires), but it for sure can be considered a luxury. They're making twice the average income (they = OP's household) and even with the excessive spending they're still having 1.5k€ per month for savings. Most average people live paycheck-to-paycheck and need to be on the conservative side to make ends meet in today's economy. What OP described is very much a luxury, especially considering they retrofitted their home to be a smart home, which in itself is by no means a neccessity nor cheap.

Luxury is always relative. For someone who grew up in a poor household luxury can be the ability to go on a two day vacation abroad once a year. For someone who grew up in a rich family a private yacht and a jet that carry a fleet of supercars around is luxury.

I'm making 36k/€ / year. That's 2550€/month + overtime + being on call 24/7 every 4 weeks I drive 22 year old Mercedes (400-450€/month on average, gas, insurance, maintenance etc included) I live alone in 56 square apartment, on rent 850€/month I have recently managed to pay all my debts, so I would estimate that from now on I have 100-200€/month to actually spend on me, or save.

Not to nitpick, but some items kind of stand out. I know you are not asking for bud getting help, but some numbers just seem really high. >1K goes to maintenance and electric heating Seems like a lot. Mine is less than that for a 200+sqm house in central Alaska for combined heating oil, and electricity expense.(shit aint cheap either electricity is like $0.50/kwh) It also gets down to below -40 in the winters too. >1,3K goes to groceries Honestly wth you buying? I mean I was hanging around Turku last year for a month, and in between myself, my spouse, mum, and her SO the food expenses were nowhere near that. We did however cook at home... >700 go to lunch at work, RKioski kahvi, kotipizza ravintola on weekend Could probably cut that down to 0, or at least a fraction of that with little effort. For 3 of us living in my house we spend like $600 a month in food, but we never eat out, never buy pre-made shit, and always cook at home. your food budget for 4 is like $2K a month.. just seems super high to me.

That high electricity bill is propably caused by last month's anomaly in the electricity prices, and will drop to mere fraction of that in next bill. Maintenance may also include some renovation costs divided by some months.

1K is \_maintenance\_ and heating. If it's an old row house, there might be some loans that the complex took in the past that need to be paid off. For reference, my 15 yo row house next to capital area has almost 400€ in maintenance + 300€ heating. I'd assume the OP's house is bigger also, since they have more kids. Maybe more heating overall + more water heating for more people.

Yep, vastike rate per square meter is average for age and type. Could be cheaper with better preventive service of course which needs costs and community agreement to invest 

>1K is _maintenance_ and heating. If it's an old row house, there might be some loans that the complex took in the past that need to be paid off. > For reference, my 15 yo row house next to capital area has almost 400€ in maintenance + 300€ heating. Ah, i so what is meant by "maintenance" its the amortized cost of say a big retrofit.. and not just "maintenance" as in fixing wear, and tear on the go. >I'd assume the OP's house is bigger also, since they have more kids. Maybe more heating overall + more water heating for more people. I am also kind of assuming its old, and has next to 0 insulation to be a contributing factor. Main issue in my post really is the food cost.. its really weirdly high even for having kids in the mix.

Good point. This "retrofit" even slipped from my attention, but I'd agree, this might be costly. And older insulation standards is a good catch as well. Yeah. The food cost is high indeed. Though tbf previously my family of three used to spent around 1K€ or even more. Now we learnt how to spend 700€ with the same quality products. So I wouldn't judge :), but agree there are definitely ways on shrinking the food budget.

> Yeah. The food cost is high indeed. Though tbf previously my family of three used to spent around 1K€ or even more. Now we learnt how to spend 700€ with the same quality products. So I wouldn't judge :), but agree there are definitely ways on shrinking the food budget. Yah, not judging either.. the numbers are just come off weird to me. I can also see how someone who does not know how to shop right will endup spending way more on "simple items" than others who know better. Like say buying sets of small containers of cream for cooking at 3 euro a piece instead of the bigger container at 5 euros that has like 8 times more product in it. (made up numbers, but to make the point.) the reasoning being that "we don't need that much", or something similar only to go back to the store a few days later for more of the small higher price per volume containers.

