May be a little OT.
But since there are people from around the world in these forums, I'd like to know what's the cost of life in your country.
For "cost of life" I mean what is the monthly salary you absolutely NEED to live. Not the money you'd like to have, or the money necessary to buy a Ferrari :p
Should be the absolutely minimum (in your opinion of course) to live and do a decent life, but nothing luxurious.

I am only asking this for curiosity. I always heard, for example, that UK is really expensive, then I heard from a friend that if you go outside London, cost is much more low (about 1/3 lower).

Here in Italy, to have a decent life, you need about 1000 euro/month (if you live in your house, and not have to pay a rent).

Added: yes, was referring to NET sum (after taxes are paid)

per month, netto?

id say about 1000-1200 USD, or 1000 euros.
that's also the average salary here at Israel.

For my country, Usd 526 a month is more than enough to live
nicely.

To do Indie game development, I only need about usd 300-450
a month to continue doing full-time until I hit a good title. If
I can't reach that, I'll work part-time. I could never earn more than
that even if I work for others since I do not have a university
education ( I can't afford it and I can't memorize stuff in asian
oriented syllabus and I cannot sustain jobs long enough if I work for others)

I can buy a cheap small 650cc car with that but it's considered
overpriced here because of the protectionism in the auto
industry.

I am considering if I should contract out my services for 3D
animation/art since I think I could deliver decent enough gfx
for shareware games and keep myself able to be an indie full-time.

You can check out some old screenshots of my mecha
renderings at
http://www.icarusindie.com/jcvw75/indexfiles/gunbolt/index.html

If there's enough interests I may put up more newer screen shots of recent 3D renderings for my Work-In-progress side scrolling shooter.

~ $300 (taxes included) + $200 for internet, websites hosting, hardware and software upgrades etc.

Here in the UK we've got a housing problem, in that housing has suddenly become ridiculously overpriced. I'm paying £1,000 a month just for my mortgage, and I've got to keep that up for the next 25 years. You can imagine that being unemployed for 2 years recently was extremely scary, and responsible for the huge debt I now have.

Food comes to about £500/month for the pair of us & 2 dogs.

Bills for rates, electric, water, heating etc. come to about £400/month.

Because we live in the middle of nowhere we have to have a car, which is costing roughly £500 a month. (Yes, really)

And because I'm so massively in debt there's another £200/month in debt interest on top of it all.

Unexpected things like repairs and sundries usually come to another £200 a month, which always surprises me.

Net access is a staggering £170 per month but that includes my 500gb/month site in the US and ISDN instead of shitty phone lines.

My accountant costs £150 per month and there's no way I could manage a business without him. He's expensive but usually saves me a lot of money in sneaky ways every year.

That's £3,020 per month, which would seem to be about right, and we've lived a very low-key lifestyle for the last 2 years. I've managed to take home only £2,500 a month for the last 6 months but Charlotte had a job as a receptionist at the vets to make up the other £500, but she's quit to help me handle Alien Flux (and keep the house tidy :D )

If we were to sell our house to clear the debt and rent a shitbag flat somewhere for £500 a month we'd instantly save about £750 a month. But sod that! An Englishman's home is his castle.

Cas :)

princec.. OUCHHHHHH!!!

I am so scared of being in debt. After seeing how you could still
find it to go on and do what you want, I really admire you and
im feeling a bit ashamed.

I need a bloody whack on my ass if I don't try my best to be
an indie.

I have no debts, no car loans, no house, no chick, no wife
and no kids, I have to do this. This is a chance of a life-time,
I don't want to regret later on if I never even try to do what
I want to do in life.

Originally posted by princec

Food comes to about £500/month for the pair of us & 2 dogs.



Man! , are you eating gold bars !? or Fish n chips got really expensive :)
Since you're in the middle of nowhere , just grow veggies ( beans are easy to grow! ) and freeze them for the winter time !

Net access is a staggering £170 per month but that includes my 500gb/month site in the US and ISDN instead of shitty phone lines.


You should Seriously think of getting a new webhosting ! I can't believe it :eek:

good luck with your games.
pat

Well, then life in UK is REALLY expensive :(
Better to stay here in Italy then :p

Anyway I wish you really good luck with your game. You need to sell at least 150 per month to keep up with expenses!

To jcvw75: often when critical situation appears, men find unexpected resources :)
anyway it is true: if you don't have any expenses, you should really try your best at indie NOW :)

You can get by on a lot less but I've worked my arse of for a decade to get where I am now, and I'm not about to throw out 10 years of my life over a little debt!

Website hosting is theplanet.com @ approx £100/month.
My ISP, however, is Demon, through British Telecom (*spit*) who charge £70/month for always-on 64k ISDN access. It's about twice what I'd pay for ADSL... if only we were allowed to have ADSL but BT have decided it's not worth them bothering laying a cable (lol! Anyone here read Roger's Profanisaurus?) for us.

