Europe is not a single country but a collection of vastly different countries with different opportunities and issues. May I ask which country that is?
>almost indefinite, if you get your expenses lower than Jobseeker's allowance
That's not universally true. In some EU countries jobseeker's allowance, as the name suggests, is paid to you as long as you prove you're looking for employment, not to boot-strap your side hustle as you please, unfortunately. And to get unemployment you first need to have at least 2 years of employment, at least in Austria. You can't just show up and start cashing unemployment checks.
>our house is paid off which helps
I bet that helps. Ballooning housing costs is a major issue in Europe's biggest metro areas and most young people don't have this luxury and end up spending a significant portion of their take home pay on it, so I feel you're situation is far more priviledged than the average European.
You can get last resort social benefits basically forever if you aren’t actively working much or don’t run a business.
Incidentally I bought a Muurikka from a Finnish friend last summer and it's the most amazing thing I've ever cooked with. I don't think I'll ever go back to a bbq :-)
On top of that, integrating, learning and making friends in Finnish is playing life on hard level. There are also very few English language schools in Finland.
The hardest part is likely to get jobs for both parents, unless you are both in in demand fields like IT.
That's true in all of the Nordics but I believe specially more in Finland.
I'm a naturalised Swede and had to put a lot of effort into making friends the first couple of years here. Yes, making friends is much harder than in my original culture (Brazil) but there is also the counter-side to it on the quality of friendships you make that I believe it's worth to take into account.
Making friends here is really about bonding and creating deep connections with someone else, not just a cursory acquaintance to go out to bars and do things together. In that sense I do understand completely why people are generally more reserved into expanding their social circles, it takes a lot of effort and a genuine interest in each other to foster a friendship and locals/natives already come with their own social groups from just living here their whole lives.
Cracking into these social circles is definitely hard, you will need to find hobbies and activities where you can meet people around a shared interest and usually expand from there, you won't be making friends by simply going to bars, for example.
And that's also the isolating part of Nordic cultures, you keep social circles smaller because they are more meaningful but getting started into a meaningful relationship takes time and will make you feel lonely.
People are also wary of mixing/mingling social groups as they'll feel responsible for the experience the groups have (at least here in Sweden), it's uncommon for someone to invite their different social circles into the same gathering, except maybe for birthdays.
Overall I've adapted quite well and I'm very happy with the friends I made, it is more demanding but extremely rewarding.
You're right re: JSA and JSB (Jobseeker's allowance and benefit) but my neighbours have somehow been on it for 13 years now.....
And yes, I was lucky to buy a cheap house in 2019. But it was under 100k and derelict, I've been fixing it up. Fortunately it has gigabit fibre and is a bike ride from the train.
Well, every country has people who've learned to game the welfare system in order to never have to go to work (like faking various illnesses for example), but some countries make the process of being unemployed for life so dehumanizing in order to deter cheaters, that it's not worth it it unless you're really committed to such a lifestyle (let's say, knock on wood, you're disabled from the neck down, you have to show up yearly to the government officer handling your unemployment benefits, to prove that you're still disabled and can't work. Madness!).
True, but some have awesome provisions for business creation. For instance in France you can get all of the money you would have received as job seeekers' allowance ( allocation chômage) as startup capital for your own business.
Growing up abroad and moving to a country in your thirties means you draw rather little benefit but pay in to the system massively. Because of Ireland's _extremely_ progressive/redistributive tax system, I have already paid more in to the system than a median earner here will in their entire career. Which is fine, that's the deal I signed up for, but I hardly think if I found myself on JSA for a while and noodled on a side project it makes me a leech.
It was meant to be a 6-12 month stay on a working holiday visa but we decided to stick around, and I got sponsored.
Yeah, those days are mostly gone. The real estate market is crazy now in most of the western/northern EU.
The market dipped slightly during the first lockdowns of 2020 but bounced right back up quickly and came back with a vengeance.
What do you mean by this term?
With public healthcare, good social services, reduced transit cost, etc. a bootstrapper can have a MUCH longer runway here - almost indefinite, if you get your expenses lower than Jobseeker's allowance (our house is paid off which helps). You can hire engineers for a third the cost of the US, too.