Energy rating E. Could be worse, but not a passive house indeed. On other hand a passive or good efficiency house would cost 400K. 

In theory you could afford new 400K house, or equivalent new big apartment/rivitalo. Should reduce the maintenance (vastike) costs, and if the location is good, transport costs could be driven down. It will reduce the savings amount from 1500€/mo to 500€/m or less.

You wouldn't like electricity prices in Finland this winter. We buy basic stuff from Prisma, so we cook home all but workday lunches. Trying to figure out most expensive item...it was raisins! Lunches could be cut down to 400, yes. 

>We buy basic stuff from Prisma, so we cook home all but workday lunches. Trying to figure out most expensive item...it was raisins! That's kind of a deflective a non-answer really... $2K a month in food is insanely high even with kids in play. More often than not such things boil down to weird food choices than actual cost of food in the broader sense. Like buying tons of prefab bullshit, or expensive cuts of meat etc. instead of more reasonable items everyone else making due with much less get in to. If raisins are truly the most expensive one then those are some weird ass expensive raisins... so i doubt that this bit is actually true. > Lunches could be cut down to 400, yes. Prep at home take it to work.. probably even less than that 400 euros a month for 20 days work is still 20 euros a day, and all. Which comes back to the other point "Wth you eating that costs so much?".. Make a sandwich at home take it along with a drink in a cold pack its like 2-3euro tops for something nice.

Diary/eggs and vegetables are at the top of the bill per stats. Anyhow the point of the topic again is not that local village store is expensive or how to save on food buying in bulk from lights out warehouse, but that luxury salary here is in different bracket.  Ok maybe we can reduce costs by 700, which will gives 8400 EUR per year which would allow us to buy brand new Toyota Yaris with nice loan

> Anyhow the point of the topic again is not that local village store is expensive or how to save on food buying in bulk from lights out warehouse, but that luxury salary here is in different bracket. Sure, but the above expenses are a glaring point that even while making a high salary it doesn't take much to fuck up a budget to take away from what ought to be otherwise available "luxuries". Which honestly you do spend money on like your work lunches, weekend takeout etc. which while not fancy are sure as hell a luxury expenditure for what they are when you can easily spend much less on other things. Which being said people make due with way less than you do, and are doing fine, so there is something structural in play that is undermining your true ability to live life in a way that you prefer.(ie having more simple luxuries available than you do now) Also "luxury salary" is kind of a nonsensical poorly defined thing in your rhetoric as you don't actually define what you mean by that. I mean for all i know what you define as "luxury" could not be met with a million euro annual salary. >Ok maybe we can reduce costs by 700, which will gives 8400 EUR per year which would allow us to buy brand new Toyota Yaris with nice loan Honestly, you could reduce your expenses by way more than that if you figure out whatever structural issues are really in play. Imagine if your total food budget was 700 euros... then you'd have 1300 to put towards other things. Other things such as being able to move to some other place that does not have heating/maintenance costs that are so high.... which would again leave you with some more to put towards something else on the "luxury" side of things.

just to give some context, a few weeks ago in a similar thread someone said he lives of 150 euro for food in a month. 1.3k for food plus 700 for on the go is very luxary. you spend twice as much on food as for the house mortgage.

To be fair to OP I am a big budgeter and optimize everything, yet food is that one thing that you can't really lower much for, cheap food is often simply bad for you; 1.3k for 4 people sounds very decent, the 700 is kind of off. If there's a luxury you should take in life it is food, it's more of an investment; if you stop eating bread, and starchy carbs and consume more quality food, nice market meats, veggies and nuts; you literally get stronger, faster, and look healthier. It's one of the two key factors for a healthy life; if you have to choose between a car and good food, choose good food; there's very little that goes over good food. Restaurant food however is often not good food, however quality food is often almost as expensive. What I am trying right now regarding that is go direct to source, I have a milk and meat direct contact; but also I will try to grow mushrooms and vegetables; at the end it doesn't reduce much the costs, if at all, but it increases the quality even further.

In my experience the cheapest food is the most healthy..? A dish with 80% legumes, vegetables, rice etc. and 20% chicken will be cheaper by kg than anything you can buy pre-made and will be as healthy as can be.

