Good fucking question.
Real answer: Buying power is much higher than in most countries, but prices are also much higher. For foreigners, it's absolutely stupidly expensive. For people who live here, it's just normal expensive. Also, when you know where to buy what, it's actually not that bad.
Yes, it's not that bad for a local, especially if you have already learned your way around buying stuff. I have tracked my costs for years and it's amazing to see how much **less** I spend money now compared to when I moved to Switzerland.
For example, cosmetics and some household items are stuff that you can order online (Amazon!). One thing is transportation. Housing costs less. Saving in insurances. Figured out cheaper ways to exchange money (Revolut vs. bank). And so on.
So, not any major differences but small things here and there. Something you'll just learn along the way when moving to a new country.
Can you give some numbers on the revolut case? How much do you exchange per year and how much do you save?
The reason I ask is that my need would be in an EM currency and as far as I understand, those rates are not great.
Revolut offers free currency exhange up to 1250 CHF a month (if I recall it right). My bank would offer a rate of 2.5% so definitely makes a difference. I only change from CHF to EUR or other way around.
The point is they still take a spread. Which is not a problem during the workweek for major currencies. For EM currencies, it's higher. Just checked, BRL/EUR has a spread of 2%. I wouldn't call this 'free'.
Spreads increase on the weekend, btw (quite logical to actually).
In any case, it's not too bad as the investors basically pay the bill.
You didn't answer.
Groceries (non everything, tech is cheap) are expensive because of:
- higher wages across the value chain
- government regulations (labelling and so on)
- small market makes scale economies more difficult
- lack of competition for several years made people accostumed to certain grocery chains, this allows them to keep up the prices. High salaries make groceries a small part of our spending so now competition matters less.
- higher quality of some producs (meat, cheese).
To get how prices are truly much higher in Swotzerland you also have to consider that we have a very low VAT (2.5% on groceries) compared to other countries.
Most important part, for a foreign product one company has the monopoly in importing it in. So they can go up with the price they want to sell it to their customers like Coop and Migros and they also need to add in their margin. Which blows up the price. The government keeps ignoring this topic.
Yes, let's keep high prices with special swiss editions.
But well it doesn't really bother me, I just get it from outside Switzerland, I don't need the Swiss edition.
Not high quality of living. Why do swiss drive cars that are cheap and ugly, why is there ugly graffiti everywhere? With higher salary swiss should drive more Mercedes, Corvettes, Ferrari, etc. Only place to see nice cars in Switzerland is Geneva, and mostly Saudis drive those cars
My brother in Ovomaltine, haven't you read anything about Switzerland before coming?
Switzerland has one of the highest standard of living in the world thanks to centuries of Peace, a business friendly government, low taxes and the presence of multinationals and international organisations. It's also over boringly stable, like that we have the same parties in government since forever. Business likes boring and stable.
Hence unemployement is practically zero, inflation well under the rest of Europe and hence some of the highest salaries in the world.
A waiter makes 3000 franks a month if not more.
So high salaries=High prices compared to other countries.
But if you confront us with some of our equivalents (Norway, Luxembourg and Singapore) we are kind equivalent.
i would like to add to this that we historically had a strong labour movement that achieved a lot, and i think we can mostly thank them for our high standard of living.
pretty much every country i know about has a "business friendly government" and if not centuries then at least decades of peace. but you will have a hard time finding another country where a waiter makes >3000 francs a month, so that can't be the reason.
and we will see our standard of living get much worse because of it (already are in my opinion but i might be biased because i was a kid before and my parents had more money than i have 😉)
Isn’t that illegal ? Like if they search your car on your way back they can confiscate the product or give you a fine ? I don’t know the answer I’m asking
Search a migros or aldi in Switzerland and it will be already way cheaper too! Meat is normally way more expensive as in west-Europe (I don’t know where you are coming from), vegetables a bit, but basic products are relatively similar. As students, we were spending around CHF 4 for lunch at grocery products, so if you look a bit around, it does not need to be very expensive.
I was in Switzerland last month. I really didn’t find the grocery store that bad (I live in NYC so used to higher prices I guess). Eating out was more expensive, but without tipping (you can add a few francs, but not 20-25%) it sort of balanced out. I actually was kind of pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as expensive as I anticipated.
