Given these high yearly salaries, where would you choose to live?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
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Let’s assume you have the following offers. To make things simpler, let’s say it’s different branches of the same company. The following compensations are all pre-tax:

  • 150k GBP (~183k USD) in London
  • 150k Euros (~160k USD) in Amsterdam
  • 280k USD in San Francisco
  • 240k Swiss Franc (~250k USD) in Zurich
  • 3.5 million NTD (~115k USD) in Taipei

Which location would you choose and why?

Sidenote: I came up with these numbers after looking at the top software salaries in these regions for intermediate level engineers. I’m not in this situation personally, but just generally curious about what factors would influence people’s decisions. Some of you may have lived in many of these places before, so would be great to know your thoughts!

Sidenote 2: These numbers should already be somewhat equivalent after adjusting for COL, as that’s the operating principle on which big tech companies that give out these offers work.

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It would depend on the relative value of the currency, and cost of living, for me

But probably Amsterdam or Switzerland

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I’m a bit confused about your choices given your priorities - after taxes, you would save much lesser in Amsterdam than some of the other options. What were your reasons to opt for Amsterdam and Zurich in particular?

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  1. London - Fun and stuff. And I already know some people there so that’s good.
  2. Taipei
  3. San Francisco - I can’t drive so that’d be a problem.
  4. Amsterdam - Overly touristic and food in NL is abominable.
  5. Zurich - Incredibly blah.
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What makes London “fun and stuff” for you? Isn’t the weather pretty bad (much like Taipei)? Also, feel like financially would lead to least savings out of the options in that list…

(I’m just playing devil’s advocate to try to get a deeper understanding of your motivations. Hope that’s alright!)

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Weather doesn’t bother me as much as it does some people. I have a few close friends in London so I wouldn’t be completely alone and with 150k (roughly 85-90k after tax, I reckon) I’d be able to afford a decent apartment in the city.

Probably, but if you are making 150k in London there would be considerable room for growth.

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Taipei.

Cheap suburbs with good transport. $115000 US goes really far.

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Ok. Could you give us the choices again, with the salary in common currency and adjusted for COL and after tax

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I put the common curriences already. I can add taxes later, but I don’t want to do the COL conversions because it depends from person to person.

For e.g. Just above, @Marco mentions living in the suburbs. This will drastically affect rent/COL and might not be interesting to a lot of folks.

This thread is mostly for those who have lived in these places already or are already familiar with the costs and living scenarios

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1 currency, not 5

Anyways, my point was that the money is a factor but too much work to figure out

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I put the USD equivalents already, just haven’t added taxes yet as it’s some work…

Fwiw, these are supposed to be roughly equivalent and adjusted to COL already, because that’s the principle on which big tech companies that give out those offers are supposed to work

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Ok, I’m out then

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Dallas. Can’t get a good steak in any of these other places!

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Is this for people with high salary? Oops i am in wrong thread.

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It’s not… It’s “assuming” you have these offers, which location would you choose and why?

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150K is an amazing London salary. The only people who wouldn’t be able to save plenty on it are people with way too expensive lifestyles. That said, because London is my home city, if I made that kind of money, I would stay there and stop complaining about it.

But I have been offered £100K for a job in London and would pick Taipei with the salary you mentioned above over it.

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I agree with everything you said. I think all the salaries I mentioned above are great for those locations. And they should be somewhat similar after adjusting for COL. So the question is more like “assuming you’re getting these great salaries, where would you live and why”?

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I’d pick 1) London 2) Amsterdam 3) Zurich because I am already familiar with Taipei and San Francisco, and would like to explore different parts of the world. The order is just a personal preference. London is first because I don’t need to learn a new language.

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Amsterdam. Live in Utrecht and commute by rail to the 'Dam. Utrecht has everything that Amsterdam has on a smaller scale and is way more quiet. Plus, I think, it’s relatively cheaper.

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I’d choose European cities.

San Francisco is a problem because even at a high salary you still can’t afford good housing. Also medical insurance is expensive, and medical treatment is expensive in the US. At least at most EU cities you would have some form of a universal healthcare.

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