<edit>Did you know that fish & chips for 2 now costs £10? And besides, there won't be any fish left in a couple of years.

Cas :)

I am in your same situation about connection... can't have ADSL here too because I am too far away from big cities.
But I prefer a lot my privacy, and seeing a beautiful landscape every morning I wake up, than living in a grey city and spending less for internet connection...!! :D

I can't give a fair comment on UK living expenses - after getting thrown out of the US (and my job, and my life...) we've been living with my husband's parents in the UK, and the expenses are therefore far too commingled to make sense out of.

We do have DSL (about £30 a month I think) - it's a small town, but close enough to places that matter that we get the cables, I guess. :) It's not as nice as the cable access we used to have back in the states (the cable almost *never* went down. The DSL drops for a minute or two quite often.) but I couldn't manage very well on dialup, I need the speed.

Jack_Norton, 1000euros sounds appropriate for austria too. i can probably live with less (600-800) for a while, but you all know the "surprises" of life, like problems with the car etc. :)
what bothers me most here in my country is the complicated ways of running your own business, it's not that easy like in the U.S or something (as far as i know)... i don't know all the criterions yet, but if i really was into going indipendant i would have to do LOTS of research first :confused:

btw: princec those numbers are shocking!!
may you get very good income from your game :)

Hehe, so far I've lost about £300 on the game :) Not to worry, I've got the utterly miserable contracting gig fired up again for another stint at mediocrity. Rate's been slashed now though; I'm just going be covering my outgoings for the foreseeable future. Loads of other contractors are in same boat as me so I wouldn't go feeling sorry for me ;)

Cas :)

Originally posted by aspiral
Jack_Norton, 1000euros sounds appropriate for austria too. i can probably live with less (600-800) for a while, but you all know the "surprises" of life, like problems with the car etc. :)
what bothers me most here in my country is the complicated ways of running your own business, it's not that easy like in the U.S or something (as far as i know)... i don't know all the criterions yet, but if i really was into going indipendant i would have to do LOTS of research first :confused:

btw: princec those numbers are shocking!!
may you get very good income from your game :)

exactly the same for france.

pat.

The cost of living in the USA varies a lot by region. I live in the Los Angeles area about 20 miles NW of Hollywood. Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities to live in, and California is one of the most expensive states. In 1994 my wife and I rented a 2-bedroom apartment for $825/month. Today that same apartment now goes for $1300/month. Presently we live in a 3-bedroom house, but we'll need to move again soon, since my wife is 8+ months pregnant, and our second child (a boy) is due within a few weeks. A typical 3-bedroom house in our area sells for around $300,000 now. A 5-bedroom house in a nice neighborhood can easily top $1,000,000. I also lived in the San Francisco bay area (Emeryville, next to Oakland and Berkeley) for a couple years, and the cost of living there is about the same as here.

I'd say the three of us (soon to be four) can live comfortably on about $3500 per month net. But we've managed to live on $2500 or less when we lived in a 2-bedroom apartment. A single person could probably live reasonably well on $2000/month if the expenses weren't too high.

I'm actually considering moving to Las Vegas (about 300 miles from Los Angeles), since the cost of living there is so much cheaper, and 40% of the people there are from California anyway. The hot summers don't bother me too much, since Las Vegas is only about 10 degrees hotter during the summer than where I live now. The taxes there are much lower too, since the casino industry generates about 50% of the state's tax revenue, so the 30 million tourists each year basically subsidize the state and local governments.

Here in Uruguay, South America, one person can live for 400 or 500 dollars, maybe less. I'm talking about a single person renting an apartment and without children.

You can support a family and live confortably for about 2000 dollars.

We're in the middle of an economic crisis, so today pepole are living with less than that. It's amazing to know with how little can some people live.

Ouch Princec! but yeah, the cost of living is extremely high in the UK and as soon as you move away from one of the main cities, loads of other expenses can easily skyrocket. (Internet access/Car/Travel...)

I live on my own, no pets, in a dingy little basement flat in a fairly cheap area near the centre of town. Rent, bills, rates, food, internet etc all weigh in at a total of around £700 a month. This doesn't include things like eating out/nights out etc and I don't have a car anymore - that would easily add an extra £300 a month and is a needless expense.

To achieve the bare minimum, I will need approximately 70 game sales a month.

-Z-

I often ask myself why I live where I do. I live in the Chicago area which is about the same price as where Steve P. lives. A small 3 bedroom house is about 200k-300k, depending on the neighborhood.

Housing: 1000$/month.
Real Estate tax: $300/month.
Health Insurance for myself, wife, baby: 800$/month.
Web Hosting/Connectivity: 300$/month.
Food and misc expenses: 1000$/month.
Cars/Insurance: 400$/month.