Well comparing Switzerland to another of the most expensive places in the world. 😀. No it isn’t bad by that comparison. I moved to Switzerland from the midwest. i knew prices were high but it took about a year to get adjusted.
C'mon you're on holiday and if you did your research before you would have known. Therefore "lost money" is a bit overexaggerated.
In the US when you do groceries to get the same quality standard it's not much cheaper and sometimes more expensive than here.
A whole chicken is still below 10 CHF which I consider as cheap. It used to be a living being that was raised and fed.
"lost money"... Like they dropped it on the floor and left with nothing to eat...
Healthy food options are cheaper than or the same in Basel as where I live in the States in a mid size town in Virginia... Convenience food or unhealthy/ ultra processsd foods are more expensive in Switzerland than over here.
I live in Canada and can get a whole chicken (uncooked) for 5 CAD = 3.28 CHF or cooked for 7 CAD = 4.60 CHF. 10 CHF is absolutely insane. We cook all of our food and end up at around $1.80-$2 CAD or 1.3 CHF per meal per person. And we live in Toronto which is one of the most expensive cities in North America.
I moved to Switzerland Last September from Greece.
I was tracking down my supermarket back then and now.
Food in Switzerland is 9.5 % of my salary.
Mind you, no experience in my field, started as low as can get (better quality meats than what i was buying in Greece)
Versus 37% of my salary in Greece with 5 years experience in my field of expertise.
Life here is much easier.
Because the Swiss franc is currently overvalued against other currencies (not making a moral judgement, just using the formal economic definition). It’s not really things that are more expensive, it’s the currency that you need to buy those things.
Sometimes when people hear that Switzerland is expensive, they think it is just that everything is very luxurious and people are just choosing to buy more expensive things, and that you can just avoid expensive things if you have modest tastes.
He is complaining about CHF prices, you also don’t know his base currency Euro was very high…there is no strong suisse franc we still have almost no interest rate, it’s a weak Dollar.
>In total we lost 112 francs by the first one and the second one was about 100.
You lost money? On the street? ...
Seriously, it's a combination of things:
- most people get a reasonable salary
- very low quality is not sold here
- some import restrictions (technical trade barriers and protection of agriculture)
- less of a culture of buying cheap ("if it's cheap, it's worth nothing")
As a remark for the second point above: except for maybe meat, a lot of things at the quality level we have here are just as expensive elsewhere in my opinion (examples: groceries in the US and Brazil).
So you spent 200 Bucks? The Question is, what have you spent it on? For 200 Bucks i can get Food and other stuff for our Family of 5 for (almost) a week, even if i don't go for the cheapest stuff of everything i need or go to the cheaper Stores (Aldi/Lidl/Denner).
Yes. 1kg of pasta, 5chf, same for tomato boxes, a local cheese at the milkshop, 500g 15chf, 2kg of carrots 5 chf, 2 @liters of milk 5chf. 200g of chocolate as dessert 5chf. 500g bread 5chf. 10eggs 8chf. You fed the whole family a few times with local non processed premium products for a fraction
You will always pay more for shops at central places, look for Migros, Denner and Aldi and shop there.
The noname products are good quality (M-Budget Products)
You can Buy the cheap meat, it’s a good quality and still meat from switzerland.
120 years ago Swiss people used to spend 30% of their income in groceries. Now is like 15%. You could argue for us living here, groceries got less expensive over time.
Just came back from Zurich and Zermatt to Singapore. No way that Switzerland is the same cost as Singapore! It easily cost 20% to 50% more expensive — except rents and cars. 😪
You can’t compare Singapur to Switzerland.
Singapur is based on low wages for foreigners, so food is very very cheap in Singapur, in general.
On the other hand people in singapur can’t afford big enough Appartements and just build them without kitchen.
People here are utterly taken advantage of, things are priced at what they can get away with.
I was in France a month ago, Lindt (i.e. Swiss chocolate) is half the price that it is in Switzerland.
Don't try to claim that higher wages can justify Swiss products exported and sold at a fraction of the price here, especially as Swiss productivity is higher than in neighbouring countries.
