Objectively Poor?
I live in a traditionally poor country. Or so, at least, is it perceived. It used to be that Romanians would leave the country and marvel at how expensive everything was out there, then come back and sort of be happy at having returned to their much more affordable home. That still is the consensus, and it may well be accurate, but it doesn't seem so to me.
Typically, the price of things like real estate, groceries, utilities etc should be matched to the general base salary in the country. Romania having a fairly low average salary, it ought to be a cheaper living than, say, Italy or Spain.
Right now, as of July 2024, the minimum wage in Romania has gone up to roughly 474 Euro. A month. Now obviously a lot of people in the country make more than that. People in IT make 3,000 - 6,000 (even more often) Euros a month which is an extremely impressive salary in our country. Others, however do not.
I have a friend who minds kids at a kindergarten who earns slightly above the minimum wage, though not by a lot more. I have a friend who just started work as a doctor who makes around seven or eight hundred. Not a lot of money at all.
And yet, if you were to browse real estate or go into a store, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're in the West. Prices are the same.
A two- or three- bedroom apartment in a new development will easily cost 160.000 Eur (sometimes even 200.000). I keep saying (baffled) that you can find apartments in Barcelona or various places in Italy for that. Obviously, you can always find way more expensive ones as well. But just the fact that you could feasibly live in a nice enough apartment in a good area of Barcelona for the same price you'd pay to live in a so-and-so area of Bucharest is mind-boggling to me. And to any Romanian person that I know.
Street view in Barcelona. Probably would cost more than 160K, but still.
As someone who has always had an eye on living abroad, I can tell you the reasoning used to be "sure, but it's way more affordable to live in Romania". Except it's not, anymore. I'm not sure what the situation is on rent, though I did recently browse seaside rentals in various parts of the Spanish coast for a family friend, and I found a host of 2- or 3-bedrooms priced anywhere between 500 and 800 a month. My current home could feasibly be rented out at 400 a month (2-bedroom), so it's not that big a difference. Downtown apartments easily go for more. And yet, the center of Bucharest is full of drug addicts and decrepit Commie buildings. It's not the Spanish coast.
I don't usually frequent department stores when abroad, but I have on occasion, and I've never walked out of a Mango or Zara of Decathlon shouting about the impossible prices. Pretty much the same as here.
Utilities, similarly. If not cheaper outside, depending on the area you live in. Groceries have reached astronomical highs. While living in Barcelona or before that in the south of Spain, my grocery bills were about the same as they are here now. Without sparing expenses or not buying the "luxury" treats I'm used to at home or anything like that. Not that I'm a caviar person or anything.
Takeout costs the same. Coffee at some fancy cafe costs the same, if not more here. I was traveling with my folks through the country over the weekend. A measly, simple coffee was 3-4 Euro. I used to pay less than 3 for a coffee and some pastry treat in fucking Barcelona. Again, a small Romanian city should not be able to charge higher prices than Barcelona.
A friend traveled recently in Romania for a wedding and paid more for two nights' accommodation than she did for three nights in Bari, a few days later.
It's interesting and worrying to me, because as I say, Romania's costs do not match its salary. I don't know if that's the case in the West as well, but it's concerning and invites reflection. Why live here when you could live somewhere much nicer for the same money (approx.)? That's on a personal level. But not everyone in my country has that luxury to just say fuck it, I'll pack up, sell the house and move someplace nicer. Most people here are forced to live on shit salaries in an economy that could easily be France. Which is terrifying.
What's even scarier is that most people I know here don't seem to be acknowledging that and persist instead in this "the way things have always been" delusion.
In traveling in-country because international travel is "expensive".
In setting up lives for themselves and their children here because making it out there "would be unfairly difficult".
I would like to know how you wake up.
Interesting. I've never been to Romania though. How's it in terms of safety? For 200.000 Euros one can buy quite a large portion of land in Brazil or a nice posh house near the coast at a secluded beach. Ranches around me, at the mountains, go for about 40-50.000 Euros at an average 10-15 hectares. Our minimum wage is equivalent to ~230 Euros, but we can't compare that; purchasing power is the way to go. A Big Mac at Mcdonald's costs about 1,9 - 2% of our minimum wage, for example. The one thing I hate over here is the amount of tax paid, it's absurd.
Who eats at Mac Donald's??? It's crazy that it's usually people with not much money here that do - but it's freaking expensive and it tastes crap.
I have no idea. I certainly don't 🤢🤮 The BigMac price is just for metrics as it's available everywhere in the world.