That's just the stuff off the top of my head too. Basically, it's expensive to live in Illinois!

If my wife's sister didn't live here, we would definitely move to a different area of the country.

Originally posted by Dexterity
The cost of living in the USA varies a lot by region.

It sure does. While Steve was paying $825/month for a 2 bedroom apartment in 1994, we paid $400/month for a 2 bedroom townhouse. We could have lived someplace cheaper, but it was nice. 10 years ago the two of us lived pretty well on $18,000/year, we didn't have a lot but you could buy some luxuries (read computers) with that.

Here in Illinois (away from Chicago) the cost of living is very low, you can buy a 4 bedroom house such as ours for about $100,000. You could easily live comfortably on $2000/month here. Real estate here is among the cheapest in the country and the quality is high.

Back when I lived in Bloomington, there were a lot of huge 5 bedroom, 3 car garage houses built for State Farm Insurance employees moving in from California. They had to buy huge houses because if they bought a regular sized house, they would get killed on the capital gains taxes from their California house. The difference in property values meant that someone selling a 2 bedroom shack in California had to buy a 5 bedroom luxury golf-course house in Illinois.

Originally posted by Mike Boeh
Basically, it's expensive to live in Illinois!


Let me rephrase that:
It's expensive to live near Chicago! :D

Only $100,000 for a 4-bedroom house? Sheesh... why don't I just pull out my wallet right now?

Even a 2 bedroom shanty in a bad neighborhood here won't usually sell for less than $100,000.

I, my wife, and two kids are able to eat healthfully on $500 USD per month, property taxes work out to about $200 per month, and we spend approximately $500 per month on insurance (auto, home, and health combined). The rest of our cost of living expenses aren't directly affected by where we live (eg., our student loan debt would be the same wherever we lived). If we didn't own our home mortgage-free, we'd probably be paying another $1K per month for a mortgage.

For me it really depends how I want to live. I can live quite comfortably in Thailand for about 1000-1200$ USD a month (renting a house, scuba diving, eating out and so on...) -- The same money would sustain me in Canada but with a drop in my living conditions. (I'd have an apartment instead of a house and so on...) I can live like a king for 2000-3000 USD here. Very nice house overlooking the ocean, a staff, beach vacations and so on... I tend to live pretty moderately though.

In terms of the absolute minimum required, in Thailand it would be possible to live for far less. I could get by with <500$ a month if I absolutely had to, but it wouldn't be a very nice lifestyle. In Canada the absolute minimum would probably be just a little higher -- maybe 750$ a month. I don't have any children or dogs etc... so these are bachelor living prices.

Originally posted by Fariz
~ $300 (taxes included) + $200 for internet, websites hosting, hardware and software upgrades etc.

You can live nicely off $500 in South Africa (for one person, maybe two). Cost of living here is very inexpensive, quality of life is good as well.

Poland, for about 400E (after taxes) you can get a decent living.
Anything above 500E is a fairly good living... you can get down to about 300E and still be fine (althrought shared flat etc)

700 pounds to liv ein the UK including rent (300 / m) council tax (aroudn 100 /m), net (30) phone (110 /m but thats cause i call portugal alot) and the rest on food and gas and the remaining bills


500 euro is enough for portugal if you dont live in a 2 bedroom apartment (250 euros for rent + 100 for all bills + 150 for food)


you can live with more or less in both places, but I dont like to starve or live in houses that have rats.



Congrats Steve on the upcoming addition :)

Originally posted by Dexterity


I'm actually considering moving to Las Vegas (about 300 miles from Los Angeles), since the cost of living there is so much cheaper, and 40% of the people there are from California anyway. The hot summers don't bother me too much, since Las Vegas is only about 10 degrees hotter during the summer than where I live now. The taxes there are much lower too, since the casino industry generates about 50% of the state's tax revenue, so the 30 million tourists each year basically subsidize the state and local governments.


Careful of the radioactive dumps all around las vegas... well you might end up with 4 arms employees , that might be a good thing to program faster !

pat.

Originally posted by patrox
Careful of the radioactive dumps all around las vegas... well you might end up with 4 arms employees , that might be a good thing to program faster !

pat.

hehe patrox :D

I live in Ankara - Turkey. Ankara is the second most expensive city in Tukey. An average apartment rent monthly is 150 - 200$. One could live with about 500 - 600$ including the apartment rent. In Istabul it would be about twice as much.

