[TrackerFF]

Northern Norway, but there's a ton of variance in prices here. You can easily move tens to hundreds of thousands in one city, so to find the cheapest you really need to look hard. I found a relatively old and run-down place, but which was easy to fix.

With that said, I have a very nice salary - relatively speaking - but as mentioned, it's around half of what jr. Engineers make in SW.

I'm lucky because my background from both Business and Engineering has been a good mix for landing my current gov. job - and the pay is good because the area / location is not very attractive, and it makes harder to get talent here. (I grew up here, so that's no problem).

Work involves a lot of travel, and I travel otherwise during my vacations, so things rarely get boring.

I've worked all over the world, but after I turned 30, I really haven't had the big-city needs, so living somewhere rural doesn't bother me anymore.

[marvin]

Software in Norway and saving $80k per year? In government, no less? That means post tax you're making in the ballpark of $150k, or maybe a bit less if your expenses are very low? Very good number for the location regardless.

I'm able to save $20k per year in Norway (south) and consider that great, relatively speaking. Remote work? I didn't think the public sector jobs paid this well.

[TrackerFF]

Not quite software (scripting at most), but in a senior engineering position with leadership role, and with a ton of travel - had almost 100 days last year. OT pays well, too. (So the salary varies a bit from year to year)

But the largest portion of savings boils down extremely low COL - I have a grand total of $800 / 7000 NOK in expenses pr. month, that includes everything. Pre-tax anywhere between $120k-$130k, depends on OT and travel.

State / gov. (directly or owned) jobs can pay pretty well, if you find the right positions - but they tend to lean towards engineering or medicine.

[marvin]

Really nice and thanks for the info. GJ on getting to a ridiculously low COL. My costs are on the ballpark of $1000 per month excluding housing costs, but housing costs easily approach that number as well. Which obviously reduces the potential savings rate dramatically.