Living in Poland without working? - Your opinion

Sure, you should be very fine:).

2 K is a fair amount in Poland. You should be doing fine.
Mind though please that if you are to eat outside and have, say 2-3 meals a day in some good and very good reastaurants you would be easily spending 30-50 PLZ a person (with drinks) per meal. If you are thinking about covering the bill for your table company you might get out of cash quite soon.

2000/ a month gives you something less then 70 PLZ for each day to spend.

70zl a day is chicken feed, a bottle of the good stuff is worth 20zl and what about shouting your polish friends...you need at least 150zl a day...

use xe.com and check out there the exchange rate

thanks chokshikunal at gmail dot com

Hello, I don't live in Poland and I'm doing this report. The information I need is all very expensive and I have to pay marketing companies for it. I don't speak Polish either so its kinda difficult to find the info I need. Lets do this, lets do our own purchasing power parity chart here.

In the US a meal at a restaurant can easily be 7-15 USD for one person, thats an average restaurant. Renting a flat is about 600-800 USD per month, a 1 bedroom is about 800-1000 per month. Food for 1 person at the grocery store might cost a total of 30-50 USD for one person to cook for themselves for the week. Gas is about $25-$50 to fill up a car, this is done 3 times per month. These are all averages. Utilities will cost about 100-150 USD per month. health insurance is provided by the employer, otherwise it would be $80-$200 USD per month. Car Insurance is going to be 100-300 per month. SO lets figure out how much a person needs to live per year, at this time without the change in money in the US. 800 rent+100 restaurants+ 160 food +120 gas + 120 utilities + 200 insurance + 200 emergency money + 500 random shopping money=2200 per month to live an average life in the US. Can we have people figure this out for PLN in poland, for GBP in London, and perhaps in Euros in Germany or Italy or Greece. WIth that we can create an answer to the first question, an answer that we can all understand.

Find yourself a partner with adequate income and you won't need much money to survive. I mean someone with own house and 5000PLN a month. In that case you will need maybe only 3000PLN/month to have a good life.

65-70sqm flat in most cities, new build around £100,000 to £110,000, new build. Reasonable car £8000. TV, Phone, internet, household bills, £50pcm, food for 2 people £200 pcm. Petrol £40 to £50 pcm. Cinema, spa and sauna, eating out, museums £100. Golf membership for life £1000. The UK and Poland healthcare systems are interchangable. thats to say you get free medical treatment in the Poland, if you are an EU citizen. Private healthcare is available and is not exceptionally expensive (relative to UK costs).

I think you could live well for for £800 to £1000 a month. For two people. So if you own your property, no morgage an income of £10,000 to £12,000 a year would keep you and your partner quite happily.

I live in poland and my wife and I live off around £1000 a month and thats is fine for us.

holy smokes! are you serious, jesus, 4 years ago my buddy built a house for that kind of money in Krakow. Your number can't be right, can it?


Define reasonable, i could easily buy a nice used fabia for less than half that. Are you talking new car?

I think Buddy is near enough with his figures, except, the price of a new flat seems a little high and also, if you are not a pensioner, your health cover from the UK will last 12 months after which, you will need to contribute to ZUS (about 250PLN per month)

in a decent part of Krakow, prices are around 7000zł/m2 to 8500zł/m2, and that is starting from price :o)

a 70m2 apartment can therefore cost between 490000zł and 595000zł; the exchange rate today is 4.98zł to £1;

therefore the price of a 70m2 apartment can be between £98,394 and £119,478, and quite often much more than this as price per m2 can be 12000zł/m2 +.

usually, the further one goes from the centre of a city the cheaper the price/m2 will be.

Thanks for explaining my figures ;) If you want to live out of town you coud build a house for £100,000 just depends what kinda house and how much the land costs. A colleague of mine works with a Swedish firm and they make prefabricated houses. These house sell well on the Swedish market and are not the crap prefab builds of the 1960's. So a good option would be buying some land and building one of these houses.

hmmm, krakow just doesn't seem worth it with those figures. ouch.
but thanks for the explanation guys, i really appreciate your taking the time to explain that.
cheers!

property prices are seeing a definite slowdown in the major cities like Warsaw and Krakow - I am already seeing developers giving incentives to make purchasing property more attractive.

i think that property prices will go up, and the next large increase , in my opinion, will be around 2012, when the euro is expected to be introduced and hopefully the Football European Championships will be held in Poland & Ukraine. There continues to be massive foreign investment into Poland, and especially the major cities.

the positive side of the slowdown in property appreciation is that the rental market has picked up considerably.

at the moment i think good places to invest would be in holiday locations, and also Katowice & Gorzow Wielkopolski.