Thanks all for the infos! Now I have clearly decided where I want to go in the next years: Canada :D
Jokes apart, is nice to think about indie dev like a job you can make staying everywhere in the world. If you like to change often your place of living, maybe to experiment new styles or see new things, you can do it.
Of course you need to have already established a nice business, that means you are covered from your games' sales for few months... but then, you could try to move and see how it's life arond the globe.
If I could already move (supposing my girlfriend is willing too!) I probably would go in places like Canada or South Africa.
Maybe better Canada, since the summers temperatures are going to increase in the next years... here in Italy, at 22 o'clock we had 30°C, which isn't really good if you have to sleep... or even worse if you would like to do other things ;)

Oh, men what planet do you live on?

Ok, I am climbing back to my tree!

Anyway moving around the world for me wouldn't be so much fun. I would really miss that stupid, dumb, bone headed hungarian mentality. Well, it's quite an experince to live in this country, this cultural mixture is an addivtive one. :)

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
If I could already move (supposing my girlfriend is willing too!) I probably would go in places like Canada or South Africa.
Maybe better Canada, since the summers temperatures are going to increase in the next years... here in Italy, at 22 o'clock we had 30°C, which isn't really good if you have to sleep... or even worse if you would like to do other things ;)

30c and youre complaining?
the israeli summer gives you an average of 35c and in the
worst days you have 42c!
for the record, anything under 19c is considered cold here.

i had fun in europe when the so called "heat wave" stroke
and made 29c!

Where I live it's over 40C (105F) right now.

Originally posted by gilzu
30c and youre complaining?
the israeli summer gives you an average of 35c and in the
worst days you have 42c!
for the record, anything under 19c is considered cold here.

i had fun in europe when the so called "heat wave" stroke
and made 29c!

When I lived in Latvia (eastern Europe and former part of USSR) a long time ago, summers typically didn't go above 20-23c. Anything over that was considered pretty hot. And getting a meter or two of snow every day during winter wasn't considered abnormal. :) Of course nobody there has ever heard of air conditioning for those reasons.

Originally posted by Dexterity
Where I live it's over 40C (105F) right now. Yeah, and here in Phoenix it's been a ripe 44-45C (112-115F) for the past week, with the hottest days yet to come more than likely. But at least our cost of living is still a heck of a lot lower than what you have there, Steve. ;)

- Air

Oh... there is one thing nobody has mentioned yet. TAXES. Canada is not too expensive EXCEPT that the taxes are really really high. Singapore on the other hand has reasonable taxation but higher cost of living. Anyway Canada might be a bad choice because of taxation. (as high as 61% I believe in the top tax bracket)

Hehe I know that there are places a lot more hotter than here :) but I really can't stand the hot! I know it is a thing completely personal, but I hate the hot :(
Maybe better moving to Latvia? :D

About the taxes, I thought all figures shown here were taking account of taxes. My 1000 euros here in Italy are comprehensive of taxes (which if you earn more than 15k and less than 20k are about 34%).

After reading all those taxes in Canada, I've changed my mind :o

My earlier post was the amounts you'd need after-taxes. Of course the less you make the less tax you pay as well...

Originally posted by gilzu
30c and youre complaining?
the israeli summer gives you an average of 35c and in the
worst days you have 42c!
for the record, anything under 19c is considered cold here.

i had fun in europe when the so called "heat wave" stroke
and made 29c!

Here in South Africa we have some great weather. I stay in Johannesburg, which is 6 hours from the coast. Our winters are mild, hasnt dropped below 15deg C in the day, nights do get chilly, 2-5deg. Ours summers are warm all around, 25-30. Our Winter cold period lasts a month or so and summer warmth, about 6 months. Summer it rains, but we never have any humidiy. There is nothing like the smell of rain in Africa, I can tell you :p

The rent level in Finland is slightly less than in LA, in Helsinki you have to pay easily 800-1200 euros for a 2 bedroom apartment. There aren't really small houses available, only larger 4-5 bedroom ones. I would estimate that our total cost of living (two of us) is about 1500-2000 euros/month. Our rent isn't currently at market level, making our costs a bit cheaper. Normally you would need about 2500 for two.

The summer here is *really* hot, we have almost 25C (77F) outside .. :) But the winters are cool, it is normal to go down to -25C(-13F) with -30C(-22F) in exceptional winters.

One question I have been interested in: How easy it is to get employees in the area where you live? (Steve?) Or do you outsource instead of hiring directly? (Thomas?) Ie. How does where you live affect the potential for your company?

One question I have been interested in: How easy it is to get employees in the area where you live? (Steve?) Or do you outsource instead of hiring directly? (Thomas?) Ie. How does where you live affect the potential for your company?

This is another interesting question.
Here in Italy is really hard to find help for this kind of work. I mean "professionals".
People are interested in my projects, but usually when they heard that there's a lot of work, and not sure earnings (I never paid advances to anyone for now) they suddenly disappeared :)

However with internet, you can make small commitments to peoples far distant from you for graphics and sound.