It's $7.90 AUD here but I have no idea how much that is relative to wages as that's, like, Math.
Was thinking the same. Think it goes into the "oh well I'm not too happy with life, might as well treat myself [with poison] to feel better" mentality. That and often, people who come from low income backgrounds seem less concerned with eating their five a day and whatnot. Who knows, maybe they think nutrition is rich people bs?
also me trying to remember how much a Big Mac costs so I can be part of the conversion...literally no idea. It looks perverse. And not in a good way.
Ha, I googled it.
I don't know, maybe it's education, addiction to sugar, habit, peer pressure....
Apparently I'm told the coffee is good. I'm suspect. Sounds like 'i read Playboy for the good articles'...
Must be a combination of those - all valid reasons! My doctor friend often gets patients from really poor families and parts of the city (even rural, some) and she's always talking about the shit she sees parents feeding their kids in there. A big ass bottle of sugary carcinogens or greasy take out isn't gonna help the kids' ilness certainly.
I had McDonalds coffee once against my better judgment someplace in Germany. Cheap, vending machine type of piss that hardly deserves to be called coffee imo.
Hm, I wonder if that differs in different countries? They have them at the big petrol stations here and whenever I go into pay I can see the line at Maccas. They have proper coffee machines there. I think it's probably because Australians love their coffee and they wanted a share of that market?
I'm always ccautious of saying the poor don't feed their kids as well, because it feels like a generalisation about a demographic. But then, we do know the circumstances that lead to poverty - and generational poverty - and likely good nutrition isn't high on the list of survival items and/or it's too bloody expensive. To eat well requires a fatter wallet, bottom line.
A nice house on the beach sounds heavenly. Especially compared to a samey flat near the local retail store (200k to live down the street from where I'm at apparently- me, I wouldn't pay half. A house on the beach on the other hand...)
Safety is a topic I think most people are biased on. I think most areas of Bucharest and Romania in general are quite safe. I certainly feel safe. Then again, it's home so what do I know ? Maybe it's actually scary as fuck.
What are taxes like in Brazil?
Horrendous. And we never know exactly how much we have to pay. Brazilians work on average 150 days per year just to cover taxes.
What? Do prices vary from one year to the next that much? Here it seems to be more or less around the same ball park. 150 days of work for taxes alone is mad.
Inflation is not that rampant here, but we have taxes over taxes over taxes that add up, so it's easier to pay an accountant.
For example, import taxes below 50 usd we pay 20% import tax over produt price + shipping; on top of that we pay 17% state tax. If it's above 50 usd we pay 60% import + state. Absurd!
How can a doctor earn so little? It's just madness especially when you compare it to IT who earns 10x - that is pretty much on par with UK salary.
Does things get better outside of Bucharest, coz the capital is always a lot more expensive than the rest of the country
She's in her first year working as a doctor, so in a way she's still thought to be learning and presumably the salary will get higher. But it's absurd in terms of someone who reasonably would have a family of some sort to take care of and who spent 6 years in university. It's hardly enough to get by.
Smaller towns are much more appealing to foreign tourists for some reason, so they're a no go. Just spent 3 days in one. Excessively expensive, more so than the capital. As for villages, not really an option as living conditions are quite poor.
Why, then, are the prices so high? Supply and demand? Import taxes?
What about rural Romania? Is that the same?
I don't know. I wish I did. Nobody seems to ask. We just sort of go along with it. Not that it would change much.
Rural Romania is probably cheaper. Like really rural, not just smaller towns which are a hotbed for tourists. But then, you wouldn't want to live there.
The strange thing is, people are obviously still buying these houses at those prices, otherwise the price would go down. But here let me compare with you:
The average price here in Shanghai for an apartment is about 35-40x the average median income, compared to places like London where it's about 10x. Shenzhen down south is even worse, pretty much the least affordable place on the planet, and yet, people still buy it.
Culturally, entire families, aunts, uncles, grandparents, pool their money together to get a mortgage for a place, this is often the only way to get a property.
To make matters worse, the NORM here is to buy a property before they even start building it. You literally own a mortgage to a square of dirt. Those responsible for building them often instead use that money to get more land to sell more un-built property to more people, and then use a fraction of the cost to build the cheapest, tackiest, brittle apartment buildings you've ever seen, affectionally known as 'Tofu-dreg construction'.
This isn't a scam, it's literally how things are done here. Madness.
Jesus that does sound insane x10 right there. An entire family's worth of credit for a piece of dirt that may or may not get built? Insanity. You're right, if these things weren't attracting anyone they wouldn't be happening. So fucked.