How much does it cost to live in Amsterdam?

so how much does it cost to live in a place like Amsterdam well it might be the best of times the worst of times to live in Amsterdam we are still in the middle of a pandemic but I just want to share with you and give you an idea of how much it costs to live in Amsterdam including a monthly breakdown of how much I've spent in food and drinks housing transportation and anything else during the past year let's talk about housing housing will most likely be your biggest expense living in Amsterdam and this depends this depends if you decide to live in the city center or outside the city center this also depends if you decide to live alone or with roommates according to namio if you want to live in a one bedroom in the city center then expect to pay around 1600 Euros a month if you find a one bedroom outside the city center then expect to pay around 1300 Euros a month now if you have roommates then it's a lot cheaper so you might expect to pay anywhere between 600 to 1 000 Euros a month now for myself I live in a shared two-bedroom Dutch Canal home by the canals five minutes from the central train station and I pay 975 Euros a month and this includes rent all utilities from internet cable water electricity heating a cleaner that comes every two weeks and the city garbage and water tax bill is also included in that 975 Euros a month food and groceries so your local supermarket is probably the most popular place to be especially in a pandemic now for myself I spent around 281 Euros per month or around 70 euros per week on food and groceries now there's two big Supermarket chains in the Netherlands jumbo and albertine and generally quality in my opinion there's no big difference but generally Albert Hein is known to be a little bit more expensive than jumbo but actually in my opinion if you only shop for deals I think Albert Hein is actually a lot cheaper because Albert Ein has Deals they have bonus deals like two for one fifty percent off they also have deals at the end of the day where it's 35 percent off everything including bonuses so you can combine the two you can combine a bonus with this 35 off and you can actually save up to 70 off per item so food and drinks this is the area where I've probably saved the most just because restaurants are closed cafes are closed except for takeaway but I've spent around 30 Euros per week or around 116 Euros per month and I still buy the occasional coffee cappuccino which ranges from three to four Euros per cup I will go and buy some snacks like fries which range from three to four Euros per serving as well and I will buy at least one takeaway lunch or dinner per week which ranges from 10 to 15 euros per serving as well so travel and transportation I spent around 36 37 Euros per month last year on travel and transportation most of that coming from traveling on the trains which can be quite expensive now by far the most popular way of getting around is by bike there's actually more bicycles than people living in this country and cycling is free once you buy the bike I would recommend you to get a secondhand bike at the beginning because more than likely your bike will be stolen in Amsterdam now you can get a bike for a pretty cheap price via Facebook or at a bike shop now if you buy from Facebook do beware because many bikes are stolen for example I bought my first bike from a Facebook group it was 50 euros I thought it was a great deal until it broke down two months later so I bought a bike here from a bike shop in Amsterdam for 150 euros and it's been great ever since now traveling by train in this country can be quite expensive so I do recommend you to get an OV chip card or a subscription if you plan to travel more frequently in this country because you'll get discounts but for example if you want to buy a one-way ticket from Amsterdam to the Hague that will cost you 13 euros for a 50 minute ride a one-way ticket to Utrecht from Amsterdam is eight Euros for 25 minutes and a one-way ticket to skippo airport 13 minutes will cost you around five euros and the last section that I want to talk about is other and Healthcare now other for me includes things like shopping I still do online shopping for things like books clothes but again this is variable and depends on the person but I will talk about Healthcare now for healthcare I I don't pay anything because my company covers it but each person in this country is required to have basic health care in the Netherlands and basic health care will cost around 100 to 110 Euros per month which includes an annual deductible of 385 Euros now this is not free but it's still quite cheap and affordable and good as compared to some countries like the US now for Dental Care Dental Care is regulated by the government and what this means is that prices are standard and you don't have to go shopping for the cheapest price because they're all the same now a teeth cleaning will cost around 13 euros for five minutes so for example the teeth cleaning that I had around five months ago cost around 133 Euros which included 40 minutes of teeth cleaning plus anything additional as well so in total in 2020 under covid-19 I spent around 18 000 Euros living in Amsterdam this comes out to around 1500 Euros per month so let's look at three real life salaries a minimum wage salary a median wage salary and a high wage salary to see how much you get per month and how much you could potentially save using my budget now there's a website called dtax.nl that calculates your net monthly income or how much you get per paycheck so if we take a look at salary number one the minimum wage in the Netherlands in 2021 it's 20 220 Euros per year now the monthly net income for this it's 1577 euros and if we use my monthly cost of fifteen hundred and thirty Euros that gets you monthly savings of around 50 Euros or yearly Savings of around 564 Euros now if we look at salary number two the median salary in the Netherlands it's around thirty six thousand five hundred euros and this is similar to what a big four consultant would make at Deloitte KPMG PWC or ey now this gives you monthly net income of 2 400 euros and if we use my monthly cost then you get monthly savings of almost 900 euros and yearly Savings of ten thousand six hundred and sixty eight euros now if we take a look at salary number three a high salary let's look at the salary for a software engineer at booking.com seventy thousand Euros per year that gives you monthly net income of around 3 830 Euros and using my monthly costs you'll get monthly savings of twenty three hundred euros and yearly Savings of twenty seven thousand six hundred and twenty four Euros now this is a simplistic yet quite realistic example of what you could make and what you could save in Amsterdam and what this shows you is that even with minimum wage you still can afford to live in Amsterdam even in the center of the city so there you have it that was my budget overview and how much I spent in 2020 in Amsterdam during covet 19. I spent around 18 000 Euros in 2020 which comes comes out to 1.5 K per month now keep in mind in a normal year I would have spent a lot more on eating out traveling events Etc but it goes to show you that even if you made minimum wage you could still afford to live in the center of Amsterdam in a Dutch Canal home five minutes from Central Station on minimum wage and if you live simply now I hope to make an update to this video Once things get back to normalcy but until then I hope you take care stay well and be safe

Channel: David Wen

Views: 135,561

Keywords: cost of living, cost of living amsterdam, netherlands, amsterdam, millennial money, budget, living in amsterdam, moving to amsterdam, living in the netherlands

Id: VvDth2LPNXI

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 05 2021