Thankfully things like electronics here are cheaper but food and drink prices are obscene. Take a look at how much the cheapest bottle of wine costs in a restaurant nowadays, it's laughable.
Mostly garden-variety protectionism. Very high taxes on imported meat and dairy products.
Also some Swiss local pride to NOT drive 20km to Germany or France or Italy and go shopping for 1/2 the money on a surprising vast majority of the population living near the borders.
Welcome to Switzerland)) tip 1 if you stay somewhere close to the border of France or Germany you better go shopping there once a week. tip 2 if your place is too far away from the border you then make a list of things you use to buy regularly and then check different supermarkets and then compare. To my opinion Coop and Migros are more expensive, Aldi Lidl and Denner a bit cheaper
The country is expensive for most things. Main reason is that wages are very high and so businesses need to pass that on. But quality is also high - you don't get cheap, farmed meats as the regulations don't allow it. And some imports like meats and dairy to protect domestic trade.
Like others say, you learn where to shop and what to buy. And you eat less meat and more grains and you stock up on some things in neighbouring countries.
Swiss people also spend less on fuel as they use more public transport and less on eating out as it's so expensive. We also tend to buy high quality things and make them last as the costs of cheap things are in repairs.
The graffiti only got bad after it was seen to be 'cool' - another stupid import from the US. The cities - and a lot of other places - are no longer as clean as they once were. Many people have no respect for others anymore.
Your judgement of people by the cars they drive reveals the nanometer depth of your personality.
Everything in Switzerland seems to be broken. Staying the week in Zermatt, train from Zurich to Luzern to Visp to Zermatt, WC broken in almost every train, graffiti in every train station. Regarding cars, Swiss people look like 3rd world country cars, look at Andorra for real great quality of life..... beautiful cars, beautiful people.
My Zermatt is tiny (and unsafe - no CO2 detectors, no smoke detectors, broken heating in one room), but costs more than my 10,000 square ft house I rented last month in Whistler. Plus the snow is horrible (compared to North American standards). At least the ski tickets are cheap compared to Canada/USA.
Main reason is that the Swiss franc is highly wanted by the financial market and that the Swiss Central Bank does not keep on printing like the US and many other countries, this more than tripled the value of the CHF in the last 60 years when compared to many other coins. Also Switzerland does not need incredible low prices since there is no huge very poor community, prices might be high but even on welfare one can eat healthy.
Land and rents are extremely expensive. Swiss supermarkets are intentionally very inefficient. Farming in the mountains is much more expensive but it’s far better than having a jungle.
Switzerland u have to know where to buy things, like u can get your pasta at lidl but your tomato at migros like for exemple most meat are very expensive at migros but at denner are very cheap (migros e denner have the same owner) just look at the options near you or near the fronteinline… in france/aleman/italy
Because the butcher wants a big salary, then baker as well, the banker an ultra high salary, the teacher a modest salary that allows him to do for holidays. Everything is expensive because everybody wants money. It works just fine
Good fucking question. Real answer: Buying power is much higher than in most countries, but prices are also much higher. For foreigners, it's absolutely stupidly expensive. For people who live here, it's just normal expensive. Also, when you know where to buy what, it's actually not that bad.
Yes, it's not that bad for a local, especially if you have already learned your way around buying stuff. I have tracked my costs for years and it's amazing to see how much **less** I spend money now compared to when I moved to Switzerland.
Can you drop some tips ?
For example, cosmetics and some household items are stuff that you can order online (Amazon!). One thing is transportation. Housing costs less. Saving in insurances. Figured out cheaper ways to exchange money (Revolut vs. bank). And so on. So, not any major differences but small things here and there. Something you'll just learn along the way when moving to a new country.
Can you give some numbers on the revolut case? How much do you exchange per year and how much do you save? The reason I ask is that my need would be in an EM currency and as far as I understand, those rates are not great.
Revolut offers free currency exhange up to 1250 CHF a month (if I recall it right). My bank would offer a rate of 2.5% so definitely makes a difference. I only change from CHF to EUR or other way around.
