How is it like Living in Switzerland - The MOST EXPENSIVE Place in The World

[@simonmartinelli]

If you earn your money in Switzerland, it's also fair to spend it there.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

That’s a good point! But if you can save some extra money 💰 why not take advantage of crossing the border 🤷‍♂️

[@simonmartinelli]

@@FrancescoPioMancini Your advantage is the disadvantage for all retailers on the Swiss side.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

@@simonmartinelli I don't see a point there sorry. Everyone is free to save their own money as they wish to. It's just being smart with saving. Nothing against local retailers. Unfortunately Switzerland is very expensive even for Swiss born citizens, therefore the solution could be different... Lower Taxes,Cassa Malati, Rent, Utilities bills and then you see how people will have more money to spend in the country. Average Swiss single residents are just surviving in Switzerland... Look at Zurich, to rent a place you need to sell your liver and be lucky that nobody of the 200 people visiting the same room/house is taking it at 3000 CHF per month... Let's be honest there are more important things to work on before complaining about who try to save some money on groceries.

[@simonmartinelli]

@@FrancescoPioMancini retailers in Switzerland close to the border can not offer low prices as in Italy. And if everybody is buying in Italy the will have to close their businesses

[@PhilipDjaferis]

if you can afford it...

[@jroar123]

Thanks for the video. I was working just offshore from Venice for 2 years and fell in love with Italy. Then I saw Switzerland. The main problem as you mentioned is the cost of everything. I hate the fact that a Big Mac hamburger cost me $12.00 at the Zurich airport. Regardless, the cost of living in the United States over the past 4 years went way up. This has me thinking about retiring in Italy. Possibly in one of the 7% flat tax regions. As more and more people inherit their parent’s home, they can’t or don’t want to pay the high taxes on the place. That and the amount of money it would take to maintain the place or get it in shape to resell. Because of these reasons, more and more homes are on the market, which drive prices further down. You can afford to buy in Italy but don’t look to make money on selling your home in Italy. Often they sell it to the Hamlet for nothing and walk away from it. Those looking for tax breaks such as the 7% zones can only take advantage of the deal for 10 years. The other issue is that you have to have a certain income to qualify for a residence visa. Without it, you cannot take advantage of the Italian medical system, which is a really good deal. In Switzerland and you stated, requires you to have private medical insurance. That is about $700 dollars a month. They make you carry Medicare in the states and it’s up to that cost as well. And, it often doesn’t cover anything. The system is broken in the U.S. Italy has its good points and the bad. I’m sure Switzerland also has some bad points but very few.

[@markus_ch]

In Switzerland you do not necessarily need a car, especially if you live in or around a city. Therefore you can spend the saved money in local shops, which saves you time and stress and will support local businesses.

[@SwissWalker]

In Switzerland, you can earn a good income while enjoying a high quality of life.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

Indeed you can!

[@oskarvomhimmel6936]

I think the US is more expensive than Switzerland, based on what everyone says...Health Insurance for instance, a good $400.00 a month for a single man under 40, with a deductible upwards of $7,000 ...an ER visit costs about $2000...and some Meds are just ridiculously expensive. Rent is also about $1000 per person in a room, if you want your own apartment , with 2 or 3 rooms that can be close to $4000 ($2000 in some places) the Electric bill is about $300 a month during the summer (This is Phoenix/Scottsdale AZ) a 25 minute ride to the airport is about $100.00 Groceries are about $200.00 per week, eating out per meal, basic fast food about $20.00, if you go out to a restaurant, not too expensive $50.00 ...Dentist costs are not covered by insurance, so an implant can go from $3000 to $4000, a crown around $1500, a tooth filling $350...etc. A Gym membership can cost $400 per month (low end $50) if you own a house with a pool, and a yard you have to pay for the maintenance of everything, it can get pretty expensive...Then you have taxes, nothing of that I mentioned before can be written off, so, you have to pay taxes on that $$$ you will need to pay for all those expenses. Then you have inflation 😮‍💨...another "invisible(but real)" tax on everything. Switzerland sounds actually really good taking those numbers into account, and that is just a basic cost of living, the only exception is the Gym membership...there is a place that charges $10.00 per month, but the nicer one is $400.00 there are plenty of all in between those ranges.

