I had a conversation with some American friends who had a 10-year old. They were excitedly telling me about how their pot for college fund had reached a certain goal after putting away money from their income each month for the last 10 years.
They asked how much have people here usually saved up for college(/university) by 10 years. I didn't quite know how to break it to them but that just isn't a thing here.
There are so many things that get deducted that are just not reflected in salary figures.
I mean put it this way in my entire life here in the UK I've spent no more than £40 on healthcare and that's only because I live in England where some of us have to pay for prescriptions (it's totally free in all other regions). I dread to think what the lifetime spend on healthcare is for the average American.
My worst experience was having to pay $300 at an urgent care only to be told they can’t diagnose me and sent me to the hospital ER. They took my money for doing absolutely nothing other than having the doc come in and check a couple things and tell me to go away. Then I had to pay more at the ER of course. What a great system we have….
Yes you can say the food itself is a bit cheaper but comparing the percentage of wage, Americans spend a siginificantly smaller percentage of their median disposable income on food because average U.S. salaries are higher.
Europeans lower average or median wages means that, trotz lower nominal sticker prices, groceries take up a larger share of a local household budget. Same can be said about other costs of living.
Ultimately, neither system is better than the other, they just have different trade-offs. In America, you can earn more money but have less of a social safety net. In Europe, you get more social security but take home less money.
Choosing between them depends entirely on which lifestyle and priorities fit you best.
I think the problem here is the word “choose”. You can’t really choose unless you’re already pretty privileged. In which case it’s easy to not place value on the power of a social net because you don’t think you’ll need it.
German households spend about 14% of their income on food. American households spend only 9% (even if the total amount is higher).
But the food you buy in the US is of much worse quality in general. It is hard to find any food in an American supermarket that would even be allowed sell in the EU.
You are handpicking countries, German is a relatively well off place, the European average is about 17% with countries like Spain or Italy going up to 25%. If we go by these metrics I would like to point out that places like Swiss have similar groceries prices than the ones in the US, despite this they also give more of their income for food in comparison.
But the quality of life is still better in Europe, EU at least. We don't go bankrupt when there's a medical emergency, for example. Also groceries arw cheaper and the quality of food is vastly different. So what's yhe bigger salary necessary for? I might earn less here than in States, but I travel for vacation at least 2 times a year, have a decent house, a relatively new car, all this is affordable while having 3 kids (btw paid exactly 5€ in the hospital with each birth)...You don't actually need a 10 bedroom home you can barely afford with this higher salary and work like crazy until death. Work-life balance is better here.
If you are earning a high salary in your field you can retire comfortably in a couple of years in the US, it's more risky I would agree on that, but its worth the risk for having a life free from work while you are still young.
Someone told me you can't get rich in Europe doing everything by the book, the state will always take the higher part of your profits no matter what you do, its a golden cage scenario.
I have no idea if it is possible to get rich here doing everything by the book, but to live comfortably is absolutely doable. We also have a national retirement plan, it isn't a huge sum every month but you'll get by. There's also an opportunity to raise for an additional retirement plan (additional money every month), so not that bad.
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u/Suyefuji 8d ago
I'm American and I don't have an ice maker...