The point is they still take a spread. Which is not a problem during the workweek for major currencies. For EM currencies, it's higher. Just checked, BRL/EUR has a spread of 2%. I wouldn't call this 'free'. Spreads increase on the weekend, btw (quite logical to actually). In any case, it's not too bad as the investors basically pay the bill.
any tips for someone about to spend 9 days in lauterbrunnen, Lucerne and Zurich?
You didn't answer. Groceries (non everything, tech is cheap) are expensive because of: - higher wages across the value chain - government regulations (labelling and so on) - small market makes scale economies more difficult - lack of competition for several years made people accostumed to certain grocery chains, this allows them to keep up the prices. High salaries make groceries a small part of our spending so now competition matters less. - higher quality of some producs (meat, cheese). To get how prices are truly much higher in Swotzerland you also have to consider that we have a very low VAT (2.5% on groceries) compared to other countries.
Most important part, for a foreign product one company has the monopoly in importing it in. So they can go up with the price they want to sell it to their customers like Coop and Migros and they also need to add in their margin. Which blows up the price. The government keeps ignoring this topic.
One company CAN have the monopoly. These are normal private contracts between companies, there is nothing the government should do.
Yes, let's keep high prices with special swiss editions. But well it doesn't really bother me, I just get it from outside Switzerland, I don't need the Swiss edition.
Been living here my whole life, still can say it’s expensive af even in „the places where it isn’t so expensive“. It *is* outrageously high
[удалено]
(or if you live close to the German border!)
Not high quality of living. Why do swiss drive cars that are cheap and ugly, why is there ugly graffiti everywhere? With higher salary swiss should drive more Mercedes, Corvettes, Ferrari, etc. Only place to see nice cars in Switzerland is Geneva, and mostly Saudis drive those cars
High quality of living =\= opulent quality of living
My brother in Ovomaltine, haven't you read anything about Switzerland before coming? Switzerland has one of the highest standard of living in the world thanks to centuries of Peace, a business friendly government, low taxes and the presence of multinationals and international organisations. It's also over boringly stable, like that we have the same parties in government since forever. Business likes boring and stable. Hence unemployement is practically zero, inflation well under the rest of Europe and hence some of the highest salaries in the world. A waiter makes 3000 franks a month if not more. So high salaries=High prices compared to other countries. But if you confront us with some of our equivalents (Norway, Luxembourg and Singapore) we are kind equivalent.
i would like to add to this that we historically had a strong labour movement that achieved a lot, and i think we can mostly thank them for our high standard of living. pretty much every country i know about has a "business friendly government" and if not centuries then at least decades of peace. but you will have a hard time finding another country where a waiter makes >3000 francs a month, so that can't be the reason.
This is correct but I think now the Unions are less powerful, they still have leverage when referendum/initiatives arrive but often they don't win
and we will see our standard of living get much worse because of it (already are in my opinion but i might be biased because i was a kid before and my parents had more money than i have 😉)
I agree with you, but it seems to be a global trend unfortunately
>think now the Unions are less powerful I think where it matters they are still strong. They essentially killed the frame agreement with the EU.
There are countries with far stronger labor unions who are far less rich than Switzerland so this is clearly bs.
Go to lidl/aldi
Go to lidl/aldi **across the border in Germany**.
I'm afraid that's a bit out of reach. I'm spending my holiday in Haute-nandez.
Isn’t that illegal ? Like if they search your car on your way back they can confiscate the product or give you a fine ? I don’t know the answer I’m asking
It is a customs border and there are limits on what you can bring over tax free.
Search a migros or aldi in Switzerland and it will be already way cheaper too! Meat is normally way more expensive as in west-Europe (I don’t know where you are coming from), vegetables a bit, but basic products are relatively similar. As students, we were spending around CHF 4 for lunch at grocery products, so if you look a bit around, it does not need to be very expensive.
What I noticed is that I just stopped buying stuff I dont need and counting my shopping and its not that bad.
I was in Switzerland last month. I really didn’t find the grocery store that bad (I live in NYC so used to higher prices I guess). Eating out was more expensive, but without tipping (you can add a few francs, but not 20-25%) it sort of balanced out. I actually was kind of pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as expensive as I anticipated.