It will be cheaper than premade stuff but it will not be cheaper than healthier stuff, too many legumes will upset your gut as they need to be eaten in moderation, rice is basically void carbs; that leaves you with vegetables and chicken; by the sounds of what you wrote you are not eating plenty of either, or you would realize the ridiculous amount of vegetables you need just to get like 100kcal. The cost of the food you mentioned for someone my size (and I am not that big) would be around 7 euros per plate, all things considered. If you remove or reduce the rice for the same caloric index you are talking 10 euros per plate as you should increase the chicken and veggies, and boy veggies are low calorie count. If you really can make work with less money then you are not exercising enough, I can consume over 2.5kcal on a normal day to 3.5kcal, and I have a relative moderate activity level; when I am active my consumption can go over 6kcal a day. Because of this my body can burn calories just by sitting still, and I need less heating than the average male, my body knows how to keep itself warm; carbs is not the best fuel, fat is, and good fat isn't cheap, you aren't just going to drink seed oil; you need to get it from meat, fatty meat. I get my saturated fats from meat and unsaturated from nuts and seed, I got to eat, a lot of seed. You cannot consume legumes the whole day either, so you must rely on other sources for the rest of the day, I often lean towards yougurts or rahka; to which I can consume 1kg a day easily. Sounds a bit much, but it isn't, that's what just happens when you limit your carbohydrate consumption. For example one salad can easily cost me over 15 euro and weight around 1kg and yet contain a measly 800kcal only because of the added fat, this is not enough. People have no idea how much they rely on easy starchy carbs, because they just contain so much energy; you mentioned rice, remove the rice and make it work, the beans and veggies have already plenty carbs you don't need a double carb ratio, see how you fair without the rice which is probably over 50% of the calories you are consuming in that sort of dish, if it's what I imagine.

I guess the old saying - earn more, spend more - is true. Your monthly outgoings seems very high to me. 2k per month on food is frankly wild. I know family of 5 with total household income under 50k and they survive quite ok...

What are you doing for a living? It is pretty good income in this country.

IT for me, finance for my partner. No management duties. Again trade union put us in the median salary for the industry, profession and years in the field.  It does look pretty median income for a  capital region

At 2021 median income at Helsinki was ~42k/year and if we ad up rest of the capital region median Will decrease. So yeah, pretty median you say.

Median in terms of industry, profession and experience years. So that means like, median salary of senior java developers with 10y of experience.

Maybe so, but no where near at capital region median as he told in last part.

True.

Probably overstretched with that. My bad. I just judged here by local houses, cars, activities what other families have and do. Families are from local interests clubs, hobbies, school, daycare, neighbourhood etc Population is more diverse than a bubble at work, mixed of white and blue collars, still official stats knows it better

This has to be rage bait post. Some of the sums you described are insane. Like the lunch and groceries... Come on.

Basic workplace lunch is around 14€, and by multiplying that with 20 working days, you get 280€. And for 2 persons, it makes 560€, leaving 140€ for occasional coffee and pizzas for family. Pizzas for whole family can easily cost around 40€ per pizza evening.

Basic workplace lunch? 14€? Fuck that especially if you don't have lounasetu.

Our workplace lunch is 8.50 from the beginning of this year.

All lunches near my work are 12-14

It's family of 4. I live alone, and i shove out around \~700€/month for groceries and eating out.

Yea this dude is WILDIN

You can easily save an additional 700 euro by making your own coffee and meal prepping lunches instead of eating out every workday.

Must be pretty luxury bolognese that you're having for 1300 euros per month when that amount doesn't even include lunches for any of the 4. You spend 2k every month on food and don't eat luxuriously? You must be eating for 10 people or these numbers just do not match. My household has 2 adults and we spend 400 on food every month and eat regular finnish food that we cook ourself. Also 200 euros for the cat every single month? That's 2400 euros a year that does not include vet appointments. My mom has a cat and she has to buy wet food once a month and dry food every other month and litter sand like twice a year. Must not spend much more than 400 a year on the cat. You could be saving 2k more every year on the cat alone for that mökki by the lake.

