• Salamander@mander.xyz
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    3 years ago

    For me, yes!

    We are both currently PhD students, so our salary is not so high (about 30K/year each after taxes). With our combined salaries and our not-so-extravagant lifestyles we can save comfortably while still being able to spend in our hobbies. We are also very privileged in having two families that would be able to help us in an emergency if something goes very wrong, and we have a good health insurance and no debt.

    We end up paying a bit less each by renting a single much larger apartment rather than two smaller “student” apartments. So it ends up being a lower total cost for a much more comfortable living place.

    Since it is now two of us that cook, we cook a lot more often rather than buying meals, which ends up saving us a lot of money. If I buy food at work it is about $10 for one meal, and we can easily make 4 meals for $10.

    We found a place that is 20 min away from each of our institutes by bike, so we don’t have a car and rarely use public transport.

    Our gym lets us share a single membership if we live together, so that is about a $350/year saving.

    We have also learned some money-saving habits from each other, so we try to combine the best habits of each one of us.

    At the moment I can save about 30% of my salary most months. If we move into higher-paying jobs afterwards, we don’t have any reason to increase our spending until we have kids so we will be able to save more. We also want to move away from this beautiful but very expensive city, so living will become a lot cheaper.

    • poVoq@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      Sure, but how much more are you still paying compared to living in a larger shared student flat or dormitory? At least back when I was still a student that was quite common and very few people could/wanted to afford those indeed comparatively very expensive single flats.

      • Salamander@mander.xyz
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        3 years ago

        We are paying about €750 each of rent and utilities for an 80 m2 space, which is a very good deal for the city we live in. It would be possible to find a small room in a shared space for maybe €500. Finding a place to rent here is quite a struggle though, and most international students don’t manage to find a good deal.