I live in Poland in a city center in a metro area of 2 million people on $9k per year. That's rent free, because I own the place, adding rent would push the total cost to $13k per year. That's six years of living on $80k.

Also, I'm 42 and retired :) It's really easy to retire here when making software money.

If you are willing to forgo a car, expensive food and be fine with a small studio, you can easily do 4 years on $80k in central Europe. You can do 10 years in many parts of the worlds and it'll require some adjustments but some places (ie: Vietnam) can be really okay and offer a night life unmatched by the US.

I'm afraid you underestimate rent costs. In smaller cities you may still find something nice for ~900 usd per month, in more popular places like Krakow, Prague ~1500 usd is more realistic but still optimistic.

This feels incredibly out of touch with reality. Since you mentioned Prague, the average salary in the Czech Republic is roughly $20k per year, and that's the average, plenty of people take home considerably less. You're saying $80k is not enough for more than a year, how do you think all those people manage to get by?

They dont manage to get by.

It's the same thing as in New York, just different currency.

Locals inheritted their apartments from parents or granparents, those with good jobs get a mortgage or burn their salaries on rent.

And the rest lives with roommates. Or spends hours ona bus or train to work.

Hence the fertility crisis in Central Europe: people dont want to have kids when they struggle with rent.

In Central Europe there is the saying that prices are western, but salaries are eastern.

Propert also gets bought by foreign investors like in Canada.

“The median salary in the US is $59k, therefore obviously no-one could possibly live in Manhattan”.

I’d assume that salaries in Prague are higher than in the Czech Republic as a whole.

I've said A implies B, but you're talking about B implies A, they're not the same.

1500 usd for Prague with bills included. Rent in Prague in a very good location is about 1000 eur. The bills can be about 400. For 1500 usd as rent you're looking at some very fancy places.

Ok, so in 4 years you will spend 67200 usd for flat and bills alone. That leaves 267 usd monthly for other things.

I don't know about Prague but in Krakow you could find something decent for 1000 USD (including utilities). Even less if city centre is not a must.

4k pln for a flat in the center of Krakow? When may I move in? Or by "something decent" you understand 12m² "apartment" in Skawina:)

I used Airbnb in those cities and it was considerably cheaper. And Airbnb usually has a 4x markup on monthly rents.

The world is a big place, and central Europe is a small part of it.

In Thailand, you can live very very comfortably for 25k.