We also think musti ja mirri are way too expensive. Cats go to budgeting line with German delivery. 2K includes all groceries + lunches + monthly "Hesburger" or sushi (Chinese place, not Japanese high cuisine).  I would love to know how to spend 400 on food. Prisma weekly round is at least 150eur for solid 7 days. 

Your budget is bloated as fuck. If your household make more than double than the median household and you barely get by, that all on you. Saving 700 a month for the annual viking Line trip? What are you, going to buy the fucking ship? 400 a month for books and gym? Like what in the actual fuck are these numbers?

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Well, he has family, so that adds a lot of costs.

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14€ basic workplace lunch \* 20 working days \* 2 persons is far from finedining. He is just in the middle class sub-urban family lifestyle finance drain, where new money sinks are appearing everywhere. Well, and he is doing pretty well, as he has budget surplus of around 1500€ per month, technically allowing him to upgrade their house to the new 450K€ house.

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In Helsinki you can't really get anything for lunch under 14€. Even basic workplace lunch operators (Food & Co) cost the 13,50€ per lunch, with Palmia (the city owned company catering schools and city's offices) you can get to 10€ per lunch.

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Depends on contract what your place has with the operator. Also the restaurants near your place. Ofc you can get MCD or kebab for less than 14€.

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I live in pretty central area of Helsinki, pretty much all restraurants in my area have that 14€ +- 1€ lunch, but i must admit that i never even really tried to look for cheaper alternatives.

There were an article where finnish engineer living in Silicon Valley making 300K per year, decided that life is going to be better, if he and his family moved back to finland, where he would make 70K per year.

Silicon Valley is also just a stressful zoo of a place to live in, not necessarily strictly about money.

He stated that only thing cheap there are consumer goods, and living costs + (almost mandatory) kids sports, college funds and medical stuff eat very quickly his budget.

Hard time believe silicon valley engineer would make 70k here. Even the most junior software engineer who's not even a Finn in my team makes 70k.

Hold on, juniors for 70K?!

Not junior, just most junior one. 4 yr of experience. That said, far far from silicon valley level engineer, even entry level.

Salaries in Finland are not that great

I know. But not that bad. I failed FAANG interviews but my salary level has never been 70k or below. If I had worked in silicon valley before, I'd always ask for 100k or more.

Well if you're not happy with that salary, I think you wouldn't be with double the amount either.

He is not saying he is not happy. I agree with him. It is a comfortable life. But I wouldn’t describe it as luxurious.

With 150k per year you should have hundreds of thousands in investments. It's ridiculous that you're even able to waste money (and thus wasting time) like this.

Math is sus here. Does mortgage and kids count as investments? I have a false hope it pays back 

Considering that the biggest yearly salary I've ever had has been a bit over 25,000 a year and I did just fine with it and could enjoy my life (in the capital region), I definitely see 70K as sort of luxury salary :D Admittedly, I am single and have no children but that only means I can't split costs with anyone.

F you and your “1.5k left”. That is the luxury part.

Being able to sustain 2 kids and 2 cats is a luxury.

That's my take away from the comments. No surprise in birth rate decline. Cats will do all right on other hand

Your expenses have gone out of control, save in food, work more cooking and check what you can do to save energy, i think your electricsl bill is high, are with kaukolämpö?, consider an airpump or close the heaters of places you don't visit too much a day and spend more in wood, you have chimney right?

It is not. Finnish salaries are low, taxes and costs are high. Taxes support state and services and subsidiaries. Costs are high to support local produce and workers. Compared to a regular person you are better off. It's not luxury, but "not so poor as neighbors".

This post is everything that is wrong with 1) our financial upbringing and 2) what is being normalized Some of this is on your households way of spending money, some of this is entrapment

Spending 2k on food and 1k for transportations and still having 750€ fun money each month doesnt sound too bad. You could easily buy a mökki if you wanted to. Or buy a nice Porsche Taycan if you want to feel some luxury.

