Critique my budget for moving to Cologne

Hi again,

I introduced myself yesterday in the other thread. I've been planning a budget for my move to Cologne in 2 months.
Because someone yells: "Have you tried SEARCH?" Answer: Yes, I have. I've been going through this website for the past 2 weeks and pulling the figures from here.

Any criticism would be helpful - especially if I've totally gone off on a tangent on something. Most of the figures pulled are from Munich, as most of the posts were Munich specific. Hopefully the two cities don't differ so much...? The plan is to stay ~2 years.

Monthly expenses for Cologne, ignoring capital start-up costs
Student loans $ 300 CAD (cannot change)
Health insurance € 75 (I'll be under the €4000/month gross bracket so...not sure if it's right to place it in? gotta sort this out with employer.)
Rent € 600
Food € 250
Utilities € 85
Communication € 50
Transportation € 50
Entertainment € 150
Misc € 100
Total expenses (€) € 1,560

I don't make that much, but with this budget, I should have approx. €100 savings / month.
Does this sound reasonable? I put rent a little higher because I'm looking for something furnished.

Thanks!
Rob

Hello,
I am not sure how much help I can be as I am living in a different area of Germany than you. But maybe I can help a bit. As far as the student loans and serves me the harsh reminder of what I will too have to pay when I finish school uggh. LOL. Anywho, in Thurigen I found food to be less expensive my finace only spend between 40 -60 euro a week for two people. This includes all meals at home breakfast, lunch, and dinner. HOwever I am worried that you expect to little on the utilities. In our apartment we pay a base rate. BUt in addition to thAt they charge over 100 euro just for gas and water. Then eaach year they evalluate how much you use and either rase or lower the bill, but only once a year. Not monthly like I was used to in th US. That does not even include any additionl such as electric, phone, internet. So I would research a little further into that cost. Given all areas of Germany are different it may be so, but I would double check.

Thanks for the feedback, Serena.
I'll definitely readjust my figures over the coming weeks. I picked up a copy of "Living and Working in Germany" and it went over explicitly the yearly evaluation of utilities. doh...

How do you figure 50 for transportation? Or rather, what - a VRS monthly pass for Cologne (city only) is 70 Euro already.

Hello,

Welcome to TT and to Germany soon, here is my contribution:

Health Insurance:

I would like to question your calculation of the Health insurance.
Are you going to be working for a German employer?
If yes, then this amount would be deducted from your salary before you even get to Net Salary, and it is higher than this (More like 250 EUR/ Month) this is the employee share.
Since you are under the 4.000 EUR/ month then you will be obliged to join the Public Health insurance, which will cost about 12,4 - 14,0% of your Gross income.

I would suggest you calculated/ estimate your Net salary with this tool, then you will have a rough idea of your disposable income:

http://www.nettolohn.de/

If you are employed with a Canadian employer then forget the notice.

Rental:

- Will pretty much depends on where you want to live and how big of a place you need.
- I would say your estimate for rent is high and should afford you a big place.
- The one for Utilities is a bit low, especially in winter months (as mentioned above ya Serena)

Here is a link which will let you search apartments, listing the Kalt Miete (without utilities)
and it should give you an idea about rent, remember many landlords in Germany list their apartments with agencies which end up charging a high and unjustified (in my opinion) fee, could get as much as 2,39 x Monthly rent amount (Without utilities)

http://www.immobilienscout24.de/Suche/S-20...34E3423.worker2

In any case you will enjoy it!

Sorry, I should have specified. I'll be closer to Leverkusen. I wasn't sure if people knew where Leverkusen was so I put down Cologne. But thanks for the info. I'll adjust that up to be conservative.


Yep!


Thanks for the website. It was very useful! The breakdown is nice. I remember seeing a thread where it addresses what everything means... Have to get to that soon.


Thanks again for the link. I sort of have a sense of what to expect now in terms of rent. I am going through an agency yes, but the hiring company is paying for my relocation costs so I think I will be sheltered from that. There has been some ridiculous threads on this topic... phew.

Thanks everyone for your contribution! Greatly appreciated. I will adjust the figures this weekend - hopefully with a more accurate budget this time.