Good salary for a small family in Basel

Well sorry to tell you that no one can answer your question without knowing the type of job, sector and position level you go to determine what you can ask for. In general nobody can save similar amount of money in Switerland with kids because costs from housing to health insurance are exorbitants. So you need a very high salary to save and if you are in this high salary range you wouldn't be asking the question because the salary would be attractive on an international level basis. People with lower income have to request subsidies for health insurance for example, though it remains very costly but as Switzerland is decentralized, each location has different systems for subsidies, schools, prices, etc. For example at 5 years old your kid will most likely only have school in the morning. I assume your wife would stay at home as otherwise the costs for afternoon childcare are also exorbitant. Cars maintenance and registration costs are also almost equivalent to have a fourth kid eating at home! So in general people coming to Switzerland have high hopes to save and soon realize they actually can't. Though some people have no choice and have to save to help family members abroad, they then live on the poverty line. Basel is however wealthy and I assume you'll go for one of the petrochemical company, so to give you an idea anything around 7000chf a month net would be higher than average swiss people but would not let you save your 1600chf (that is extremely high level of savings) with the same lifestyle. Something in te 10000chf could but again it would depend on many parameters such as your childcare , if you plan on a second child (nursery costs are just some of the highest in the world, when you get a place) and you would be paying top level of taxes, insurances and all. In general if you feel happy as you are living in the UK, it is a too big risk to make the move. Besides, remember your child would be going to a german speaking school... putting him in private school will dilapidate your budget unless your company pays for it.

That's interesting. Thank you. I was under the impression that a 8000 CHF net monthly income would allow us to save at least 2500 CHF a month, but perhaps that was overly optimistic. So, most people in Switzerland aren't saving any money? I thought one of the main reasons expats moved to Switzerland was the possibility of improving their finances.

Expats have wrong expectations when moving here and it depends a lot on what kind of expat you are as we have many migrants that actually go back to their country after a few years trying hard to get a better situation here. But 8000chf net is good, unless you are a very top manager in finance, law or the like, it is hard to ask for more as it brings you above the 10000chf gross already. Nevertheless you'll have to factor all costs, you may be able to save 1500chf that would depend on whether you take holidays, go out at times, take an extra-school activity for your kid or if you really live on shoestring which is quite hard to do over time. Here people with lower income than yours can't afford restaurants or shows because of the mad costs for any leisure activity. Gladly you can go without it as some events are free. But food will definitily rank as one of your biggest cost. Anyway you'll find a lot of comparison sites such as https://en.comparis.ch/neu-in-der-schwe … ungskosten   the problem is that they undestimate most costs such as electricity, insurances, medical, food...You can easily double those and double or more the transportation costs if you don't go for public. But for families the main spill is on the nursery costs, many working women have to resort to stop working as their income would be less than what they pay in nursery.