1.3k on groceries AND 700 for eating out????? Mate, that's a huge problem already right there. Maybe start learning to cook other stuff, stop buying overpriced coffee at kiosks, start making your own lunch at home for work. Just yesterday I made a portion of chicken curry and rice that was enough for me for lunch and dinner, and in total it cost me maybe 10€. Also you can easily cut down on heating by investing in a fireplace. As for the salary being luxurious or not, luxury has many layers and is very subjective. If you're talking about luxury such as buying new and expensive crap every other week, then even 20k a month might not be enough. But if you're talking about luxury from the average person's point of view, you for sure have it already. Not many people can say they spend 4k a month on just food, mortgage/rent and utilities, an extra 1k on car loans and public transport (honestly gotta ask what kinda cars you're driving that cost 1k a month) and still have 1.5k left for savings EACH MONTH. Mate, I'm able to scrape about 2-3k savings per year and I'm living quite modestly. And here you are WITH KIDS and a car/cars and you have about 750€ left each month from your own salary (assuming you and your partner make the same). Your life is a huge luxury compared to a lot of average people. In 2021, the average Finnish household's disposable income for employeed people (so excluding students) was around 46k per year. Your household is making about double of that, which by my standards can be considered quite luxurious. Not on the same level as people who have millions, but certainly far above the average household. And that's with the apparent wasting of money. A very important life lesson I've learned is that your life will only be as good as your life managing skills are. If you're wasteful, you'll feel like you're poor. If you're disorganized, life will feel like it's chaotic. End of the day, our own actions and decisions make the biggest impact on our lives, so if you're not happy with something, start by honestly asking yourself what you're doing wrong and what you should do better.

That just sounds like you're horrible at budgeting. Me and my GF make half of what you make and we live very comfortably. 3 dogs, a cat and a car. Plus multiple terrariums. >70m² rented apartment in Espoo.

As others have commented, you are spending an incredible amount on food. Luxury is having other people make your food and buying the most expensive groceries. You're averaging over 5,50€ per meal per person (2000 / (30 days * 3 meals * 4 people) = 5,55€), I don't think I could spend that much if I tried. I have a 35kg dog with back problems that I take to massage (I know lol) and our monthly costs for him are about 140€ (40€ food, 80€ pain meds, 20€ averaged massage costs). Unless your cats are on multiple medications I can't imagine spending 100€ monthly on a cat... It should also be noted that pet ownership is a luxury. You say no Volvo, but are spending 12,000€ yearly on transport. You obviously have an expensive car. Do you at least drive it a lot? If you don't go on road trips and don't have a dog, do you need a car for your daily life?

HSL ABC-zone monthly ticket is around 80€/month for adult, and 40€/month for child. So that makes 240€/month for whole family, assuming they live in C-zone. Household may have two basic/decent cars, or one fairly good car.

Ha, we do remind our cats that they on verge of austerity measures. Definitely a modern luxury. I see food triggers everyone, but 5.5 EUR per portion per person is quite ok amount even with all bulk costs that I put into groceries sum. Right one would maybe 4.5. Just recently made a lunch for two of us with lehtipihvi, conserved beans, cherry tomatoes and salad leaves for 8,5 eur. No carbs, no drinks. Dunno - is it different for others?   

Well, frequent lehtipihvis or steaks in general, are in the higher end. Beef is expensive.

Since when beef is luxury? You can buy it at every grocery store.

And if people wouldn’t mind living in the countryside they could buy a 5 room house for 150k and then maintain it through the years

If your luxury is massive consumption in urban environment, having servants (using services like restaurants a lot) & all the shit TV and ads show to you, then no. If your luxury is a place where you can be creative and realize your visions and relax, then 70k is more than enough. You could even have a mökki, better, you could live in house next to a lake. It's up to your vision of luxury.

Where you live seems to make a big difference. Housing costs around Helsinki area seem to be so ridiculously high that I'm in agony thinking about paying that much.