[@shekondog]

I am from NYC and Zurich is cheaper than living in Manhattan by 25% or more. If you add in healthcare, its even more.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

You can’t compare NYC to Zurich… it is like comparing a village to a metropolitan city

[@marcozg77]

Zürich is still far too expensive for what it is. I grew up in switzerland and have been to ZH countless times. And I visited nyc. The comparison is like night and day. manhattan is addictive. i often dream of being there again.

[@LexMoy]

That's so not true.

[@amberkillion]

Great perspective! Switzerland is pricey but worth it I think! 🇨🇭

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

I totally agree!

[@dev-life]

This comment is in response to some of the things said on the video, and also some of the replies the author of the video gave to other comments. I don't have anything against they guy, but I think people reading his comments might get a wrong impression about Switzerland. I don't have a Nobel Prize in Economics, but it seems very obvious to me that prices in Switzerland are higher because wages are also higher. Not just that, but comparing Switzerland to any other country, like Italy, you'll probably get even more than 3 times the salary for the same job, and the prices for supermarkets, restaurants, etc., are maybe 2 times higher. It's simple, people who work in those places and all the production chain that puts that steak on your table also want to have a Swiss salary. Also, the marginal tax in any Swiss canton is less than half the marginal tax in Italy, so not only do you make and save more money, but you also pay less tax on it. That being said, if you want to drive to Italy to buy your groceries then go for it, you are free to do so as long as you abide by the law. Finally, no, buying a house in Switzerland is not impossible, it's very doable, and you can pay it back without any problems if you plan accordingly. Another different thing is that many people decide to keep 65% of their mortgage unpaid for life for the tax benefits. I mean, I know a couple who migrated from South America to Switzerland just 10 years ago and bought an apartment in Lucerne after just 6 years of being in Switzerland, and they both have very normal jobs.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

The house will never be yours and you’ll have to pay wealth tax too 😵‍💫 a decent apartment in Lugano will cost you no less than 800.000 CHF (i remark decent). I understand you guys are swiss and want to promote Switzerland as the best country of the world but the truth is that it’s not all gold what you see shining. There are pro and cons. If you are a foreigner migrated in Switzerland, you’ll never be paid like a Swiss citizen as there is so much disparity in this country. When I compare living in a country rather than another, i take in consideration taxes, services, people, living conditions and entertainment. Last not least when you talk about taxes being better than other countries. True! But it depends on which canton you live in. If you live in Ticino or Zurich, you’ll pay up to 40% taxes. AVS for independent is 12% and an average of 25/30% of taxes for independent. Do you think I’m sharing false information? Then I’ll make a video with breakdown of my cost of living compared to a 8k salary net per month and let’s see how much you save from that

[@dev-life]

@@FrancescoPioMancini First of all, I'm not Swiss, I'm here to defend common sense, not a specific country. You can pay for the house if you want and own it outright, I have no idea where you learned that you'll never own the house. Like I said before, some people won't ever pay their mortgage in full but that's only for the tax benefits. For anyone not familiar with Switzerland then 800.000 CHF sounds like a lot, but the only cash you really need to access that mortgage is 80,000 CHF plus taxes because the other 10% can be pledged from your 2nd and 3rd pillars. If you and your wife can't save 80,000 CHF over 10 years then you are definitely doing something wrong. For context, wealth tax in Switzerland depends on each canton and municipality, and it's usually around 0.3 to 1%. You heard that right, 1%. This is nothing, especially considering that Switzerland doesn't levy any capital gains taxes. So basically, this is Switzerland, a country that incentivizes you to invest and grow. You are what I would call "the crying immigrant", a rare breed that moves to a country and then complains about everything that made and defined that country, the reason why he moved there in the first place. Another correction: You can't pay someone less because he/she came from another country. Companies simply value the experience you have gained in Swiss companies because they consider the standards in Switzerland to be higher, and anyone with half a brain would agree with that. And, of course, language is a factor, a company would pay a bit more to an engineer who speaks Swiss German than an engineer who only speaks English. I see why you are confused, but this is only business. The only way you can pay 40% tax in Zurich is if you are single, without kids, and making more than 430,000 CHF per year. Educate me if I'm wrong

