Could you make a case for living in The Netherlands?

[MarkKol]

12 hours ago, Michael569 said:

@MarkKol fair enough

Northern Italy? You'd have to learn the language which is one of the easier ones and definitely the most beautiful one but you'd get to live close to Swiss (impossible imgration policies), the sea, the mountains, the food, the sun, the climate. 

I just came back from Milan like 2 weeks ago, absolutely loved it. ChatGPT gave me Amsterdam and Berlin based on my criteria so I just went with those considerations.

Apparently Milan is more expensive than Berlin, shocking but true. At  less than half the size.

7 hours ago, Davino said:

@MarkKol Congrats for getting out of debt. 

Thanks, wasn’t my doing, my country gives me a lot of my tax money back because I’m young and we’re kinda endangered here, meaning young people are leaving constantly. 

The opposite of the Netherlands actually.

[PurpleTree]

1 hour ago, MarkKol said:

 

Apparently Milan is more expensive than Berlin, shocking but true. At  less than half the size.

Why is it shocking?

Milan is the most expensive city in Italy.

While Berlin is barely in the top 5 expensive cities in Germany.

 

I also really like Milan.

Edited Thursday at 09:48 PM by PurpleTree

[MarkKol]

1 hour ago, PurpleTree said:

Why is it shocking?

Milan is the most expensive city in Italy.

While Berlin is barely in the top 5 expensive cities in Germany.

 

I also really like Milan.

I found it unexpected that Berlin is cheaper compared to... pretty much every major city in Europe while at the same time being the biggest city in the EU. 

[PurpleTree]

11 hours ago, MarkKol said:

I found it unexpected that Berlin is cheaper compared to... pretty much every major city in Europe while at the same time being the biggest city in the EU. 

Germany generally is cheaper than many countries in western Europe.

Aside from some southern German cities like Munich etc.

One of their sayings is „geiz ist geil“

which means something line stingyness is so hawt.

It‘s no accident that many of the discounters like Lidl, Aldi. Müller etc. are german.

[PurpleTree]

What about Vienna have you been there? Cool beautiful city and big and culturally interesting.

Other nice ones Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Lyon, Rome, Budapest and so on.

[AION]

Middle class is being fucked over in the Netherlands. You either have to be upper middle class or upper class or the lower class to get the benefit. If you have your own business it works fine too. Business owners get a lot of social and tax benefits. 

Edited Friday at 11:20 AM by AION

[MarkKol]

23 hours ago, PurpleTree said:

What about Vienna have you been there? Cool beautiful city and big and culturally interesting.

Other nice ones Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Lyon, Rome, Budapest and so on.

Vienna, Eh, haven’t been there yet. We’ll see. Too many of my own kind living there. Wherever there are balkans there’s a place lacking in nuance and profundity. Looks good though. Perhaps it’s unattractive to me because it’s so familiar.

Madrid and Rome look interesting, I’m not sure how survivable Spain is, they seem to have asymmetrically high housing prices for their incomes.

[MarkKol]

It’s not like I have to go anywhere—I landed a comfortable office job right out of high school. After three years of working, though, I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with this common way of life. It feels like I’m prioritizing comfort and money over a bigger adventure—one where money and comfort would be tighter by design.

It’s not bad, per se, and it’s not out of desperation. But the alternative feels more worthwhile. Prioritizing money in your 20s feels wrong and soulless. My salary has doubled over the past three years, yet I haven’t become any happier or more fulfilled. 

I can see how someone might not understand my perspective, someone who hasn’t worked in a soulless corporate environment, someone in college, someone who hasn’t made much money yet, someone with kids.

In my experience comfort slowly becomes this numbing agent that makes everything feel more boring and colorless. 

Edited Saturday at 11:34 AM by MarkKol