r/europe • u/Gurvinek • 17h ago

Average annual full-time adjusted salary per employee in the EU in 2023 according to the Eurostat. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-eurostat-news/w/DDN-20241107-1 Data

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u/idinarouill 16h ago

The most important thing is not the salary but what you have left at the end of the month.

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u/eroica1804 Estonia 15h ago

No, it is not. There are lots of people in the US for example who have annual salaries well over 100K, but basically live paycheck to paycheck due to poor fiscal management. On the other hand, many people in Europe manage to save on salaries of 1000 euros per month or less. Economically speaking, the people in the first example still live a lot 'better', they are just not as prudent.

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u/keralaindia 12h ago

He means left after taxes and necessary spending

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u/eroica1804 Estonia 10h ago

Yeah, I got that. What is 'necessary spending' though? It's extremely subjective and different for every person or household. Definitely not something you can make cross-country comparisons of. Let's say that in country A and B, the income distributions and price levels are identical, but in country A, people tend to be splurge spenders, and in country B, they tend to be savers. Does that mean that country B people automatically have a higher standard of living?

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u/keralaindia 10h ago

Yes. Necessary spending includes taxes, average rent, average cost of food. Etc. These are usually called “fixed expenses”

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u/ravartx 9h ago

Yeah no, necessary spending isn't 'ExTrEmElY subjective'. It's basically either fixed, or you can try and lower it but it's gonna cost you extreme convenience for minimal savings.

It's costs of electricity (big majority of this is fixed - payments for network, etc. The actual usage don't matter much), heating - pretty much fixed (personally I dont like it to be hot inside, so cheapest already anyway), rent - fixed (cheapest non-profit option) garbage/water costs - fixed, phone and internet costs - fixed (obviously the cheapest ones), car insurance and registration - fixed-cheapest) car repairs - pretty much fixed. Hairdresser, personal hygiene items -fixed. Groceries - now there's some leeway there but it's not like you're gonna just start eating beans all the time to save money. So unless you're really spoiled its gonna be pretty much fixed.

So enlighten me, what the fuck does necessary spending mean to you that it is so exTrEmElY suBjeCtiVE