Money can’t buy happiness. But it can make life more safe and enjoyable.
In a recent study by Expensivity, the price of comfortable living in Ukraine was the lowest in Europe — $11,301 per year.
It turns out that the “price of happiness,” the line below which life turns very stressful, varies more across Europe than any other continent.
Unlike Ukraine, people in six European countries — Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Luxemburg — have to earn over $100,000 per year to have an enjoyable life.
Even neighboring Belarus and Moldova have a higher happiness floor than Ukraine, at $12,252 and $15,214 respectively.
Courtesy/Expensivity
The top five countries with the highest annual price for comfortable living are Bermuda ($143,933), Australia ($135,321), Israel ($130,457), Switzerland ($128,969) and New Zealand ($128,844).
The cheapest happiness can be found in in South America’s smallest country, the Republic of Suriname, where the price is $6,799. Other countries with the lowest price for easy living are Argentina ($8,778) and Angola ($8,921).
Expensivity experts used the data of scientific research on countries made by U.S. based Purdue research university publication.
To get results for over 160 countries, researches used the World Bank’s Purchasing Power ratios — a macroeconomic ‘basket of goods’ approach — to convert “happiness premium” for every country.
Expensivity researchers also used Numbeo data to get the local costs of living and calculate the “different price of happiness from city to city.”
New York City topped the rating of most expensive cities worldwide — in order to live well there, people have to spend almost $140,000 per year.
“If you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere, since NYC has the heftiest happiness price tag,” study reads. Among the top 10 cities where happiness has the highest price of admission, only one was not in the U.S. — Bern, Switzerland.
Previously, Kyiv Post reported that Kyiv ranked 86 in the Economist’s ranking of the world’s most expensive cities.
