Picnics, home barbecues, parties on the home terrace – this is how many young people spend their weekends – very different than parents at their age, because the salary is not high. Young Greeks today lead a lifestyle characterized by little spending and lots of socializing.
Suppose you are a young twenty-five year old guy. That your salary is 700 euros, and today you live in Athens. With this money you should cover your basic needs.
If you do not have a second job, and you decide to live instead of “killing yourself at work”, then this money should cover all your basic expenses: rent, which, if you do not live with your parents, takes more than half of the monthly budget, air conditioning, electricity, whose recent bill caused a lot of brainstorming for many, including me, paying for water, the Internet, utilities (cinema), travel by public transport and everything else.
But when you are twenty-five years old, in the post-COVID era, you feel that you should live, not vegetate. You want to socialize and party. Almost the only opportunity to “go out” remains: to arrange a home (easy) party with friends, make a short (for the weekend) trip out of town, go to the theater, cinema, sit in a cafe or take a walk around the city with friends and … wake up in Monday morning, knowing that you are more than a machine that does nothing but “work and sleep.”
However, the time that starts every Friday evening after work and ends on Sunday evening, the so-called “weekend”, is severely limited by your financial capabilities, salary.
With 700-800 euros per month, no matter how much you “lick your lips”, no matter what “appetite for life” you have, the pulse of Athenian life will remain only in dreams, because you won’t be able to do many things.
Friday evening
But suppose you say yes to the temptations of the perfect weekend. It starts at that the moment you finish work on friday. You will find your friends and… the counter is already running. Going out somewhere in the evening with friends (light snacks, beer or coffee for two) will cost from 18 euros.
Saturday
You will wake up the next day and prepare for the week’s shopping to stock the fridge for the next 7 days. If you are bored and do not even want to mentally touch the pan, then in the supermarket you will get only the most necessary things (toast bread, ham and cheese), as well as something else you need, you will spend from 20 euros.
Spring, of course, means tables outside and after shopping you go to find your company for a coffee or a bite to eat together, 15 euros is the minimum you will definitely spend, according to the publication lifo.gr.
But that is not all. After all, it’s coming Saturday evening! Returning to the Athenian nightlife after the quarantine is just a “delight of the soul”. To return to a life filled with colors, communication and music, which was inaccessible during the pandemic (in quarantine) – well, who can resist here?
So, you make an appointment with friends and pay a ticket (10-15 euros) to enter a nightclub (disco). Usually in the morning, drunk, call a taxi (pay again!) to return home “safe and sound”.
Sunday
I’m not talking about expensive tickets to the theater, exhibition or cinema (for two). But it’s so good to make a trip outside of Athens on a spring Sunday morning (for example, to the islands that are 50 minutes from the port of Piraeus and cost at least 30 euros on a ship). In a word, one way or another you will have to spend money on gasoline.
And therein lies the “hard truth”.
If you do half of all of the above on a weekend, chances are you’ll be broke in two weeks. With a salary of 700-800 euros per month, many things will be inaccessible to you.
Young people today have a different form of entertainment that seems both economical and acceptable to their peers. Probably the only way to have a good weekend:
- have a party at home
- walk in the park,
- a trip to the summer (open) cinema,
- buying groceries at a supermarket at a discount or on promotions,
- replace a visit to a restaurant with a picnic in a park or on a hill (Zappeion National Park, Philopappou, Pedion tou Areos, etc.),
- other tricks from the category of “need for invention is cunning.”
In the post-COVID era cost of living for a young person increases many times and makes us consider “guidelines for urban recreation” as a bad joke. The only days of the week when he rests, on the so-called “weekend”, the young Greek sometimes spends in despondency, looking longingly at how life “passes by.”
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