Here’s my data for 2020.
Explanation:
- Social: social contributions like AHV etc
- Withholding: income tax at source, only a fraction of the year available
- Contribution: a “commission” I pay to my boss on my income
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That “commission” is massive…it’s 3 times the withholding taxes 
Any way to renegotiate it with your employer?
That’s unfortunately how IT consulting works… somebody has the contacts with the project and companies that need someone and they want to get their fair share. I call consulting “body selling/prostitution” due to that…
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It’s 10% of the revenue. It’s not that high, some true body leasing companies charge 25%. Within this 10% I have all the admin stuff and the networking (boss/colleagues help me find further projects). In the end this 10% is a fair price to pay for not having to run your own company.
Also, notice that I wrote that the withholding tax is not in full. That’s because I switched to C permit mid-year. Here you have 2019 with full withholding tax. Also, I made the tax declaration and somehow I need to pay 60’000 income tax, so the withholding tax was not enough.
So you can see that my private expenses are maybe 1/3 of my total expenses (when taxes and “business running costs” are included). That’s why I don’t play the “share your savings rate” game any more. I don’t even know how to count it to make sense.
I don’t know if we’re talking about the same thing. I know my bosses personally and everything is transparent at the company. They are not an HR company that sells skilled workforce at a commission. In my profession, the clients attach higher value to- and put bigger trust in companies than in freelancers. So I could start my own company, convince some people to join, build my network, but it all costs time and energy.
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By the way, if you want to talk about huge commission, then think about when I worked in Poland for a Swiss company with a gross salary of 2000 CHF. All included, their costs of having me employed were maybe 4000 CHF. And they charged the client over 1000 CHF for every day of my work. And I think that’s how most fixed employment jobs work. You bring 2-3x more benefit to your employer than you earn. You show up on time and get your paycheck, don’t worry about the rest.
Oh and if someone says we have low taxes and need to raise them: I pay more for income tax than for all my living costs combined. I think that’s enough contribution from my side?
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I moved to ZH in the second half of this year, thus having a lot of variable expenses along the way.
But I inferred from the last 2 months a relatively “standard” image of “fixed” monthly expenses (for 1 person).
I don’t count the taxes here, but they are in the bigger gross-net-investments picture.
Likewise for the other discretionary expenses like fuel, travel, gifts, donations, other sports and leisure - including those it would probably come close to 4k.
So that would amount to 44-48k CHF yearly expenses.
Now the monthly breakdown, with pretty random categories 
(y/q are yearly/quarterly transformed into monthly).
| Expenses | 3599 |
|---|---|
| Rent | 1929 |
| Groceries, food and drinks | 900 |
| Health insurance | 315 |
| Insurances car, moto, home, liability (y) | 115 |
| Internet, mobile, subscriptions; Serafe (y) | 97 |
| Cleaning lady | 80 |
| Gym | 59 |
| Road tax car, moto (y) | 29 |
| Utilities EWZ (q) | 25 |
| Parking ZH car (y) | 25 |
| Haircut | 25 |
Trimming down potential that I see:
- Rent - I will not be moving anytime soon, so it will have to stay as is for a while
- Food outside - I could try to cut down a hundred or so (this is somewhat of an “upper limit” anyway - usually it’s around 250 at work, 300 groceries, rest outside with gf and friends)
- Health insurance - I was 4 days too late to get rid of the non-compulsory part with Swica this year. It will get cut down to ~270 chf next year.
- Vehicle insurances - I could try to further optimize next season, this time around I cut down from vollkasko to teilkasko at least (but won’t be getting rid of vehicles themselves, as they provide me with the “non-economical” quality of life I want)
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I would be interested to see the breakdown of the monthly CHF 107 as Serafe alone accounts for 28…
What does the cleaning lady for CHF 80 per month?
sorry I couldn’t resist to ROFL
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24 - Yallo (black, grabbed for BF)
39 - UPC (600/60 with basic TV, some deal I negotiated)
10 - Netflix+Spotify shared accounts
24 - Serafe (285/12)
In fact it is 97, not 107chf; miscalculated.
Same
@Slutmachine 2h once a month @ hourly rate of 40chf.
Took the one my colleague recommended.
Here is our breakdown for 2021 (2 people for most of the year, and then baby in September):
- Insurances: 885
- Transporation: 221
- Internet & Mobile: 86
- Food: 553
- Housing: 833
- Taxes: 3920
- Misc (everything else): 1812
- Total: 8310
Next year, we need to reduce our insurance costs (finally can cancel some complementary insurance) and our misc spending was quite out of hand. Our food spending also increased a lot, but still reasonable.
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Thanks! Tho I believe Serafe was 335 in 2021. If fiber’s available you can get more for the same price with Yallo too.
As for the maid that’s exactly the kind of price I had in mind for Zurich, hence why it seemed very low for what I picture is a 2.5-3.5 apt and made me wonder 
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Ah indeed, it might be some partial bill for Serafe then, due to the move.
Can’t find the bill now, but would be for some odd time periods then (as I moved during July).
3 room apt it is, yes.
I (30m) am living frugal in Zürich city, 86k salary. Pants down: yearly spending:
| 2595 | CHF per month |
|---|---|
| 337 | Groceries |
| 799 | WG rent + utilities + internet |
| 445 | Public transport, carshare |
| 280 | Health insurance |
| 311 | Flights |
| 236 | Eat and drink outside |
| 423 | Misc (luxuries, presents etc.) |
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As I’m living with my GF, these are only my expenses or my part of it. I cover 60% of all shared expenses (because my salary makes up ~60-65% of our total salary). This is for 2022:
| 4’820 | per month |
|---|---|
| 1’400 | Apartment, electricity |
| 630 | Taxes |
| 610 | Food, utilities |
| 600 | Vacation |
| 590 | Education |
| 390 | Health insurance, supplementary health insurance, deductible |
| 105 | Public transport |
| 105 | Internet, Mobile phone, Serafe, Netflix, Prime, Disney+, Spotify |
| 100 | Cats |
| 100 | Gym, coaching |
| 60 | Clothing |
| 60 | Gifts |
| 45 | Insurances |
| 25 | Haircut |
Net salary is CHF 6’280 without bonus. So that leaves me with CHF 1’460 net savings per month (CHF 573 VIAC, CHF 887 IBKR). When I receive my bonus (usually 12-20k net), I put 25% of it on my taxes account (as this is my marginal tax rate) and the rest of it is saved/invested. So I’m able to save around 30k/year with bonus included. 9.2k/year is the total contribution to my pension fund, so ~40k/year in total.
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If I may ask, what are the 590 for education?
Bachelor at Kalaidos. It’s rather expensive but makes it possible for me to work 100%.
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CHF/pm (rounded)
- Rent (studio with indoor parking space): 730
- Health insurance: 250
- Liability insurance: 10
- Electricity: 20
- Food: 600
- Train (AG/GA): 255
- Car (gas/insurance/maintenance): 300
- Internet: 35
- Mobile: 40
- Serafe: 30
- Haircut: 30
- Laundry: 10
- Gym: 55
- Subscriptions (mail/cloud): 15
TOTAL: roughly 2’400 (<30% of my net income)
Are not counted all discretionary/extraordinary expenses such as gifts, holidays, clothing, health products and services…
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20 electricity? 1.5 room apartment?
He wrote that it’s a studio.
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