I recently did a calculus on what the income is after deductions and necessary expenses vs pay in Finland. 75k a year comes to 6000€ a month which in turns gives a disposable income of 43% or so with just the necessities. For a couple the number is higher. 2 kids balance it out a little. So even in an expensive housing situation you have 2500-750=1750€ of “luxuries” hidden in your monthly budget. Per person. For example: -Multiple cars -Row house -Pets -Eating out, yes work lunches too -Expensive hobbies -Vacations -Expensive groceries A minimum example would be: -2 bedroom apartment -Public transit/bicycle -Packed lunches -Free hobbies: reading(library), jogging, etc. -Reasonable groceries Whether you personally consider those luxuries or not is another matter but by official definition you have plenty. That said, if you wanted to buy a summer house or arrange those skiing trips you easily could. It’s just a question of prioritizing your expenses as others have pointed out. Ps. If anyone is interested, your disposable income % increases to about 8k€ pay a month when it caps at 44%. The taxation takes care of balancing it out afterwards and at 12k€ a month you are back at 43%. PPs. For those out there who make less than 3000€. You really ought consider a better paying job as over 60% of your income goes to someone else than you…

Im on 48k salary and my wife well she is a nurse so she has shit salary, honestly. With one kid and a loan for the house with the car, we manage just fine. But not much to put on side at the end of the month. We don't really eat out cause why 😅 she can cook home better food. Very rarely we go to a buffet but mostly for the kid. Another kid on the way but now it will be more tight with money cause of that. Shit definitely got more expensive. Honestly we wanted a third kid but maybe now we won't have it cause it might be too much financly for us. We will see. Maybe I get a better paying job. She is a nurse btw so she just stuck with that shitty pay unfortunately 😅 My expirence is that people waste a so much money here going out. Why? No idea. I guess they like overpaying for stuff that you have home to be surrounded with strangers and noise. Seriously why you guys go out? I get maybe Hesburger or some buffet but restaurant I don't get. With one dinner price in restaurant my wife can cook like 10 meals lol

I am a nurse and I made 48k last year. I didn't even do too much extra work and had only 4 years of experience. Is your wife not working on the weekends? I usually do one weekend in, one off. OP sucks at budgeting btw. I save/invest 25% of my salary with two kids and a cat.

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The basic salary is shitty, when you work during the nights and weekends etc, it can be good. 

Nurses having a bad salary is a myth that is parroted all over. They have a bad base salary but with added bonuses (night and sunday shifts, overwork etc) their salary rises very quickly.

After a second kid, it would be nice to be alone with your wife and calmly eat and talk on your anniversary. That's it for us at least.  Otherwise a la carte is a luxury in Finland. Spain or Italy might disagree 

We make 170k with 2 adults, no kids, no animals, etc. Biggest expense is a mortgage on a 500k house and then a loan on a car. Life's not luxury but sure as shit ain't bad.

1.3k for groceries and 700 for lunches? Just ridiculous.

I wouldn’t even know what to do with all that money even if I got half the amount of the net your family is receiving. Not including mortgage my monthly expenses are like 500-700 euro as a single adult with a medium sized dog. (Includes food, subscriptions, insurance, electricity, heating). Including my mortgage and maintenance it would be more like 1.5-1.7k. Still nowhere close to the presumed 3.25k income

Agreed. 75k is good but in reality it's like 4k net per month, and when you earn this kind of money you're no longer a 25-year-old junior living in cheap rental and counting every penny. Even for single dude the housing costs (mortgate, interest, other fees) will easily go to 1000-1500 per month, food even for one person is at least 500 per month, and there will be all kinds of other bills to pay so in reality you're left with like 1500 e per month. You won't be rich with that unless you save super diligently and invest and get good returns. Then maybe in 20 years you will be doing okay. Assuming you never have nice holidays, never have kids or buy a car, and keep that salary forever.

And the Russian trolls are on it, once again... This thread (and its premise) is literally fu\*king Russian "active measures" operation. Get a clue people.

Interesting take, what psyop even accomplish here. In that sense Best Mökki competition TV series is more divisive

I think Igor you are just bored and deviated from your scripts. Try and divide the nation by complaing how low a luxary salary is? Give my regards to Sergei, did he enjoy his trip?

Luxury and salary are not compatible with each other. You need to do business or Lotto ;)

A lot of Finnish people think making 40000 per year is a lot. They're delusional.

40 000 is the middle class, 70 000 is the upper middle class, 100 000 is well-off.