The average rent for a small studio (kitchen, bathroom and a 6 square meters room) is around 80 Euro.

The food has become increasingly expensive lately, and I think one can't live in a healthy fashion under, say, 80-90 Euro.

The other monthly expenses (water, electricity, repairs...) are about 30-50 Euro (depends upon the season - these expenses may double during the winter)

So to say, for a single person paying rent, the bare minimum is around 200-250 Euro.
That's without taking into account clothes, medical care, leisures, etc.

The average salary in Romania is around 120 Euro. This is possible because about 70% (or more) of the Romanians own the houses they live in.

Wow so far romania is one of the cheapest! :)

Here in Oklahoma (even in the City) you can buy (not rent) a good sized house for around $100,000. If you want to get out from the city a bit, you can find larger tracts of land for pretty cheat as well. In the more remote areas, you can some times pick up land for aroudn $500 per acre!

Overall, I'd say you could live on $2,000/mo. if you don't live too extravagantly and don't have a large family. But you'd probably preffer to live on $2,500 - $3,000/mo. I'd say... just to have some breathing room. Monitarily, it doesn't take much to be comfortable in Oklahoma.

I live in canada, London ontario actually (unreal tournament was developed down the street from me)

i pay 300cad a month in rent + about another 200 in food. so thats 363.772 USD

i pay 300cad a month in rent + about another 200 in food. so thats 363.772 USD
not bad, so even Canada isn't so expensive.

I'm resuming this old thread because found it really interesting, if someone else want to contribute... :)

What about Croatia or the new countries added to the EU (Hungary, Slovenia, etc) for example?

Poland was one of the recent additions to the EU, and I lived there during 2002 when it was still not in the EU..

At that time, I had a 2-bedroom ~600 sq ft apartment outside the center of Warsaw that I was paying about $490/month for, but I think that was more expensive than it should have been. And typical apartments (of my friends) were a lot smaller than what I had (but, damn, my place made for some really good parties :) ).

I think I paid around $30 at the grocery store each week.

Generally, Poland seemed to be about 4 times less expensive in most aspects than where I live in the U.S. (San Diego).

My longterm plan is to leave my corporate job (non-indie game development) and turn it in for my full-time indie gig while living in Poland again for some time.

I live in the north UK, which is generally cheaper than the south, and cheaper still outside the major cities.

Since going Indy full-time I have no income, so I've reduced my monthly expenses to the bare minimum. That means no TV, car, pension, mobile phone, dvds, dentist, games, books, clothes, or cakes (sob!). My budget for food is tight. Most days I feel hungry. I manage to live on £500/month, most of which pays the mortgage on my pokey 70K house.

I'm considering moving into a caravan so I can spend more on food and carry on being an full-time Indy for longer.

I live in one of the new EU countries, Slovakia. You need 500 euros for a decent life in the capital or 300 euros if you prefer living in a small town. Double it and you're a king. Assuming you're single.

The income taxes here are pretty low, 19% for both business and private incomes. Flat rate. I think they'll even drop to 14-15% in a couple of years. If you have children, you pay less. If your income is rather low, you pay no taxes.

DSL is no problem in small towns.

And there's a bonus - beautiful nature right around the corner. Any corner.

Originally posted by goodsol
Back when I lived in Bloomington, there were a lot of huge 5 bedroom, 3 car garage houses built for State Farm Insurance employees moving in from California.

Yeah, those! Want me to throw a rock into one of their windows for ya? They're only a five minute drive away from my home.

I make $1200 a month and I'm saving and not paying a whole lot of attention to my expenses, i.e. going out to eat when I want, buying movies and games pretty much on impulse without checking to see if I can afford it, etc. (it seems just about any young single guy with a job in this town is the same way). I'm trying to change this habit so I can start accumulating wealth and afford a career change, but I'd say I'm living pretty well.

I could survive on

$350 rent+utilities (2 bedroom apt w/roommate, split between the two)
$100 food
$100 medical insurance
$100 mutuals
$100 car insurance, if I kept the car
$50 video game addiction (bare minimum)
$35 aDSL connection
$50 car emergency fund (if I had a car)

So about $900/month with a car, $750 without. And it'd be even cheaper if I moved about 10 miles out of town, since the rent has risen quite a bit in town thanks to State Farm, Mitsubishi, Verizon, Country Companies, Nestle Beich, and 2 Universities resting a significant chunk of their corporations here.

I'm living in South Dakota (where's that? just about exactly between Chicago and Denver... :) ) and the cost of living isn't too bad, but if you are working for a living they are pretty high.

Our 3 bedroom house (~1500 sq ft) is about $800 / month for mortgage, interest, taxes, & insurance. We payed $94,000 for it in 1999. Food is roughly $400 / mo for a family of 6. There are zero taxes here with the exception of property (land) and sales tax. Much like Las Vegas, our tourism basically subsidizes the government.