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

@@dev-life​​⁠first of all, calling me crying immigrant just define you as racist because I don’t give a shit about where you from or what race I am! I talk about reality not over fake numbers written on a KZbin Comment. 10 years to save 80k seems easy and short to you, but maybe for others isn’t like that. You assume that I’m not making enough to live meanwhile I can actually pay for a house deposit even tomorrow. It’s not about how you spend money but how you invest it and get return of your investment. Accordingly to your calculation a family of 2 adults can save 10k per year living in zurich. i agree that is possible if both of them don’t like to go out, travel or do any type of social activities. I don’t think 2 individuals with an average job can afford all that. True, that’s the average people life in these big cities. I’ve seen people working at google and earning millions but still being not happy about Swiss lifestyle. In Switzerland forget about nice Sunday shopping as everything is shut down against every other country in the world. Imagine if you work Monday-Saturday and hope to go out on a sunday for shopping with your wife lol… And don’t tell me that everyone works 9-5 because I have Swiss friends working 12 hours a day having a high paid role. So yeah you get the money but where is the life? Money don’t buy happiness , learn this from me. I’m a rich immigrant if you really want to know it and I moved here and opened my own company, try to do that yourself and then tell me about it. And FYI you own a house only when 100% is paid off. So on a million dollar house you’ll be dead before you’ll manage to pay it off. Simple math! No thanks!

[@dev-life]

​@@FrancescoPioMancini First of all, immigrant literally means "a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country". The word "immigrant" is not racist, it's a word like any other and it has a definition. Saying "the crying immigrant" and then explaining that it's a term that I use to refer to a specific subgroup of immigrants that complain about everything and everyone in a country that works better than their country of origin (otherwise you wouldn't migrate to Switzerland). So yes, go ahead and throw whatever words you want at me whenever you feel like you are running out of arguments. Call me racist, ignorant, or whatever you want. FYI, I'm an immigrant myself, I was born and raised in a rural town in a country in Latin America where my parents made less than $45 a month (combined salary). If you prefer to travel, party all the time, and do other social activities instead of saving for the downpayment of your house then congrats, that's your decision, but then don't come crying at other people saying it's nearly impossible to buy an apartment. All of that crap about "Money don’t buy happiness" is all good and dandy, but then again don't come crying at me because you will be paying rent until you die. If you make a 20% downpayment on a 1,000,000 CHF apartment or house, and then decide to take a mortgage for 30 years, you can pay 3500 CHF a month and have it paid in 30 years at an average 3.5 % interest rate. If you don't understand basic math or economics then don't say " you’ll be dead before you’ll manage to pay it off. Simple math!", because it shows how bad your math skills really are. You can talk all you want about "It’s ... about how you ... invest ..." but the rest of your comment really says how much about investing you really know. What really cracked me up about your comment was the part where you said "I’m a rich immigrant if you really want to know it and I moved here and opened my own company, try to do that yourself and then tell me about it." Like, bro, please, you go across the border to buy dog food and claim back the IVA, the only thing "rich" about this is the absurdity of your comment. Again, it shows that you just ran out of arguments and now try to get some type of validation by saying you have money. You are right, money doesn't buy you happiness, but it also doesn't buy you a brain. BTW, not only do I own a successful business, but I also have 4 apartments on my name, of which 2 are already fully paid. Put that on your pipe and smoke it!

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

@@dev-lifelet me take a sip of my cocktail while I tan on a nice beach in Croatia to read your comment 😂 maybe i’ll reply if I don’t fall asleep reading a crying immigrant arguing about points under my video. I bet you are not even subscribed, so why wasting your precious time under my post? Don’t you have to go and make money for the deposit of your multi million house? 🤣🤣

[@jost-toedtli]

Best regards from Switzerland !

