Welcome to part 2 of my all-inclusive guide about moving to and living in Espoo. If you have missed part 1, start here. In the first post I have focused on life with children, daycare, and school. Here I’ll go on talking about spare time activities, culture, as well as some tips on working life. I’ll also take a hit at a question I get asked plenty: what is a good salary to live on in Espoo?

Free time and hobbies

Something you’ll never be in Espoo is bored. There are tons of things to do. As you can imagine, I am an expert on family activities. In general, Espoo (and Finland) functions under the assumption that nature, sport, and culture have to be accessible to everyone. This translates in tons of free or cheap quality cultural events, amazing library services, and plenty of free sport activities all year round. About the latter, you can read several examples in this post I wrote for the city-run organisation Helsinki Liikkuu. Espoo has a twin initiative called Espoo Liikkuu and all suggestions in the post are still valid.

I want to make a special mention of our favourite places and activities:

• events at the libraries. Corona has severely limited happenings, but in normal times, the library network has plenty of events to choose from. A tip: search events from the Finnish pages (I use Google Chrome to have pages automatically translated to English) because you will find more results. You can restrict the search to family events, etc.
• Children’s cultural centres (lasten kultturikeskus). Espoo has cultural centres all over town, some (like the art centre Aurora) focusing on children. They have activities all year round, from music, to art and crafts, and more.
• Kuvis, the art school. Kuvis offers affordable art courses for all ages. They run classes all over town. We’ve been customers for a couple of years and I couldn’t be happier. Special mention: they send regular newsletters in English and their central office staff speaks fluent English.
• Nature trails. If you ask me, nature is the strong suit of Finland. Espoo has a long list of nature trails across town. They are well-marked, fully maintained, and family-friendly. If you want a peek, check out our trips to Oittaa and Hannusmetsä.
• Kannukino. City of Espoo manages a small movie theatre in Espoon Keskus. Tickets are very cheap (about one third of what you’d pay at normal cinemas) and some shows are even free.

This is just the tip of the iceberg! If you are moving to Espoo, you are at risk of a severe case of FOMO.

Working life

I cannot afford to go down the rabbit hole of advising you on how to find a job in Finland. You will find plenty of advice on that. However, I want to share few random advice that it’s often unbeknownst to foreigners.

• negotiate holidays. By law, you are not entitled to paid holiday days during your first year of employment. This is a bummer for many, but a real pickle for international families that cannot summon childcare snapping their fingers. Many workers in Finland resort to negotiating for paid holidays in the first year during the hiring process. Yup, note down this tip!
• Join a union or unemployment fund. Do it as soon as you start a job! Not only it will entitle you to key services (free time health insurance, free legal advice, …) but also to receiving unemployment benefits if you lose your job (Kela also provides it, but way lower). I wholeheartedly recommend YTK, it’s the cheapest and the only organisation that sends newsletters and services in English. Unions can also be helpful in advising you on salary levels by profession during salary negotiations.
• Free legal advice. The labor market organisation SAK provides free legal advice on working matters to anyone (also non members). To report labor crimes, you should contact RIKU instead. You can also test your working conditions here.
• Join relevant networks. Networking is way more important than learning Finnish to build a career in Finland. There are associations or groups popping up all the time, but two active ones I recommend are International Working Women of Finland and The Shortcut. These networks are not only useful for job opportunities and career building, but also for advice and peer support.

What is a good salary in Espoo?

I stopped counting how many time I was asked this question. The answer is not straightforward because it depends so much on lifestyle. I can give you some numbers and some advice as a starting point, but I leave a deeper analysis to you.

The very first thing to take into account is that Finnish taxes are proportional, meaning you get taxed based on how much you earn and virtually your taxes can be 0%. The Tax authority Vero has an online calculator you can use to estimate your income tax. School education is completely free (no fees, books and materials provided by the school), and daycare fees are also based on income and virtually free if income is on a low range.

To give you a concrete figure, when we moved to Finland in 2011, my husband and I lived for several months on my PhD student salary, that was around 2000 EUR (gross) a month. We were able to pay the rent of our small apartment and our bills, without saving. 1000 EUR per family member might be a good rule of thumb; children have less expenses than adults in some ways, but require investment for other things (clothes, accessories, health… parents, find tips on saving here) so I would keep that number as a good indication for you to negotiate your starting salary when you are moving to Espoo.

So, here it is, my guide to help you moving to Espoo. Is there any topic or area I have missed to mention? Let me know in the comments and if I get enough requests or questions, I will be happy to write a part 3. And as always, do me the favour of sharing this post on social media if you found it useful. Kiitoksia.

Featured photo by Matias Malka on Unsplash