I know that everyone will have a different opinion on this topic and it will all depend on various factors, for example, the place where you live, the number of people in the family, the availability of a job, and others. But in this post, I am only expressing my personal opinion on the topic.
It should be said right away that in principle, Latvia has very few jobs (at least well-recognized companies) where it would be possible to earn more than the minimum wage set by the state, which is 500 EUR. The only exception is either you already own a company or you have to wait in huge queues for a well-paid job until it becomes vacant or a new job opens up.
Some time ago, I received a call from a friend who has been moving from Latvia to Norway to live and work there for a couple of years. And of course, during the long conversation, the topic of money, work, salary, and so on was discussed. And of course, my friend asked a question that I have heard not for the first time. If I am not willing to leave Latvia to live with him and work for an adequate salary instead of Latvia trying to survive on the minimum wage.
And here I have to admit that I fully agreed with him it's hard to survive on the minimum wage. For your minimum salary of 500 EUR, for example, living in a city apartment, you have to pay 150-200 EUR (cheapest rental fee), utility payments, about 150 EUR, during the winter heating period, even the amount can be double. And how much is left for the food and other goods, I think you can arrange it yourself. But going back to the phone conversation with my friend, I usually refused the offer. If you ask me why I refuse this offer, there are several reasons.
- However, no matter how bad the situation may seem, deep in my heart I am a patriot of my country and I cannot simply leave all, leave my home, family, relatives, and friends.
- At this moment I am not an ordinary employee of a company. I work on my family farm and I manage part of it. There is a lot of work and a lot of responsibility, I'm not ready to simply entrust it all to someone else.
- Even if hundreds of thousands of people have left Latvia for another country in the last couple of years to search for a better life. I believe that the situation in Latvia is very overestimated.
You can find jobs if you look well, you can find, maybe not a very high salary, but with an acceptable salary. However, you must remember that money solves many problems, but it cannot and will never be able to solve everything. The main question is whether you are ready to search and work to be able to live well.
And returning to the main question of this post, is it possible to survive on the minimum wage in Latvia? Then I think yes it is possible, because if you have the desire to work and earn, then there will always be some additional work that you can do to increase your income. But as I already mentioned at the beginning of the post, it is a very individual situation that includes many various factors.
I hope you like it and you found something new and interesting here. Thanks for reading and visiting my blog, also you can follow me to be the first to see my newest posts!
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