You negotiated a good raise, and your contract now says 18,000 PLN a month. In January it felt great. By July something is off: groceries cost more, the holiday budget has shrunk, and the laptop you wanted is suddenly 500 PLN more expensive.
Your salary didn't change. What it buys did.
The problem you don't see
If you live in Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Romania or Sweden, you're probably paid in a national currency rather than EUR or USD. Yet much of what you buy is priced off EUR or USD: electronics, software subscriptions, imported food, fuel, travel.
That creates a gap: your income is fixed in one currency, while your real costs follow others.
When your currency weakens against EUR and USD, you take a pay cut nobody announced. When it strengthens, you get a raise nobody announced. Either way, you rarely notice until the effect has built up.
A real example: the zloty in 2023
A Polish professional earning 20,000 PLN a month signed their contract in January 2023. The zloty had just finished 2022 almost exactly where it started against the basket.
Over the next six months it gained about 9.5% against the basket, second only to the forint. The same 20,000 PLN bought more imported goods and cheaper holidays, and USD-priced subscriptions such as Netflix or cloud services cost less in real terms.
In effect, that person got a raise on everything priced abroad, without a single change to their contract.
On FX Compass you can see exactly how PLN does against the full basket. A rising line means your salary is gaining real purchasing power.
It works the other way too
Take the Hungarian forint (HUF). When it weakens against the basket, people paid in forints feel it quickly. Fuel gets more expensive because oil is priced in dollars, imported electronics cost more, and even domestic food prices drift up because Hungary imports agricultural inputs.
If your salary stays flat while that happens, it's a real pay cut.
How to track it on FX Compass
- Open the dashboard and select your home currency: PLN, CZK, HUF or SEK. The Romanian leu isn't part of the index.
- Set the time range to your contract period or your last salary review.
- Read the trend. A rising line means you're gaining purchasing power; a falling one means you're losing it.
- Add EUR and USD to see the gap between the currency you're paid in and the currencies that drive your costs.
If your currency's line is falling while EUR and USD are rising, that gap is your hidden pay cut. Take it to your next salary review as evidence for a raise.
What you can do about it
Check your currency's strength every three months, because small moves add up over a year. Time big purchases: if your currency is strengthening, the imported car or the trip abroad is cheaper now, and if it's weakening, wait if you can. Bring a chart to your salary review. A line like "the zloty lost 6% of its purchasing power in nine months" persuades better than "everything feels more expensive". And if you can, take on side work paid in EUR or USD as a hedge against a weak home currency.
Track your currency
These links open the dashboard with your national currency selected:
- PLN against EUR and USD over one year, for Polish salaries
- CZK against EUR and USD over one year, for Czech salaries
- HUF against EUR and USD over one year, for Hungarian salaries
- Nordic currencies over six months, for Swedish and Norwegian contracts
The number on your contract is just a number; what matters is what it buys. If you're paid in PLN, CZK or HUF, your real income keeps shifting with forces you probably don't track. FX Compass makes them visible, so you can act before the next quiet pay cut.