Car insurance is ~$100 / mo for two vehicles (with full coverage on one of them). Internet is ~$40, utilities (water, electricity, gas, sewer) are about $150 / mo. It's pretty cheap to live here by American standards.

On the bad side, it is always windy here. I think it's worse here than in Chicago, with the wind averaging about 20mph/day. You can always tell a South Dakotan because they walk around with a 15 degree list. :)

In the summer it's hot and humid; it gets anywhere from the high 80's to the mid 90's. In the winter it's cold and dry.

If you can get past the wind and the extremes in weather, it's not too bad of place to live. The local job economy is not very good though; you basically need to have a double income household if you want to live comfortably.

Personally, as much as I like the favorable climate for owning a business here, I can't stand the wind any more. We'll be moving someplace more temperate, like Florida.

I'd be interested in know how Australia compares. Some of the stuff I've seen is that Oz is one of the cheapest industrialized countries to live in...

Anthony

$800/mo for a 3 bedroom house is pretty damn good.

Everyone's rent is nuts!

Ill be paying $650/month for 1 bedroom near Boston! Not to mention the added cost of cable, dsl, food, etc.

I guess thats the price paid to be able to be in a city.

Alex

Thought I'd post my living expences as far as living in Brisbane Australia goes. Also will post a few living "conditions" too :-P

Per Month Expenses

Rent - Large 3 Bedroom House close to city (3 - 5 mins) $630 USD
My Share (I live with 2 people) $210 USD
Food - Decent amount with "luxries" like coke, chips, beer $320 USD
Fuel - I fill up about 3 or 4 times a month, drive around a lot $80 USD
Cable - 12 GB download cable plan $40 USD
Pay TV - Lots of channels $40 USD
Phone - Don't use it often $15 USD
Electricity - $20 - $30 USD
Car Rego - $35 USD

All Up - Roughly $1200 USD If I was living by myself. With splitting some of the cost three ways it would be $700 USD

As far as living conditions go, I live about 5 mins from the heart of the city. During the summer (Oct - Mar) temp's range from 28 - 35 celcius during the day, and about 19 - 24 at night and during winter (May - Sept) temp's range from 18 - 26 during the day and 8 - 16 during the night. I'm about an hour's drive away from the Gold Coast, which I guess is sort of like a California style beach city.

Originally posted by ScrewBall
Thought I'd post my living expences as far as living in Brisbane Australia goes. Also will post a few living "conditions" too :-P

Thanks Screwball!

By the way, what is the tax situation like? How "bad" is it for income taxes, property taxes, personal property taxes, sales tax, etc?

Anthony

For Individuals there are 5 tax "brackets":

$0 – $6,000
Nil

$6,001 – $21,600
17c for each $1 over $6,000

$21,601 - $52,000
$2,652 plus 30c for each $1 over $21,600

$52,001 – $62,500
$11,772 plus 42c for each $1 over $52,000

Over $62,500
$16,182 plus 47c for each $1 over $62,500

For business's you are better off talking to a Accountant but I'll sum up from what I know. Every good and service you provide generally you pay 10% GST per sale on. If you buy something that you are going to use within your business to produce a good or service you can claim to 10% GST back, but you still have to pay capital gains tax on it UNLESS it doesn't exceed the $10,000 threshold for captial gains tax. An accountant would have a better idea on all this stuff and there is a lot you can claim back.

I can't tell you an exact figure for Croatia because I still live with my parents which takes care of the housing and some of the food, plus I have no health insurance (actually no insurance/added costs of any kind, it's almost like I'm living "underground").

But as a rough estimate, a single person would be able to get by with 500EUR or less. This would be enough to pay for the housing/bills, eating at home (normal diet, not some strarving-student crap), and a bit of luxury money (going out every once in a while, buying a piece of hw here and there, not walking around in 10yr old clothes...).

I currently live in a suburb of Chicago, Melrose Park, which isn't so bad, but too close to a lot of my family B-) Unfortunately I don't have any info on cost of living, since I live with my parents still.

I actually have been thinking about the cost of living in other parts of the United States. My friends recently got married and will be moving to Iowa, and I was considering it myself.

Of course, I would like to research where might be best. Definitely not within Chicago itself, since taxes are insane. I think they went up to 10% sales taxes now!

Oh and the governor is proposing a tax on custom software development in Illinois. <sarcasm> Beautiful incentive for Silcon Prairie. </sarcasm>

Originally posted by Sirrus
$800/mo for a 3 bedroom house is pretty damn good.

Everyone's rent is nuts!

Ill be paying $650/month for 1 bedroom near Boston! Not to mention the added cost of cable, dsl, food, etc.