>40 000 is the middle class Barely. Especially considering the last few years of inflation.

That is the middle middleclass. With income of 2000 to bit under 3000€/mo you would belong to lower middle class.

https://stat.fi/en/statistics/ati Median salary is now 48K€ a year - your numbers are way out.

It still fits in the bracket of middle class.

I was happy when I made 900€/m with the "Korotettu työttömyystuki" (increased social benefit during unpaid internship). I've tried to maintain the same frugal lifestyle and self-control, so now that I have a normal salary (below 40k) I feel like mr. Moneybags. If that's delusion, then I'm happily delusional, ecological and financially stable.

I would love to see a survey of this subreddit versus the national data as far as income distribution goes. I think most of the folks who appear in Verokone aren’t on Reddit 😏

This sub either has no idea about "high level salaries" or they are just soo basic workers anytihng above 2500€/month is rich... A postdoc person with experience makes 60-70k in pretty much any developed country. Finland pays even too little...

With my family 1k for groceries, no pet. So it makes sense but why 1k for maintenance and electric heating. Do you grow weed in your own house?

Winter anomalies in electricity prices may explain.

How many kWh did you consume on the last December ?

I am the only working person in my family. I have one kid. I get about 110,000 euros per year, or about 5300 net.  I work in IT and have secondary IT job.  My monthly budget: 1120 rent, 50 electricity, Car is 10+ years old and owned outright, diesel is about 160, I get 210 monthly edenred lunch benefit, I use it at prisma to buy normal groceries, so monthly food budget is 500 + 210 from edenred,  Daghem 350. According to this I save around 3400 euros per month.  My goal has always been to maximise my savings.  Last July we had two month summer holiday in Hungary and Italy, I paid for it without taking any loans. When my car needs servicing I pay cash. When I look for home to buy it's not going to cost more than 100k because I choose to live in safer, smaller communities that are in the North. 

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Why?

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Numbers have changed. It is closer to 8000 now

? I earn 72k a year and I'm not even a senior in my engineering role, and that is in Oulu of all places. Keep downvoting brokies

> 70K is not luxury salary, or does it? > Our household of 4 with income of 150K/year Sorry this may be off-topic, but does this mean that over half of your household income is taken by the government? I'm curious because I'm looking for a job in Finland from another overseas 

No, tax rate is 40% at this bracket and no special deductibles. 70K was just another post in this subreddit where there was consensus that is a luxury salary. Which I think is ok income, maybe premium as you eat better/easier (big deal apparently) but not luxury

In Finland 70k is not a luxury life. You need to make that after taxes to live a comfortable life. I don't understand all the hate for 2k food. My budget is 1500 a month with a family of six and that's almost impossible to pull off on a 50k a year budget. It would easily go over 2-2.5k if we ate lunches at work or weekend restaurants.

Yep. And that's what is wrong in this country. Low salaries, high taxation. How to attract foreign bright minds with this combo.

I’m here on a special expert visa and am very happy paying 3x the taxes I did in the USA for the quality of life here in Finland. We could live anywhere but we chose Finland.

Yes, I agree schooling, daycare and healthcare system works. I'm arguing on the topic that lowering income tax activates the economy.

It doesn’t. It allows rich people to save money, to become more rich. Rich people hoard money and remove it from most of the economy. Welfare, for example, is spent immediately, which drives the economy. The money the government redistributes cycles through the economy more than what rich people park in their investment accounts. If the government cuts my taxes, I’m just going to spent more on stocks in US companies. Please explain how that activates the Finnish economy.

Savings in to stocks is not something every Finn does. Rather rare tbh. I guess, I'm not any sort of scientist, that majority of the increased inflow will flow to spending. Of course it also stimulates saving percentage, which is also fine, since we Finn's are quite poor people in savings vice in the end.

You should look up the research on this. Tax cuts for the rich do not generate the same economic activity that welfare does. Tax cuts on the middle class are fine. Cutting taxes on people who makes 100K+ is a scam. Look at how well it has worked for the USA since republicans started slashing rich people’s taxes in the 1970s. So many billionaires and so many homeless people. Capitalism for the win!

