[ILUG-Social] Re: Cost of life comparison

[John P . Looney]

On Tue, Sep 07, 1999 at 03:05:47PM +0200, Giuseppe Paterno' mentioned:
> First of all, sorry if I post this mailing list but I'm quite desperate
> since I have to take a decision and I need some infos I cannot find
> anywhere.

 Good call!

> I'm a linux enthousiast and I'm planning to move from Milan, Italy to
> Dublin and I'm trying to compare cost of life. Could someone give me some
> hints ?

 Will do. First off, what sort of job do you have/want - so we could guess
at what sort of salary you should expect...

> Comparing some everyday products it seems to me that life is 20-30% more
> expensive, but home lettings and transportations (Bus/DART) are quite the
> double. For a single bed apartment, with kitchen, living room, etc.. 800
> pounds/month, could you confirm ?

 A one-bedroom apartment is around £600 a month. You can get two bedroom
ones for around £650, and three bedroom ones for £850 - these all differ,
obviously, but not by as much as you would expect. Food is moderately
expensive - it's about 40% more than Berlin, and 20% less than London, if
that's a help. Eating out is slightly expensive; it's difficult to get a
decent main meal for under £9. Alcohol is getting more expensive too,
averaging around £2.60 for 550ml of lager.

 You can get a one-week bus & rail ticket for £16. It's about £120,000 to
buy a small three bedroom house, on average. Hardware is alright - a new
good machine off Dell or Gateway is around £1500. The average wage for a
clueful computer graduate is around £18,000 and someone with 3 years
experience gets around £24,000, though a lot of people work as contractors,
where wages are between £200 a day for clueless types, to £600 a day for
specialists. Tax, like everywhere is annoying - it's 52% of income above
£11,000, 7.5% below £11,000, though if you are self-employed (as in, a
contractor), you also have to pay an extra 12.5% "Employers PRSI" tax.

Kate

-- 
Microsoft. The best reason in the world to drink beer.