I guess thats the price paid to be able to be in a city.

Alex

If you think $650/month for 1 bedroom is nuts, you haven't lived in New Jersey. I'll be paying $750/month for a studio in central Jersey soon. In north Jersey apartment prices can be up to $2,000+ for a single bedroom apartment. All because of the proximity to NYC. I think the only state that will rival NYC or north Jersey prices is California.

I live about 40 miles from london in the south UK in quite a nice area. I was lucky, we bought our 3 bedroom house a few years back when it was £94k. prices have literally doubled since then.

The mortgage is about £750 a month (but we pay extra). We spend a lot on having nice food. Net access costs me about £25 a month, then webhosting at about the same.

To be honest apart from food and the mortgage there arent really any big expenses. People say UK fuel tax is high (£40 - about $60 to fill a 50 litre tank) but I live near where I work so its not too bad.

I couldnt afford to be a full time indie, and anyway I love my day job so thats fine.
The only thing thats hugely expensive at the moment is building work. Getting a decent builder or decorator in the UK is next to impossible and they charge you an absolute fortune. £14k (roughly $21k) for a conservatory, for example. swine!!!

Well, being fulltime indie in UK would be really difficult with the currency conversion... even if you sell a game at 24.95$ you get about 14-15 GBP...! :eek:
The only real option would be to go elsewhere, if you wanted to be only a indie dev. Luckily you love your daily job also ;)

$650 for a 1 bedroom? Where do I sign up? :-)

I'm paying $1200 for a 1 bedroom in Cupertino, CA. It's better than some, worse than others, though there are more expensive 1 bedrooms around here ($1600/mo for a nicer place down the street). Electricity + phone + water adds $150-$200/mo. I would think these prices are comparable to Cambridge, MA...(?)

A few years ago I lived in Ohio out in the middle of nowhere. I rented the upstairs of a house with laundry in the basement + private phone + utils for $310/mo. My burn rate there was $550/mo or so.

Originally posted by SpikeSpiegel
I live in canada, London ontario actually (unreal tournament was developed down the street from me)

i pay 300cad a month in rent + about another 200 in food. so thats 363.772 USD

Wow, either London is really cheap, you have a roommate who is splitting that rent, or that place is a dump... I live in Kitchener (about an hr's drive from London), and my rent is $720 + $40 for parking for a one bedroom apartment. Its a fairly nice place, and I could probably get rent down to about $600 if I was willing to move, but I don't think there's any way I could get it down to $300 without splitting the rent with someone.

And yes, taxes are killer up here in Canada, although never having to pay a doctor's bill may partly make it worthwhile (more for some, less for others).

San Diego, CA is pretty pricey too, and I used to pay $1200 rental for a 2-bedroom apartment. Houses in reasonable areas here don't come any cheaper than $400K these days.

I remember just 5 years ago renting an apartment on a secluded cliff overlooking the sea near Waterford in Ireland for only $200, but those were the days... Before that, I was living in Malaysia and the cost of living there is about 1/3 to 1/4 that of the US.

And that's why we moved to Temecula! Ended up paying less in mortgage for a 3br/2ba house than we would've had to pay to rent a 2br apartment... and we get to own it!

Of course, now Temecula has superboomed, and we have to remember to sell before the bubble bursts! Our house is currently worth almost 100% more than we paid for it two years ago. Not bad.

Yes, Temecula is still relatively good value, but the prices are going up too. I'm working in Carlsbad, and have a few mates living in Temecula. That's despite them having to drive 50 minutes to the office everyday. 100% for two years is amazing!

Yes, the traffic is getting worse all the time, especially the guys who commute towards San Diego... can you imagine rush hour for the city starting up here? But living here and working there is incredibly common.

I'm in Oceanside and I just bought a house last year. I haven't even lived in it for a full year yet (almost) and the houses on my street are already selling 30-35% more than when I moved here. Not bad...

But yeah the traffic from the north county going down into San Diego is a killer. When I was working in Sorrento Valley just recently, I spent at least a hour in traffic each way. Wasting 2 hours a day in traffic was a contributing factor in me leaving my day job. It was really sucking the life out of me.

I'm happy staying in the north county the majority of the time and only going down to San Diego when I feel like it.

Wasting 2 hours a day in traffic was a contributing factor in me leaving my day job. It was really sucking the life out of me.
I live in Italy, but the main reason of quitting my daily job was the same.
Now that I work from home I feel really more relaxed!!!:cool:

So there are 3 of us here from San Diego (almost)! Did y'all feel the earthquake today? It was 4.7 on the Richter scale, centered north of LA, but it shook us in Carlsbad! :O

I'm in Poland at the moment, so I missed out on the "fun", but I was chatting with a coworker on ICQ at the moment it happened. He was in Sorrento Valley at the time and said it was pretty strong.