[@codeblue9004]

I wouldn`t buy meat outside of Switzerland. I like the quality control we have here. I own my apartment, a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom place with two underground car spaces and a cellar, very high quality, i pay Sfr. 250 per month for my mortgage, i pay with the body corporate fees about Sfr.1500 every three months, that is for the mortgage plus the body corporate fees, i am better off owning my own place rather than renting.

[@PhilipDjaferis]

not everything is more expensive here; also supermarkets often have great special offers; one can in season buy directly from producers etc etc...also salaries are usually high enough so that at the end of the month one is left with more disposable income than in most countries, and if you are a two income household then you can be very comfortable. By the way, the threshold of VAT you can claim back is is from 50€ shopping and up in Germany.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

Salaries are high as high is the cost of living. It is all proportional as everywhere else in the world. I’ve not found a country where the salaries are high and cost of living are low. This is called capitalism. First of all, I want to make a point. Switzerland is great only if you have a high paid job and live in tax friendly canton 6 months a year. In fact most rich people have only residency here but live majority of their time abroad. All these expensive cars you see on the road are leased with business therefore in the majority of the cases are a write off for the company. Rich people are smart enough to avoid living for 12 months in Switzerland, that’s the truth they don’t tell you. And last not least, you will never own a house in Switzerland because it will take your entire life or maybe not even enough to pay it ⚰️

[@weedling3552]

​@@FrancescoPioMancini not necessarily, cost of living and salaries influence each other, but the percentage of what you can keep varies. in poor countries its easy to spend 20%+ of your salary just on your daily food. because even though food prices are high due to taxes in ch, the rise in food price is not near proportional to the rise in salary. in ch you maybe spend 10% or much less for your daily food. you can save money in ch and put it aside, even with a relatively low paying job. in most countries thats simply impossible for most workers. having a family is a different story, if you want a child, then both partners need to work, unless you are in a very high paying field. im not saying its easy here, im just saying its not as hard as in other places. to own a house in ch you need to have both partners working in a well paying field, then you can easily get a loan to finance it, you never need to carry the entire cost at once. if you dont work in a high paying field, you can finance and own an apartment, just a matter of planning correctly. seriously, get a good finance planer for your family, thats the real secret.

[@LexMoy]

@bellaadamowicz8380It's very true. It makes no sense to live in a country with a high cost of living and housing unless you are at least a multi millionaire.

[@LexMoy]

@@weedling3552You make it seem so simple from the context of your comment however a list of countries with the highest home ownership rate in Europe was published some days ago and guess which country was on the bottom of the list? Switzerland! Accessibility to housing in Switzerland for the majority is simply difficult due to the crazy prices and has nothing at all to do with financial planning.

[@weedling3552]

@@LexMoy of corse it has to do with financial planning. why buy for expensive if you keep more money when renting? access to housing isnt a problem. land price and the taxes that come with land ownership are the problem here. and yes it makes total sense, in 2000 for example, we had around 7 million people living here. all the land was owned already. now we have close to 9 million people. switzerland didnt get more land in that time. we are a small country and most of it is mountains. are you familar with the swiss system? i am. so we have the so called "eigenmietwert steuer" "self-rent-value tax" when you own a property, we have a unique extra tax, your property gets appraised and you have to pay an income taxes as if you were renting it out. that makes ownership a lot less attractive. it also makes keeping property unproductive a lot less attractive, lowering rents relative to buying prices. it just makes more sense long term for most people to rent instead of buying. that doesnt mean your standard of living is greatly impacted. so i think that probably explains a big part of why ownership is so low here.

[@tcarmoc]

Great video! Your B-roll at 7:28 is Rio, Brazil btw 👀

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

😂😅

[@codeblue9004]

The tax you can claim back now will be 150 francs.