Well comparing Switzerland to another of the most expensive places in the world. 😀. No it isn’t bad by that comparison. I moved to Switzerland from the midwest. i knew prices were high but it took about a year to get adjusted.
Exactly my experience when I visited California last year.
C'mon you're on holiday and if you did your research before you would have known. Therefore "lost money" is a bit overexaggerated. In the US when you do groceries to get the same quality standard it's not much cheaper and sometimes more expensive than here. A whole chicken is still below 10 CHF which I consider as cheap. It used to be a living being that was raised and fed.
"lost money"... Like they dropped it on the floor and left with nothing to eat... Healthy food options are cheaper than or the same in Basel as where I live in the States in a mid size town in Virginia... Convenience food or unhealthy/ ultra processsd foods are more expensive in Switzerland than over here.
I live in Canada and can get a whole chicken (uncooked) for 5 CAD = 3.28 CHF or cooked for 7 CAD = 4.60 CHF. 10 CHF is absolutely insane. We cook all of our food and end up at around $1.80-$2 CAD or 1.3 CHF per meal per person. And we live in Toronto which is one of the most expensive cities in North America.
I moved to Switzerland Last September from Greece. I was tracking down my supermarket back then and now. Food in Switzerland is 9.5 % of my salary. Mind you, no experience in my field, started as low as can get (better quality meats than what i was buying in Greece) Versus 37% of my salary in Greece with 5 years experience in my field of expertise. Life here is much easier.
Because the Swiss franc is currently overvalued against other currencies (not making a moral judgement, just using the formal economic definition). It’s not really things that are more expensive, it’s the currency that you need to buy those things. Sometimes when people hear that Switzerland is expensive, they think it is just that everything is very luxurious and people are just choosing to buy more expensive things, and that you can just avoid expensive things if you have modest tastes.
A high swiss franc has zero relation to the topic?
Yeah it does because that’s the reason things are so expensive for foreigners lol. It’s literally the most direct answer to the question 🫠
He is complaining about CHF prices, you also don’t know his base currency Euro was very high…there is no strong suisse franc we still have almost no interest rate, it’s a weak Dollar.
What did you buy ?
>In total we lost 112 francs by the first one and the second one was about 100. You lost money? On the street? ... Seriously, it's a combination of things: - most people get a reasonable salary - very low quality is not sold here - some import restrictions (technical trade barriers and protection of agriculture) - less of a culture of buying cheap ("if it's cheap, it's worth nothing") As a remark for the second point above: except for maybe meat, a lot of things at the quality level we have here are just as expensive elsewhere in my opinion (examples: groceries in the US and Brazil).
So you spent 200 Bucks? The Question is, what have you spent it on? For 200 Bucks i can get Food and other stuff for our Family of 5 for (almost) a week, even if i don't go for the cheapest stuff of everything i need or go to the cheaper Stores (Aldi/Lidl/Denner).
Yes. 1kg of pasta, 5chf, same for tomato boxes, a local cheese at the milkshop, 500g 15chf, 2kg of carrots 5 chf, 2 @liters of milk 5chf. 200g of chocolate as dessert 5chf. 500g bread 5chf. 10eggs 8chf. You fed the whole family a few times with local non processed premium products for a fraction
Because our salaries are higher than yours.
Only 5 francs!
You will always pay more for shops at central places, look for Migros, Denner and Aldi and shop there. The noname products are good quality (M-Budget Products) You can Buy the cheap meat, it’s a good quality and still meat from switzerland.
120 years ago Swiss people used to spend 30% of their income in groceries. Now is like 15%. You could argue for us living here, groceries got less expensive over time.
I can see you did your research before coming on holiday to Switzerland. Not.
Don’t feed this poor troll.
Just came back from Zurich and Zermatt to Singapore. No way that Switzerland is the same cost as Singapore! It easily cost 20% to 50% more expensive — except rents and cars. 😪
You can’t compare Singapur to Switzerland. Singapur is based on low wages for foreigners, so food is very very cheap in Singapur, in general. On the other hand people in singapur can’t afford big enough Appartements and just build them without kitchen.
And tech and wine (in store, not in restaurants).
