The International Schools Review Forum

Single teacher (13 years experience in 2 international schools), with wife and 2 children.

International School Stuttgart - seems to be on an upswing, but maybe not?

Living on one salary? (Not big spenders)

Any advice?

Stuttgart is not a cheap place to live at. But then again most of the international schools are in places where cost of living is relatively high. So I would say it depends on the package and if you are bringing a car (you could live farther out) or if you want to rely on public transportation...

[quote="ChoirGuy"]Single teacher (13 years experience in 2 international schools), with wife and 2 children.

International School Stuttgart - seems to be on an upswing, but maybe not?

Living on one salary? (Not big spenders)

Any advice?[/quote]

It would depend on the tax situation. When we interviewed with a school in Munich a few years back, they said the tuition benefit had to be taxed and with one child that meant the best we could do with two teachers in the family was break even (hopefully). I know some things have changed since then, but make sure you get the details if it gets that far.

Free tuition is still a taxable benefit....

Stuttgart is a nice city, kind of cozy, and has a strong american military presence, so many american comforts and imports are available. Public transportation in the city is SUPERB. You can catch the bullet train to Paris or Rome in a couple hours.

In Germany ALL compensation including tuition waivers are considered taxable. On one salary you would honestly starve to death, and EU labor laws make it illegal for an organization to hire someone knowing that the salary would not meet the employees basic needs. A three bedroom flat/apartment after utilities would eat up (exceed) your entire salary after taxes. You would need to have dual incomes just to break even.

An option to this especially if your wife DOESNT work is to home school your kids. You can get tax credit which would increase your net take home pay. You get 6 months tax exemption to start and after the tax credit your 1st year would be "almost" tax free.

I'm considering applying there too. I don't know what the salary is like but I know lots of German families that survive on around €40,000 salaries with a few children. Do Americans have to pay tax at home as well? If not, I'd say you'll be fine. Tax is a little bit higher in the US but what you get in return (healthcare system, social welfare etc) is way worth it and makes it a nicer country to live in. It's all about quality of life really!

Yeah they SURVIVE on about 40K€ but IS Stuttgart only pays between 31K€ and 37K€. Lets look at how this breaks down.

The tax rate in Germany is between 15% and 42% for, it depends on a lot of factors. Im going to use the average of about 30%. Lets assume the maximum salary (which is an MA +8 years) of 37K. The taxes on that are 11100. Thats 25900 left. The tuition waivers add another 9K€/each a year of tax income. At a modest tax rate of 30% thats an extra 2700€ a year for each waiver, for two children the tax would be 5400€. Deduct this from the 25900 and you have 20500€ (net pay) left over after taxes to live off for the year.

Now lets take that salary and annualize it over 12 months. Thats 1708€ a month. Some basic living expenses are:

Apartment, 3 bedrooms (in City Centre) = 1,118.50 €
Apartment, 3 bedrooms (Outside of Centre) = 947.50 €
Basic (Electricity, Gas, Water, Garbage) = 122.50 €
Internet (6 Mbps, Flat Rate, Cable/ADSL) = 27.32 €

Lets average 1000€ a month for rent and 200€ a month for utilities (this doesnt include mobile phones), thats 1200€ a month for basic housing. deduct this from our 1708€ net salary and we have 508€ a month left over, before we have budgeted for food.

Here are some market costs:

Milk (regular), 1 liter 0.65 €
Loaf of Fresh White Bread (500g) 1.93 €
Eggs (12) 1.76 €
Fresh Cheese (1kg) 7.33 €
Chicken Breasts (Boneless, Skinless), (1kg) 5.33 €
Apples (1kg) 1.70 €
Oranges (1kg) 2.28 €
Potato (1kg) 0.98 €
Lettuce (1 head) 0.71 €
Water (1.5 liter bottle) 1.22 €
Bottle of Wine (Mid-Range) 5.17 €
Domestic Beer (0.5 liter bottle) 1.26 €
Imported Beer (0.33 liter bottle) 1.36 €

Some restaurant costs:

Meal, Inexpensive Restaurant 9.40 €
Meal for 2, Mid-range Restaurant, Three-course 40.44 €
Combo Meal at McDonalds or Similar 5.90 €
Domestic Beer (0.5 liter draught) 3.07 €
Imported Beer (0.33 liter bottle) 3.00 €
Cappuccino (regular) 2.65 €
Coke/Pepsi (0.33 liter bottle) 2.03 €
Water (0.33 liter bottle) 1.66 €

Transportation:

One-way Ticket (local transport) 2.60 €
Monthly Pass 69.62 €
Taxi Start (Normal Tariff) 2.65 €
Taxi 1km (Normal Tariff) 1.97 €
Taxi 1hour Waiting (Normal Tariff) 27.33 €
Gasoline (1 liter) 1.45 €

Clothing:

1 Pair of Levis 501 (Or Equivalent) 85.00 €
1 Summer Dress in a Chain Store (Zara, H&M) 40.00 €
1 Pair of Nike Shoes 70.00 €
1 Pair of Men Leather Shoes 133.33 €

Misc.:

1 min. of Prepaid Mobile 0.20 €
Cinema, International Release, 1 Seat 7.88 €
Pack of Cigarettes (Marlboro) 4.72 €

508€ isnt going to go very far at all. If you spouse home schooled the kids that would add 5400 back into your salary over 12 months would be an extra 450€ a month almost doubling your after housing budget and bringing it to 958€ a month. Yeah you could survive and by that i mean break even.

Thanks to all for your responses...while I accept that we MAY break even, we are still in the process of applying to a few schools in Asia (Brunei and KL at the moment) and are hoping for another American school to pop up on the radar, so Stuttgart (and the rest of Europe, I would guess) are out. We really messed up this year, as we decided to go it without Search. The last time we went with Search, I went to the Bangkok fair (which initially advertised 12 jobs for Music) and there were 3 jobs. We ended up staying put that year. Now, it seems there are tons of jobs at the Fairs and schools are only hiring there. Good luck? I'd say it was poor planning on my part...

Is it too late, PsyGuy, to jump into the fray for the last fairs? There's one in Bangkok in March (very easy), and London in April. Will they take me on at this late stage?

Thats hard to say, too late for what? Its not too late at all for going with Search, at $200 for access to the database with daily email updates of new positions, you can jump on them quickly.

Too late for the fairs? Thats a question will they take you, yes. After Cambridge/Boston the fairs get about 50 schools (about a third that of Cambridge) and usually the tier 2 schools. Right now there are only 4 schools with Music-Choral vacancies, and none of them will be at any of the remaining fairs this year, of course thats now things may change. Still thats a lot of money in travel to interview with what might be just a single school.

Search will of course "take you", I think joining Search for the database would be worth it, but solely for the fairs, at this point Id have to say no. It makes no sense to attend a fair, with no vacancies in your field. The unknown is that that might change, and without access to the search database, you would never know.

Thanks PsyGuy...
We'll probably go with the database idea...that was actually the best value of joining 5 years ago. The Fair didn't help at all. What will be interesting will be having access to the database, finding out who is coming to Bangkok and trying to get access to those schools through their websites. It's a way around going to the fair, but having access to the schools.

We're happy to take a Tier 2 school, as we have had a very positive experience with our current (what I would consider) Tier 2 school (Shrewsbury in Bangkok).

There was one guy this year at the Search/Cambridge fair who had 15 interviews, more then 3 times what the average candidate had, and he didnt get a single offer.

I've had almost twenty fair interviews. 0 offers and a few wait and see if I can find someone cheaper

I know this is an old post but I want to give my input. My wife and I have been hired at the school and I can say that the salary of the school is very competitive and that even on one salary, we would have had no problem living there. The housing does seem to be expensive but the salary from just me would have easily covered expenses. From my perspective, the salaries listed in the previous posts are way lower than the salary scale we were given. Just my two cents! Hope it helps.

LOL Now don't spoil it! Let those Americans think they need 100,000 euro a year just to survive in Europe, and have them flock to the Middle East and Asia instead - it eases the market on European natives! ;-D

You are right! Sorry!!