[@Roggino]

Buying outside Switzerland regularly it’s like furnishing economies with low salaries, and if this is going too further then don’t cry if your salary will be lower in the future, because it’s only your fault of sustaining an economy with low salaries instead of sustaining an economy with high salaries.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

in Ticino salaries are lower not because of tax-free but because italians are allowed to work in switzerland but live in Italy (frontalieri). This is a big issue and also cause salaries for Swiss residents in Ticino to be lower than average. Switzerland should NOT allow so many people from Italy to work in Ticino as the only advantage is for the big companies and not for the worker living in Switzerland

[@jessiecelestine9647]

Thank you for the info! How many hours do people work there? And is there a work-life balance, or is it hard to maintain it? Can you share your own experience with us?

[@PhilipDjaferis]

42 hours on average; work-life balance is excellent as everything one would like to do is relatively near and accessible, even if one has no car.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

It depends where you live and what you do…

[@codeblue9004]

I like spending my money in my country.

[@BigBenVicious]

lots of mistakes and misconceptions in this video and comments, I don't think you grew up in Switzerland.

[@abadplanner1]

I shop more at Denner than Jestetten in Germany close by, because cheapest supermarket and sales price cheaper than Germany. Also, the 1kg restriction on duty-free imports of meat is a killer for me.

[@aca5712]

How can you get the taxes back ? Thanks for the video ,i liked it

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

when you purchase an item with value above 150 Eur from a country on the border with switzerland, make sure to ask for your free-tax invoice. You'll be required to show your passport. once you get the free-tax receipt, go to the custom with your item and declare it to the officer. They will issue a digital stamp and then you can take your receipt to the first tax-free shop to collect your money. Hope this helps!

[@pat13487]

❤❤

[@Avatar-h8o]

500CHF for health insurance per month or per year???

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

Per month!

[@Blue_22511]

​@@FrancescoPioMancinithe highest grade in Greece as well is 500. 😢

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

@@Blue_22511i feel you! We are a couple and every month we pay 1200 CHF for health insurance with 2500 excess

[@Kalidor99]

Per month for 3th class which is the minimum you have to pay by law, if you find something less expensive good, but you need health insurance by law

[@JamesWilliamson-w8y]

Living in Switzerland is fine, assuming you can get the essential permits and you have deep pockets.

[@abrehamgenn]

Is it hard to find a job for english speaker "foraigner ?

[@Kalidor99]

350.- is a bit too much, for this you can eat in a cheap restaurant or canteen for almost a week

[@ishwarlxm6333]

I think nepal and india are more expensive compared to as per capita income

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

Ahahah of course they do

[@_joao.pedro_]

2200 for a 120 square meter apartment is not expensive

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

For the area where we are, it is.

[@A.MarquiteGordon]

Income is far lower in US and for those prices you get a tiny 1 room with a bathroom in a bad place

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

you can't compare a 10 milion people living country with US...

[@LexMoy]

@@FrancescoPioManciniTrue. If Switzerland had a population of about 30 million plus people the salaries would be lower. The advantage USA has over Switzerland is the lower cost of living and better business/career opportunities.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

@@LexMoy I agree!

[@reubenatlantis5338]

Hello friend, are there many jobs opportunities today in Ticino or it is difficult to find any job, I speak Italian n I am professional chef by traid.thank you anyone from soon reply

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

Very hard to find job in Ticino as there is competition with “frontalieri”

[@reubenatlantis5338]

@FrancescoPioMancini aaa so better to live in Monza or Milano?

[@reubenatlantis5338]

@FrancescoPioMancini Francesco ,I am chef with good experience, where in italy I should go?

[@annabrunner5084]

Si però se vivi in Svizzera è giusto spendere i Soldi lî! Non andare in Italia a fare la spesa.

[@FrancescoPioMancini]

a volte il giusto non è la giusta scelta per la propria economia.

[@70s80s]

I want to move to Switzerland because….DONALD J. TRUMP!

[@GleitgelAusTränen]

iTs sOooo ExPeNsIvE.... leave please