Moving to Hamburg with the family?
Replies: 11 - Last Post: Aug 18, 2012 12:21 PM Last Post By: MTL
jump to
Moving to Hamburg with the family?
Hi,We are planning to move to Hamburg due to a job offer. I am married and with one baby and the company offered 55000€ brutto/ year + company car (also for private use). Could you tell me if this enough for leaving good in Hamburg with this money? Acc. to my calculations it should be 3000€ netto/month.
I would appreciate your comments.
Many thanks :)
1
It's very hard to say as I actually don't know about the prices in Hamburg.If they are the same as in the rest of Germany I recon this is enough. Not a whole lot but enough to afford a comfortable live. Still, I think that someone with more experience about Hamburg than me will be able to answer that question better/in more detail. Sorry that I can't give more information.
2
Living 'good' depend of different things. To rent a flat today the m² will cost you 12 Euro - it's a medium rate and can be more or less: http://www.wohnungsboerse.net/mietspiegel-Hamburg/3195 - but this price depend where the appartment is, the quarter of the city, in an old or modern house, how is the equipment inside, balcony or terrasse, elevator, parking, near commercials and so on. And you need to add some other fees: heating, electric, water, insurance. That gives you approx. 1.200/1.500€ for the rest per month. No idea where you are from but with this amount three persons can live correctly, more or less comfortable.5
Saving up to fly home might be a problem. Maybe you can get it in your contract that they fork out one trip home a year.Refer also to http://www.toytowngermany.com and cross check with them to see what they think.
The car will be a major help for getting about, I too live in Germany as an expat and wish I had a car at times, although public transport is very very good.
My only other suggestion would be to start a crash course in German. The more you can learn prior to arrival, the less painful/hard it'll be to get through the language barrier. Deutsche Welle (German version of the BBC world service) offers free online courses at www.dw.de/dw/0,,2547,00.html .
6
Agree with the others, but it also depends on what your expectations are as regards housing etc. Another factor you may want to bear in mind is childcare - spots in daycare for under 3s (and even for older children) may be difficult to find and/or expensive, depending on local conditions.I would suggest you have a good look around the forum of the Toytown Germany website, they have a specific Hamburg section. Read up on liability insurance (Haftpflichtversicherung) - I would strongly recommend taking one out for the whole family. As regards health insurance, it's probably best if you initially join the public insurance system through your employer (children and non-working spouses are covered at no extra cost; there are no major differences between the different public insurance companies, but Techniker Krankenkasse is rated among the best) and take your time to find out whether it may be more advantageous for your family to switch to private.
7
You may also want to take into consideration that apartments are usually rented empty. You will have to buy furniture. Some have a kitchen installed, many don't - a new kitchen costs several thousands. better save up a bit now.Learning German is indeed essential. The language is the key to the culture and daily life. Language skills are valued high here. Even if many people speak good English, they won't have much patience with a resident who does not bother acquiring some German. A foreigner who wants to live in Germany is expected to learn the local language, just as any German who moves to a foreign country would consider the most natural thing to do.
11
it depends on how you define 'good'. Clearly people live on less. And people live on more.this site http://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Country=Germany/Salary#by_City shows you the median salary for Hamburg as being about EUR 45K. So you'd be just above that. (median meaning 50% of the population earns less, 50% earns more).
The same site shows the median income for Barcelona to be around 32K. http://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Country=Spain/Salary#by_City
Obviously there is a cost of living difference- when people have more money prices will be higher. So if you earned 32K in Barcelona you'd have to earn about 45K in Hamburg for a similar social status (which is presumably a proxy for a similar lifestyle)