Warsaw being the capital city will always be a rule unto itself ... a good place to invest in property - just take a look at London and most other capital cities in europe.

ill be sure to buy before then .. then :D

hopefully the exchange rate will be a bit more favourable - at the moment it's hovering just below 5zł to £1.

have you decided where in Poland you'd purchase property ?

I have three areas in mind at the minute ... as i have been reading up on these .. my friends polish expert as she calls him said i would be better in Gdansk like .. but i have options in the other two areas i am looking at which is the Lublin area and around Koninski area .... im not all for full on touristy places :)

So i will make up my mind over course of the next year or two as waiting on my daughter finishing primary school before i relocate abroad :) and as she doesnt speak polish at the minute so need to find adequate schooling for her and my polish by then should be more conversational :D

Sorry man but after 4 yrs in Poland I wouldn't recommend to invest any money over here. My opinion has nothing to do with this country itself but with the expectation of making serious cash. As far as your first question, Poland is a pretty expensive country to live. Almost everything here is way too expensive especially for majority of Polish people and if you seriously think about spending the rest of your life in Poland, you need to bring whole lots of cash or you'll be broke sooner than expected.

i totally disagree, there is alot of money to be made in poland, you just need to know where to find it.


i came here with nothing, and live the good old life now.

you got the right to feel that way man but you can't deny that most of things are expensive in Poland and if you'll be honest with yourself, investing the same amount of money for example in Spain, will bring you more profit and much quicker. Another story obviously is your preference. You chose to live in Poland so obviously you'll defend your point. I'm talking about the possibilities to invest money in general without involving any feelings toward any country or people.

Peace brother :-)

- Yeah, one needs to be real smart to make money - not just in Poland, but anywhere at all. In other words, one needs to possess high comprehension skills....

There are quite a few rich and even very rich people in Poland - Poles and foreigners alike.

Hence...
:)

Have i said that there are no rich people in Poland? Why do you guys always get pissed off at someone just because he doesn't share your opinion?

- Lady, it's you who have just got pissed off over somebody's (Puzzler's) opinion.... Read the quote above. It's your utterance..... What do you think...?

:)

I am not pissed but I disagree with you.


You assumed that location is the only factor for ROI. That simply is not true.

will technically be doing same really just saving something each month in a separate bank acc. to goes towards relocating etc :)
but i will be hoping to finding work though within poland for when i arrive if not just before :D

give me an exapmple of what is more expensive??

im sorry, but where in spain could you buy property on a world heritage site cheaper than poland?

And where "most things" aren't expensive ?

who said we are pissed, just disagree with your opinion because you failed to give any facts....

so you wouldn't recommend investing in property then ? Even with the slowdown in property appreciation in the major cities, there are still places where one can make decent gains; having said that the Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw property markets will experience property price surges in a few years time.

Poland is still a country undergoing major transition from what used to be a communist run country - there are opportunities to make money , especially if one knows where to look :o)


for the majority of older generation Poles who have lived there all their lives, I admit it is getting quite expensive, although this does not mean they cannot live adequately. One doesn't have to shop in the expensive malls, there are still very reasonable markets which sell local produce for a fraction of the price.

for anyone thinking of moving from UK to Poland, especially if they know the language and the culture, they will see a considerable increase in their everyday standard of living.

agreed
As far as the rest it's a matter of preferences. As far as myself I prefer to invest my money in some warmer country where I can make some serious bucks dealing with thousands of tourist. For example Spain. Long Summer, thousands of Brits, Germans and other people from all over the world blowing money 24/7. Obviously you can invest money in Poland but you wait much longer to make profit. I understand that some of you guys met the love of your lives in Poland and you'll stick to it. I would too but right now I'm talking about opportunities to make money and I'm very convinced I'm right about what I'm saying. OK let's put it that way, it's right for me anyway. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to criticize Poland or Poles. Live and let live.

Peace

think back a few decades - many people invested in Spain and are now really sitting pretty; same will happen with Poland..... there will be some people who will make money quickly, whilst others will have to wait a little longer.

with regards the climate .... agreed ..... Poland cannot really compete, although the winters can provide very good snow conditions, and the summers can be really hot; i also enjoy the fact that Poland experiences the 4 seasons.

Spain has had a good head start in developing their tourist market, whereas Poland's is in it's infancy :o)


No offence was taken ... by myself anyway :o)
I consider myself a Pole, although I was born in UK ( I have Polish parents), and sometime I do see negative aspects of Poles or Poland ..... no country is perfect !

I wish you luck with your investment/business in Spain .... I hope you make your fortune.

If all goes to plan, then I'll be off to Poland within 2 years :o)