Cost of living in Frankfurt for a bachelor

Please could you help me out if you can?

I am mulling over a move to Frankfurt. My salary quoted is about €6,920.00 per month / take-home (before tax).

I am single and not that much for fancy living (i.e. maybe eat out a few times a week, not too fussy, a fast food place is fine for me). Would this salary be sufficient to live decently in Frankfurst? I'd look for something like a studio apartment where I could commute to work -- maybe no car initially.

Also, how much is the medical insurance and the tax rate? And, how friendly are the locals? I've only ever been to Munich for a weekend visit, and have no idea about Germans in Germany.

Is it just me or do you not get the fact that the amt of $ you are making is great and you will be just fine. You seem to post it like you had to "survive" on meager wages when you are double the avg for Germany.

Of course it's sufficient to live on. That's a nice salary for anyone.

With that income, you have to make a choice about whether you want to insure yourself privately or through one of the public Kassen. Since your single, you're probably better of with private--you should contact a broker like TT's own Starshollow for quotations.

Also, make sure you don't register yourself as a Catholic or German Evangelical/Protestant unless you want to make a forced contribution to the church every month.

You can use a calculator such as the one at http://www.nettolohn.de/ to estimate your monthly take-home pay.

Based on your income, using public health insurance @14%, and no church tax, that came to about 3780€/month.

If you are employed (not free-lance) then you will not be taking your pre-tax salary home!

IMHO the above is a thumping good salary. Even assuming its paid 12 times (ie there isnt a 13th salary) you are doing very well (better than I...)

I concur that you can live very comfortably on that salary in Frankfurt.

If the gross monthly salary is 6900 €, the net ("netto" in German) or take home salary will be roughly 4000 €. The exact amount depends e. g. on whether you choose public health insurance or opt for private health insurance, which is only possible above a certain income threshold (but you are well above), and for younger people without chronic conditions it is cheaper than public health insurance.

Regarding apartments, for +/– 13 €/squaremeter you can get a nice centric apartment. The only difficulty might be that the overall supply of decent, centric apartments isn't too big. You probably need to turn to a real estate agent (Immobilienmakler), and they'll ask for 2 months rent as remuneration after finding you something (See related thread about "Makler scum" ). So the initial housing costs can be considerable (2-3 months rent deposit, sometimes there is no built-in kitchen in the apartment), but life here is much less expensive than say in London.

Frankfurt is a great hub for travels (if you are fed up with the Frankfurters), and it is pretty international for German standards. More than one fourth of the people here have got a foreign background, and in general "we don't bite", as we say in German.

This is true if you are single & are certain not to stay here and support a wife & kids.
If the latter turn up it gets EXPENSIVE

From the sounds of your tastes, you're fine. Don't worry about it.

Phew! This thread helps me answer a query raised in a separate thread... my expected salary "after" tax / private medical insurance etc. is around 5500 - 6000 and I was wondering if that was enough. One question though remains. How much should I expect to shell out towards "warm rent" for a spacious studio in a nice part of town?

The utilities, in German Nebenkosten or Betriebskosten, for a 90 squaremeter apartment in Frankfurt could be around 200 € per month (doesn't comprise electricity and telecom). This is only approximative, it varies according to the building, the service etc. The Nebenkosten basically include heating, water, street cleaning, rubbish collection, concierge, insurances, municipal tax, split between between the occupants of a house according to apartment size and/or consumption (heating, water). Usually, the renter pays a fixed sum in advance each month and then gets a detailed annual account. Or, less common, the renter pays a Nebenkostenpauschale, sort of a monthly flate rate without annual account.

Great... this isn't as easy as renting a place in any other part of the world. Does life have to be that complicated?
Well, guess I'll have to live with it and start getting used to navigating the German real estate system. People do live there, so I guess it does work... eventually.