Within a few minutes after that shake, there was one that happened not so far from San Diego in the Pacific Ocean that was 5.something.

That's weird, I'm in Oceanside and I didn't feel anything (or I thought it was a big truck). Time to check the news...

I felt it... but the site I checked said it was a 5.2 southwest of Coronado! Check out this cool map for such things:

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/

It's by far the biggest on the map!

It was, I think, 3:30pm or so that there was a 4.7 near Edward Air Force Base (some 70 miles NW of LA).. and then a few minutes later was the 5.2 SW of Coronado. Double whammy! The only earthquake I ever felt while living in San Diego was the rather big one in Oct '99.

At 3:30pm, I was just taking a break watching TV. I'm surprised I didn't feel it...

I've felt a couple of earthquakes while living in San Diego. The biggest one I felt was in late 2001 while I was working at Sony. It was the night shift around 12am - 1am. I was in the break room by myself when the ceiling and the whole room started shaking. There's huge pipes on the ceiling and I thought they would crush me, so I ran to the doorway. While I was standing in the doorway, I looked down the hall and I saw a bunch of my co-workers running and screaming out the door. :)

There was no real damage whatsoever and once we all got outside, we all just started laughing. It actually proved to be a nice distraction since we were working a 18-20 hour shift. :)

Guess the initial report of the 4.7 one near Edwards Airforce Base was just a preliminary report and the location was eventually changed to the 5.2 one off Coronado, ~50 miles from the San Diego coast!

Good to know that there are 4 of us here from San Diego - perhaps we should organize a meeting sometime...

Wow, Chris, I'm surprised I had missed that 2001 'shaker, but it was after my first job at Sony..and if it was at the far end of that year, I was probably abroad anyway.

Rob: where are you located in San Diego? I'm up for getting a Dexterity-San Diego group of us together over beers and discussing the game industry. :)

I don't drink but I can stilll join you all. I'm located in Carmel Valley, within a 5-minute drive of Plimus (no, it's not a famous landmark). Where are you, Jim?

I live in UTC and work in Sorrento Valley.

Jim, I guess you're the one on Charmant Drive then, eh? I used to work in Lusk Blvd in Sorrento Valley until a month ago. Are the other guys (Chris, Hamumu) interested in meeting up?

I was living on Charmant Dr up until a couple years ago. But I'm not far from there anyway. :)

Lusk Blvd? Hmm.. is this the same Rob that bought some arcade boards off of me a couple months ago??

Chris used to work where I work now, so it would be cool if he could join up to swap some Sony stories. :)

Im in Music city ...Nashville TN! Cost of living here is very low...about $600.00 for a 1 bedroom in a college area and if you look you can go as low as $450!!!!...its somewhat small but the location makes up for it...fairly easy to move around here..everything is close to each other...and a whole bunch ot pro musicians...not just country.. and you really dont have much traffic ...compared to Miami where I used to live its a sweet change......but.......no ocean... :( Heading over to California in 2005 to remedy that.

NANDO ARCE

Whether I was living in the East or West, I've always been by the Ocean. If I ever live more than 20 miles from the Ocean I'd probably roll around on the ground flapping like a dead fish. :)

Anyway, I'm up for getting a little Indie San Diego group going. If we meet up in two weeks, I might have something to show you guys from my game too. :)

Ah, cool, I'd be up for seeing what you have so far, Chris. Where east are you from? I'm also a former easterner - update NY.

I'm still out of the country, so I can't meet up until middle of next week at the earliest.

Originally posted by Jim Buck
I was living on Charmant Dr up until a couple years ago. But I'm not far from there anyway. :)

Lusk Blvd? Hmm.. is this the same Rob that bought some arcade boards off of me a couple months ago??

Chris used to work where I work now, so it would be cool if he could join up to swap some Sony stories. :)


Jim, I'm not that Rob - I used to work in Elan Pharmaceuticals there in Lusk Blvd.

Yes, we'll have to organize a meeting of some sort to see Chris' work!

Geez. I didn't know it was so awful to live in a nice area of California. $2000+ mortgage for 30 years on a crappy run down house. 1200$ monthly for a 2 bedroom apartment.

Originally posted by anothersomething
Geez. I didn't know it was so awful to live in a nice area of California. $2000+ mortgage for 30 years on a crappy run down house. 1200$ monthly for a 2 bedroom apartment.

Yup, being close to the beach, mountains and year-round beautiful weather isn't much use if you spend all your time working just to afford living there. ;)

Originally posted by kerchen
Yup, being close to the beach, mountains and year-round beautiful weather isn't much use if you spend all your time working just to afford living there. ;)
It isn't much good at all to a ski-freak. Then again, I let my parents pay the mortgage. I've got another couple years of slavery.