Top 20 countries for a comfortable life with a salary of 500

https://www.numbeo.com/92 countries were analyzed.

Criteria

Rent and average salary: Everything here is quite obvious; when moving, you need housing and the opportunity to fully satisfy your needs.

The cost of housing is indicated in the city center, which implies developed infrastructure (the level of development understandably varies depending on the cost of living).

The average salary, according to my observations, is 5-10 percent higher than the median, that is, you will receive more than half of the country’s working population, which is guaranteed to meet the needs for varied nutrition and leisure. Of course, if you have expensive hobbies, this is something to consider. For example, you have a salary of $3,000 and it would seem that you can consider the countries of central Europe, but at the same time you are a passionate golf fan, the cost of the membership fee is $2,500, and now the choice is between Algeria and Nepal.

Safety indices and pollution: Here I did not take quality of life, as assessed by numbeo, because I do not agree with the importance of all criteria for their assessment, such as road traffic. For example, according to the numbeo rating, the quality of life in India is higher than in Russia, which is more than doubtful, in my opinion.

The security index reflects the number of serious crimes (directed against life and health) in the country. The pollution index includes the level of pollution primarily in air and water, as well as other sources of pollution.

The combination of these two criteria well reflects the level of state care for the population and, in general, the risks of negative consequences for your health in the event of a long stay in the country.

Context

I excluded from the ranking countries in which, over the past 10 years, international organizations have recorded a risk of the death penalty for atheism. And also Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

Top 3 countries with salaries up to $500

As can be seen from the rating, there are few comfortable countries for living with a salary of up to $500, for obvious reasons. But still they exist. As a result, even with a low level of income, you have the opportunity to relocate and live in normal conditions.

Top 7 countries with salaries up to $1000

Here, Bosnia and Herzegovina became a discovery for me, which I had not even considered as an option for moving before. As it turns out, with a salary of less than $1000 you can live quite comfortably in Europe.

Top 10 countries with salaries up to $1500

Based on the data presented, we can conclude that the best option is to move to the countries of the former Yugoslavia and their neighboring countries.

You can set your criteria and choose the country that suits you using open data and a simple query in BigQuery (below is a sample query using an example table – Top 7 countries with salaries up to $1000).

SELECT
country_name,
rent_per_month,
average_salary,
safety_index,
pollution_index,
ROUND (rent_per_month + average_salary, 1) AS total_cost,
ROUND ((safety_index + (100 – pollution_index))/2, 1) AS quality_of_life
FROM
buoyant-road-419507.Aproject_country.rent_SSPP
WHERE
rent_per_month + average_salary < 1000
AND rent_per_month + average_salary > 500
AND death_penalty_for_atheists < 1
AND country_name NOT IN (“Russia”, “Belarus”, “Ukraine”)
ORDER BY quality_of_life DESC
LIMIT 7;