This is me responding yes in more than 20 characters to Giff
5 Likes
2004: 55K CHF
2006: 60K CHF
2008: 85K CHF
2009: 87.5K CHF
2010: 90K CHF
2011: 105K CHF
2014: 120K CHF
2016: 125K CHF
2020: 130K CHF
2021: 150K CHF
2022: 155K CHF
Tech Lead / Engineering Manager in a Startup in ZH.
13 Likes
2014 : 90k Sales/Planning/Process engineer for wastewater treatment, small increments until
2020 : 104k + 6k Spesenpauschale + 12k max bonus (but actually got 14k and 18.5k in 2020 resp. 2021) + car. Salesman in chemical distribution company, environmental sector
2022 : 130k + 7k bonus + other smallish perks which adds up to around 140k Operations Director of a wastewater treatment plant + canal network
Edit : chemical process engineer with a specialisation into environment
9 Likes
- maintained by parents (I was studying)
- 84’162 (2019/2020)
- 92’183 (2020/2021)
- 100’230 (2021/2022)
4 Likes
I think I’m doing something wrong… I’m really far from everyone here.
2020 : 67k
2022 : should be around 78k
I have 2 Federal Diploma of Higher Education, one in sales and the other in marketing. Started as apprenticeship in a print company and moved to marketing.
And I’m looking for a complementary income solution since I can barely provide for my family.
2 Likes
Don’t compare yourself to the people here in the forum or at least the ones posting their salary here, it’s not really a good benchmark in my opinion unless you work in IT, management or upper finance jobs.
I have a pretty decent salary compared to the average person at my age, but when I looked at some of the salaries here, I thought my salary is sh** xD
Also you had a pretty good increaae from 67k to 78k, that’s more than 16% in 2 years.
13 Likes
We choose mostly to prioritze our child education instead of money so my wife doesn’t have income at the moment. No fancy things and one holiday to my wife’s country for her and the child every year (sometimes every 2 years) except covid situation.
I just did a change of the job so I hope this augmentation will help. But I just saw an augmentation of my tax income even if for 2 years I didn’t had any raise… haha So I think it will nullified my raise at the end.
2 Likes
Thanks for your ideas,
We live in a sub urban cities 20mn from Bern, its not an expensive city with absurd rents. We do go to Germany or France but mostly lidl once every week.
We do between 800-1k for food each month. I had a 12 years old car but had to change. My new job is 50km from where I live and started my first leasing for a small car. because I didn’t have enough money for a 10k car. Lower than this price might imply higher cost reparation. I hate it but it’s still lower than the AG train. I’m low everywhere, every insurance with necessary security for a family I think, phone cost, internet, etc. I don’t have room for improvement on this level.
Anyway, on my budget cost, yearly, I’m around an average of 5k3 of expense monthly for a family of 3.
2 Likes
Even if you manage to make some reduction, having only one parent working explain why it is not easy to provide for a family of 3 with one salary.
Be strong for the next few years and hopefully your partner will be able to work again.
Thanks everyone for your answer.
I’m always open for new ideas. Regarding of lowering expanse, I’ll look again.
I wish to go to the university path, but with only me providing for my family, I didn’t found any concrete solution in Switzerland without avoiding lowering my job percentage. I do some e-learning to improve myself, but without certification.
I would avoid solutions lowering your income and increasing your expenses for a prolonged period of time in your situation, so I’d avoid regular university but could favor evening/weekend lessons if that’s the path you want to take. I’m not convinced university is the path toward a better salary for you either but I don’t know your situation so may very well be wrong. You do have a set of skills, identifying the ones you lack to go further and getting them on an experience (personal practice), self-learning or e-learning basis may yield good results.
However and to be blunt, given the situation you describe, I think the solutions lie rather with your partner than with you. Unless some special conditions warrant it and if I understand correctly that they are not currently working, then the situation should allow for either some extra income (doesn’t need to be tiring, it can even be a social experience, like taking care of the local library) or more efficiency in regards to expenses (there is a lot that can be saved in food, clothes and appliances by do-it-yourself craftsmanship). Of course, this might not hold if your child requires permanent care but if that’s the case, then it should be a transitory phase and better times should be ahead.
Then again, your recent salary increases are significant already and should make a difference in your disposable means given some time. This difference should help further on if you want to use it to improve the situation even more.
1 Like
First of all: you are not doing something wrong! Just because other people in this forum are earning more money, it doesn’t mean that you suck. As @Burningstone said correctly: you shouldn’t compare yourself to high earners in IT, pharma or finance jobs. Which sometimes is easier said than done - I know that. Still, look at the positives: your income has increased from 67k to 78k, which is a great percentage. I didn’t have such an increase for almost 10 years, when I still worked outside of Switzerland.
From the information you have given, I see three main points:
- sit down with your wife and discuss your financial situation. You said that you can “barely provide” for your family. I can feel that this is stressing you, and your wife needs to know about that. Once you have addressed the topic, you can discuss options on how to resolve the issue. One of the options was already mentioned by @FunnyDjo FunnyDj and @Wolverine: your wife could start to work again, even if only part-time. If that is a no-go for you (or both of you), you need to look at points 2 and 3.