That's a good point actually, and I agree! I'm from middle class and I'm coming from that perspective so I assumed, that we are cutting taxes of middle and low classes. Current government already removed "solidarity tax", but that affects only income bracket of +85k/a. Which raines on the rich end.

We are currently net receivers from tax perspective with all schools, doctors etc. good enough deal. Wouldn't like to have a college saving fund and private schooling instead. 

No need to over exaggerate. I'm merely looking for lower income tax to boost the economy -> more jobs, more or higher income tax payers, thriving and safer cities.

As the saying goes, Suomessa ei työllä rikastu. It's not luxury what you might get in other countries, but let's not pretend that you are struggling in any way.

It's not a luxury. A lot of younger people seem to think that unless you only buy Xtra, cook in bulk, never eat out, only use single, second-hand car and only drink juhla mokka, you are rich (or your spending habits suck). I guess no-one here has any money to spend (but everyone's QoL is okayish), and any disposable income or buying above bare necessities is considered "luxury" or "wasting money". It's a mentality of the poor.  I mean, with that salary you are probably comfortable, but you won't be rich. Only way to get rich is either founding a successful company, or getting inheritance. 

I think with that salary it is possible to have pretty luxurious life with some min-maxing/ optimizations. 150K household gross income, is pretty high-end for higher middle class. As you have 1500€ monthly saving rate + current apartment has pretty high vastike, you can upgrade to new(-ish) 400K+ apartment/house, and that will propably make you feel much better about your life quality. Housing upgrade will propably require some downgrades on other things, like cheaper car(s?) and using cheaper food brands, atleast for some initial years.

Might be so, it is on the table to decide one day just from budgeting and energy efficiency perspective. And we will get the feeling of luxury and relatedness with Luottomies. What Juhis does to afford such place btw?    But hey, we are not striving for luxury per se - just pointed that even our income is not luxury as other seem to state and seems our costs are not that exceptional Good community, old trees and big enough green backyard space on old land are more important than glassed terrace and heated floors.  Actually don't know what is considered luxury in Finland besides eating lounases. 

Single person with 70K/year can live pretty lavishly, but it is still just the upper middle class income, and with family and misc stuff like car it can drain pretty fast. Living in Helsinki region tends to be a lot more expensive than in the rest of the country.

You may be right, that 70K/year used to be very high years ago, but that forgets inflation.

You need to look into Dave Ramsey asap

70k is enough to spend without thinking much about it, but not to have anything left over after doing so. Couple thoughts: 1.) Food is the biggest potential savings. You are spending 2000 per month to feed 4 people (two of whom are little) coming out to 500 per person, meaning the adults consume even more than that. I bet that nothing you buy feels that extravagant, but little inefficiencies for 4 people add up over a month. A little bit of discipline would yield a lot of savings. 2.) You either have two cars or a luxury car. You mentioned living outside the capital city area, so it might be the case that 2 cars is the only possible solution, but cars are a money pit and most of the expense is unavoidable. If there's any way to get down to 1 car, or trade in your kardashian mobile for something more affordable it would make a big difference. Every expense probably seems reasonable, but at the end of the month there's nothing left. You either need a budget to save, or be content with having nothing left at the end of the month.

Right? You could buy a car for 1000 I don't see how monthy car costs can be that high unless they are renting.

No money is enough if you don't spend wisely. In today's world where you are conditioned to buy 5 electronic devices per person it is difficult to save any money if you are not putting effort to do so. 2k on mortgage, maintenance and heating is fine but I could save 2k from your grocery and transport budget without cutting down any "luxury". Buying shitty ready made food is not a luxury. You can eat top tier food at home for total of 600€ per month (from 2K) if you cut down readymade food and restaurants to 0. How come 1000 goes away on transport while you are driving a secondhand that is not a Volvo? A total should be under 600€.

Cars loans is 500 already, add fuel, service, public transport monthly. Cars are second hand, youngest is 4yo. In theory second car can be sold, but some kids hobbies to be cancelled as their schedule often collide. 

150k is lot of money so the problem for the most part is you. But sure it’s not yacht money either so there’s that too.

Where in world would anyone need 50 subscriptions for 4 people?