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Comment by avenoir | Hacker News Reader

Could somebody living in Finland comment on what 560 euros per month will get you?

Edit: Looking at some stats here [1] and it looks like 565 euros is enough to rent an apartment outside of city center. It also looks like one could potentially find something for 450 which leaves pretty decent money for food and perhaps a bicycle for transportation? Definitely not enough if you consider utilities though. That's some rough living.

[1] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou...

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It's possible to live with that amount (because schools and health care are basically free), but it wouldn't be nice of course.

Note that this doesn't really "cost" anything as the people in the program are already receiving generous unemployment benefits, " The amount will be deducted from any benefits they already receive."

So the difference mainly is that you don't have to ask for this money or report it if you start to earn money. I wonder how your other benefits are affected though (child support, living expenses like rent and utilities etc.) if you indeed get a job.

The bureaucracy is a nightmare here with unemployment benefits, so hopefully something good will come out of this project.

With the amount, it might be possible to survive, not to decently live long-term.

Personally, the lowest I was able to achieve in practice was about 650€. Gotchas:

1. It was over 10 years ago

2. I had student discounts on housing, lunches, public transport etc.

I suppose I could still have squeezed that down if I really had to, fortunately I didn't.

Single person food ~600€ / month (when you eat healthy, fresh, unprocessed foods)

Rents lower end 600€ at a smaller backwoods town, up to +2000€ in capital area.

It's pocket money and according to the article it decreases the other benefits you get, so I'm not really sure how much people actually gain in terms of their available assets. I guess it's mostly about getting that money without having to fight bureacracy that normally occurs with some gig based jobs etc.

That's about right. To live in Helsinki you'd probabaly need minimum 1000€ for a shared Apartment and food... With 560€ you might be able to live somewhere and scrape by.

This is outside of Helsinki but student benefit is 460e per month and I know many who can live without taking on debt or working part time.

Also If you manage to buy a (small) condo, the interest is basically below zero right now, so 560e could easily cover basic expenses.

Student benefit is not 460e per month.

In Helsinki Metropolitan area is is

315e student aid + 200e housing aid ( + possibility for student priced housing and other student priced amenities)

Average wage is about €3,500 per month.

So you have 16% of the average wage.

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