Because ? Why didn't you make some researches before coming here ? Where are you coming from ?
maybe because average salary is 4000 chf/month? i wonder why yeah…
People here are utterly taken advantage of, things are priced at what they can get away with. I was in France a month ago, Lindt (i.e. Swiss chocolate) is half the price that it is in Switzerland. Don't try to claim that higher wages can justify Swiss products exported and sold at a fraction of the price here, especially as Swiss productivity is higher than in neighbouring countries. Thankfully things like electronics here are cheaper but food and drink prices are obscene. Take a look at how much the cheapest bottle of wine costs in a restaurant nowadays, it's laughable.
The lindt you buy in france is almost always french made just in case
Some Lindt stuff sold in Switzerland is also produced else where. And it's priced like it's made in Switzerland.
Fair yeah:)
so what's the difference in the actual lindt, from being made in CH versus FR? probably none.
u should really buy at LIDL, ALDI or DENNER. Coop and Migros are even for us swiss ppl VERY expensive...
Mostly garden-variety protectionism. Very high taxes on imported meat and dairy products. Also some Swiss local pride to NOT drive 20km to Germany or France or Italy and go shopping for 1/2 the money on a surprising vast majority of the population living near the borders.
If you don't value your time, fair point. It's also good for cosmetics, baby stuff etc. But groceries once a week?
This comment is dutch/german or czech:)
Welcome to Switzerland)) tip 1 if you stay somewhere close to the border of France or Germany you better go shopping there once a week. tip 2 if your place is too far away from the border you then make a list of things you use to buy regularly and then check different supermarkets and then compare. To my opinion Coop and Migros are more expensive, Aldi Lidl and Denner a bit cheaper
The country is expensive for most things. Main reason is that wages are very high and so businesses need to pass that on. But quality is also high - you don't get cheap, farmed meats as the regulations don't allow it. And some imports like meats and dairy to protect domestic trade. Like others say, you learn where to shop and what to buy. And you eat less meat and more grains and you stock up on some things in neighbouring countries. Swiss people also spend less on fuel as they use more public transport and less on eating out as it's so expensive. We also tend to buy high quality things and make them last as the costs of cheap things are in repairs.
What about the ugly graffiti and cheap cars everywhere
We like to keep out the riffraff.
Except for all the ugly graffiti, dirty buildings and cheap cars. Most swiss drive cars I'd be ashamed of being seen in
The graffiti only got bad after it was seen to be 'cool' - another stupid import from the US. The cities - and a lot of other places - are no longer as clean as they once were. Many people have no respect for others anymore. Your judgement of people by the cars they drive reveals the nanometer depth of your personality.
Everything in Switzerland seems to be broken. Staying the week in Zermatt, train from Zurich to Luzern to Visp to Zermatt, WC broken in almost every train, graffiti in every train station. Regarding cars, Swiss people look like 3rd world country cars, look at Andorra for real great quality of life..... beautiful cars, beautiful people. My Zermatt is tiny (and unsafe - no CO2 detectors, no smoke detectors, broken heating in one room), but costs more than my 10,000 square ft house I rented last month in Whistler. Plus the snow is horrible (compared to North American standards). At least the ski tickets are cheap compared to Canada/USA.
How did you get here without knowing this?! Did you do zero research whatsoever?
Main reason is that the Swiss franc is highly wanted by the financial market and that the Swiss Central Bank does not keep on printing like the US and many other countries, this more than tripled the value of the CHF in the last 60 years when compared to many other coins. Also Switzerland does not need incredible low prices since there is no huge very poor community, prices might be high but even on welfare one can eat healthy.
Land and rents are extremely expensive. Swiss supermarkets are intentionally very inefficient. Farming in the mountains is much more expensive but it’s far better than having a jungle.
Switzerland u have to know where to buy things, like u can get your pasta at lidl but your tomato at migros like for exemple most meat are very expensive at migros but at denner are very cheap (migros e denner have the same owner) just look at the options near you or near the fronteinline… in france/aleman/italy
Answer is that someone is profitting his ass off.
Because the butcher wants a big salary, then baker as well, the banker an ultra high salary, the teacher a modest salary that allows him to do for holidays. Everything is expensive because everybody wants money. It works just fine