- lower your expenses. I know you said that you are low everywhere already, but I’m sure there are still options to optimize. If you are open to it, you could share your expenses here in the forum and ask for input from other people. @Patron also mentioned the possibility to move cantons, to save more on taxes. Plus, you might get more job opportunities as well.
- seriously think about moving to a different industry. Print companies and marketing are both industries which are famous for not paying high salaries. If you have a diploma in sales, why don’t you look for a sales job? Good/great sales people are in very high demand, and if you are doing a great job, you can earn A LOT of money. Sales contracts usually have a variable part, and if you are great at selling, you can easily increase your income. You might want to check the salarium calculator from the federal statistics office (here) to compare what other people in sales jobs are earning. I think this point is the one with the greatest leverage for you.
2 Likes
There are many criteria that come into play:
- age
- the level of education
- location
- the field of activity
- type of company
- Tracks record (understand previous employers; big influence on the CV).
One thing I’ve learned that has a huge impact on salary is whether your field of work supports the company’s business (administrative, accounting, etc.), or is it an area that makes money for the company (sales, IT development, etc.).
Also working in IT, it is true that on several occasions I could be envious of the salary indicated by some people on this forum because I am far from the amounts indicated. But as finances are personal, so is the salary, and it’s up to you to make the choices and decisions that will allow you to either earn more (change employer, field of activity, or get a higher education degree), or to reduce your expenses.
What is important is that you have a level that suits you, there is no point in comparing yourself to Mr X or Mrs Y.
Good luck on your journey! Don’t let yourself be discouraged and tell yourself that in any case, you will be someone’s poor but someone else’s rich !
5 Likes
There should be lots of subsidies available at that range for a family of 3. You should get subsidy for all the Krankenkasse at least. It depends on the cantont though. That could help if you decide to study part-time.
And if your wife finds work for a couple of day, the Kita at that salary should be practically free (like 25 chf per day or something), but again, it’s cantonal/communal so your mileage may vary. It should be a net positive for the wife though.
4 Likes
hold your horses for a while 
You don’t know their personal situation. Paying for a 4.5 flat, getting specialty food because of food allergies on the kid, sending money home to support the extended family, etc…
5000 CHF is not a lot for a family of 3 (4.5 rooms rent 2k, food 1k, insurances 1k, transportation 500, misc 500). We spend significantly more (in Zürich) for 3 and we’re not living large either.
Salary seems low compared to Zürich (media jobs here average around 90k), but again Kt Bern is less expensive so it would probably equal out. He could move to Kt AG and commute to ZH, on the trade-off of seeing his family less, do groceries in Germany, on the account of losing family Saturdays for waiting-in-line at the border, and yes the partner could go to work, if she has enough marketable skills. If that’s not the case, it’s an even larger deadlock as making her sellable also has a cost.
Life is tough under 80k in Switzerland, especially with a family.
7 Likes
Hi @Nielle,
Thanks for sharing your story. I have looked at your post and totally saw myself reflected in your description of the situation. Some years ago I was in a comparable situation I was married with a foreign women coming from abroad (I think that’s the same for you right?) which makes it difficult to get herself starting to work. I had “only” a federal diploma to work as a laboratory technician which make me 5.5k and we where planning to have a baby. You can do it, it’s not always easy but you will be fine if you are aware of the spending site etc.
However, what I did was doing the FFHS (check out their FFHS.ch homepage) to get myself a Bachelor degree. I was still working 100% doing all the studies during the nights and on the weekends. Was it easy? Hell no it was horrible to “lose” so many weekends out with friends and partner. And I was lucky that my wife was really supporting me etc.
It’s super weird my Bachelor degree did not really help me to gain additional skills but really just being able now to fit into the job requirements for a lot of good paying jobs. Beside that I kind of liked the learning atmosphere and the people there so I added an MBA. Now, I have a decent job, good pay (still not matching the very high salaries from IT) which makes my life easier as we now can focus on the kids etc what is best for them without really looking at price tags (I was and will always be mustachain and my wife now get into it as well).
It’s not for everybody I know but for us it payed out quite good, after that we have focused on my wife and upscaled her to be ready for the local requirements. I personally preferred that way rather than improving all our spending’s to the extreme (which we still did somehow)
Feel free to reach out also on PM if you want to know more details happy to help.
7 Likes
“One thing I’ve learned that has a huge impact on salary is whether your field of work supports the company’s business (administrative, accounting, etc.), or is it an area that makes money for the company (sales, IT development, etc.).”
→ I can confirm this. In my experience, the closer you are to the the actual revenue, the better the pay.
Also, try to work in an industry / company with high profit margins like pharma or IT. They can afford to pay employees more generously.
4 Likes
The greater the margin in the creation/transformation process, the higher the wages!
1 Like
Are you interested in a better analysis? We can split this thread and you add some more info.
1000k for food seems a lot to me, if you don’t add restaurants on it.
2 Likes
I don’t want to bother with my story and indeed we deviated from the main subject. But we can have a subject regarding lower income and some helpful tips like everyone gave if it’s not already done It’s really interesting to see also people with the same back story.
I also dont mind sharing my budget to see where is room for improvement.
1 Like