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alex ,

OP specifically asked about EU, where we generally have unemployment benefits and at least a bit of job stability :)

(US) Introducing Comingle: An opt-in UBI (Universal Basic Income) to provide a stable weekly income based upon users contributing 7% of their income ( comingle.us )

Comingle is an interesting idea that would act as a pseudo emergency fund to provide a stable week to week income for their users. It could act to stabilize your income if you have an irregular income or as an backup plan or insurance for when you lose a job or income source. It works by distributing the average of all their...

alex ,

Every day I appreciate how lucky I am that my country knows the concept of social security.

alex ,

It’s very, very hard to get laid off / fired in France if you haven’t done a major fuckup. It’s possible, but the notice period is 3 months during which you’re legally entitled to spend one or two working hours per day actually job hunting.

Unless you voluntarily quit, you get ~50% of your old salary for up to 18 months (unemployment benefits last for the same duration as your latest work contract, with an 18 month cap) as long as you can prove you’re job searching. If you exceed the duration you get an insufficient, but non-zero, financial help of ~500€/month (which would cover a 2 bedroom rental in any small city and one bedroom in a mid-sized city, but not housing for a major city like Paris or Marseille).

Families get extra subsidies based on the number of children, and for long-term issues you can apply for subsidized housing, etc.

Also, healthcare is very cheap (and many emergency care things are free, as well as all prescription medicine), which means that if you can cover room and board you’ll survive. You may have bad surprises but not “lifetime debt” bad surprises - that’s why whereas the US financial planning advice is to have 3-6 months of living costs saved, the French advice is 1-3 months.

What does your cash flow process look like?

I’m talking about types of accounts, automatic transfers, etc. Feel free to mention specifics, but I’m more interested in higher level information like does your paycheck go to savings or checking, do you use automatic transfers, do you use a traditional bank account or something different, etc....

alex ,

I have nothing to say but I see 0 comments and it makes me sad.

  • I get my salary once a month
  • I recently bought an apartment and maxed out my “normal” savings accounts under French law, so now I need to figure out what to do
  • I’m expecting to pay 50% of my salary in discretionary spending. The rest will go to my mortgage (currently a very low %age of my salary, but I’m about to earn way less so I’ll need to adjust when I’m there) and everything else probably into savings. Since all the stable savings funds are maxed out (that’s about 35k), I’m going to invest in more financial products, less stable. They’re EU/French, so not going to go into detail here (if there’s anyone French here, !vosfinances is really cool) but the idea is to do “stable stocks” (government bonds, really large companies, etc.).
alex ,

More or less. You have an “all” feed showing every community that anyone in your instance follows, it’s as close as it gets.

alex ,

(I live in France. They are not a thing here.)

alex ,

Thanks for this overview, really appreciate it! It was detailed and very clear :)

alex ,

My country has great unemployment benefits, labour laws, and social security so our “fuck you money” is usually about 2 or 3 months salary in case your car breaks down or something else of that kind. It’s pretty neat.

alex ,

I am extremely overpaid. I am also quitting soon and will most likely find an underpaid job, so I’m really trying to make the most of my extra money right now!

alex ,

I have a job in an American tech company. I’m paid Silicon Valley entry level wages which easily puts me in the top 10% earners in my country.

I’ve been at this job for 5 years. I’m not learning or doing anything new, I lost my favourite teammates in layoffs, I don’t respect my company and I’m tired of having 8pm meetings with the US west coast.

I’ve bought my apartment now, so my living costs are about to go way down, and I’m being offered a giant severance package if I leave now, no severance if I quit at any other time. Now’s the time!

alex ,

I like the more personal questions like (your suggestion) “what do you always plurge on beyond reason?”, as well as small tips threads. I’m not American or in the US, so usually the investment part of the personal finance communities is just completely irrelevant to me, thus my preference :)

alex ,

I’ve given up on most subscriptions and replaced them with torrenting + Jellyfin.

alex ,

I used to eat out almost every night and it cost me nearly as much as my rent.

Since then, I learned some cooking, some 10-min stuff, and did a lot of personal work on emotional eating. I really tried to treat it like an addiction, learning alternatives but also, recently I moved to a less urban area where I’d have to walk 10-15mins to get decent food, when I used to have an all you can eat sushi place on my street. That helped more than anything else!

Finally, I gave myself a couple of special things: given how much I was spending on restaurants I never hesitate to spend a lot on cookware or ingredients, and when my partner comes over we often choose a cool recipe to try out, in order to prove to myself that food can be really great even if it’s not made by someone else.

Now I go out for dinner only if I’m with someone, and I make sure it’s always a special occasion (including a date with my partner, it doesn’t have to be super special, just not “I don’t feel like cooking”). It’s still very hard not to go out when I’m having a tough day but I’ve never done so well :)

alex ,

Oh, wonderful, thanks for this roundup!

alex ,

In a slighly sarcastic but mostly happy way, I love when English speakers find out about translation - better late than never to discover what everyone else in the world has been up to these past centuries!

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