Global Cost of Living Index.
BA is WAY down the list!
Past 140!
Cheaper than Paraguay!
TL.
[url]http://austin10.cityspur.com/2009/10/28/global-cost-of-living-ranking-1-april-2009/[/url]
Printable View
Global Cost of Living Index.
BA is WAY down the list!
Past 140!
Cheaper than Paraguay!
TL.
[url]http://austin10.cityspur.com/2009/10/28/global-cost-of-living-ranking-1-april-2009/[/url]
For Argentina, the worst is yet to come:
[url]http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/902[/url]
[QUOTE=HappyGoLucky]For Argentina, the worst is yet to come:
[url]http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/902[/url][/QUOTE]This is old. The mid term elections are already over.
It's about 5 months old but I found this part interesting:
"At some point authorities are going to have to bite the bullet and go through a major recession there to get it going back in the right direction," said Will Landers, a portfolio manager at BlackRock who oversees $4 billion in Latin American equities.
"That's not going to be comfortable because that's what happened in 2001," Landers said.
Unlike others who put this type of list together, there seems to be a much heavier emphasis placed on health care, consumer goods, energy, and education based on some heavy western guidance that throws some of these cities very high or low. Its like calculating 15,000 mile a year private auto use in Lagos, sending kids to private foreign language schools etc. For executives overseas. The application seems over done and totally distorts real world living costs for average expats.
[url]http://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/archives/09nov19-world-gold-markets.html#cost-of-living-and-expat-life-in-buenos-aires[/url]
"Argentina is booming," writes Intrepid Correspondent Paul Terhorst from his part-time home outside Buenos Aires, "in spite of government efforts to kill off the private sector. Example: A friend is doing a high-end condo project in Uruguay. He put the units on the market two weeks ago and has been selling one a day. These are million-dollar apartments. He just raised the prices 15% , and he figures he'll have all units sold by Christmas. All to Argentine purchasers.
"For Vicki and me, Buenos Aires is very expensive. If you go to a supermarket here and compare the prices of meat and chicken, carrots and onions, bread and eggs, costs are more expensive than in the United States or Europe. The South of France would be more affordable right now.
"Having said that, we're having a very good time. For some reason the services we use--taxis, car hires, take-out restaurants, gardeners, buses, maids, meat markets, wineries, hotels--have improved.
"We used to have trouble getting cars to pick us up, standing in long lines, long waits in general. Now we just jump in and go. I don't have an explanation yet.
"The best I can come up with is that we left during an uncontrolled boom that put tremendous demand on services. After the recession, which hit here only very slightly, and after a year or two of more normal economic expansion, day-to-day life has returned to routine."
Hola Happy. Not sure when you were stateside last but as far as the cost of meat goes you've got to be having one too many cocktails. I was just in Corrientes and the price of a whole LOMO was 36 pesos. I mean the whole tenderloin! In the US today you will pay at least 60 USD at a discount market ordered by the case (3 whole) Have never bought LOMO in BA but really can't imagine that the cost is in excess of 200 pesos for the whole deal. Just keepin it real. Happy Mongering All. Toymann
[QUOTE=HappyGoLucky][url]http://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/archives/09nov19-world-gold-markets.html#cost-of-living-and-expat-life-in-buenos-aires[/url]
"For Vicki and me, Buenos Aires is very expensive. If you go to a supermarket here and compare the prices of meat and chicken, carrots and onions, bread and eggs, costs are more expensive than in the United States or Europe. The South of France would be more affordable right now.[/QUOTE]Right, as anyone who has lived in NYC and been to Paris knows, those two places are way more expensive than Buenos Aires. I suspect any author who retires at 35, of course BA will be expensive if you have no income besides writing books about living the vagabond life.
Cornoir
[QUOTE=HappyGoLucky][url]http://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/archives/09nov19-world-gold-markets.html#cost-of-living-and-expat-life-in-buenos-aires[/url]
"Argentina is booming," writes Intrepid Correspondent Paul Terhorst from his part-time home outside Buenos Aires, "in spite of government efforts to kill off the private sector. Example: A friend is doing a high-end condo project in Uruguay. He put the units on the market two weeks ago and has been selling one a day. These are million-dollar apartments. He just raised the prices 15% , and he figures he'll have all units sold by Christmas. All to Argentine purchasers.
"For Vicki and me, Buenos Aires is very expensive. If you go to a supermarket here and compare the prices of meat and chicken, carrots and onions, bread and eggs, costs are more expensive than in the United States or Europe. The South of France would be more affordable right now.
"Having said that, we're having a very good time. For some reason the services we use--taxis, car hires, take-out restaurants, gardeners, buses, maids, meat markets, wineries, hotels--have improved.
"We used to have trouble getting cars to pick us up, standing in long lines, long waits in general. Now we just jump in and go. I don't have an explanation yet.
"The best I can come up with is that we left during an uncontrolled boom that put tremendous demand on services. After the recession, which hit here only very slightly, and after a year or two of more normal economic expansion, day-to-day life has returned to routine."[/QUOTE]Wait till you come to Brasil then.
My regular apartment in Fortaleza went up 85% this year.
That is the new price 2.450 Reais / month iso 1.600 last year and exchange rate of 2.5 Reais / Euro iso 3 Reais / Euro last year.
At least in Argentina I'll be geting 5,7 Pesos / Euro this year iso 4 pesos last year.
[QUOTE=HappyGoLucky][url]http://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/archives/09nov19-world-gold-markets.html#cost-of-living-and-expat-life-in-buenos-aires[/url]
"Argentina is booming," writes Intrepid Correspondent Paul Terhorst from his part-time home outside Buenos Aires, "in spite of government efforts to kill off the private sector. Example: A friend is doing a high-end condo project in Uruguay. He put the units on the market two weeks ago and has been selling one a day. These are million-dollar apartments. He just raised the prices 15% , and he figures he'll have all units sold by Christmas. All to Argentine purchasers.
"For Vicki and me, Buenos Aires is very expensive. If you go to a supermarket here and compare the prices of meat and chicken, carrots and onions, bread and eggs, costs are more expensive than in the United States or Europe. The South of France would be more affordable right now.
"Having said that, we're having a very good time. For some reason the services we use--taxis, car hires, take-out restaurants, gardeners, buses, maids, meat markets, wineries, hotels--have improved.
"We used to have trouble getting cars to pick us up, standing in long lines, long waits in general. Now we just jump in and go. I don't have an explanation yet.
"The best I can come up with is that we left during an uncontrolled boom that put tremendous demand on services. After the recession, which hit here only very slightly, and after a year or two of more normal economic expansion, day-to-day life has returned to routine."[/QUOTE]The prices for food in Bs As are a fraction of European and US. Top chicken here is U$1.50 a kilo or.68c lb. New York cut steak U$3 lb. I don't know where you shop but I live in one of the most expensive suburbs and these are the prices. Almost certainly cheaper in the poorer suburbs. In fact out of the 150 major world cities, Bs As comes in about 123 as the cheapest city for an expatriate to live. I guess we, meaning the quoted writer, live on different parallel universes.
Argento.
I'm really glad you guys weighed in on this as the "current" info. from International Living, a. k. a. Live and Invest Overseas, seems rather dubious at best.
[QUOTE=Argento]I guess we, meaning the quoted writer, live on different parallel universes.
Argento.[/QUOTE]The author (Paul Terhorst) has not had a published book in over 20 years so that can explain the discrepancies with his data and the facts.
A guy on the Amazon webpage for Terhorst's book (Cashing in on the American Dream) even pointed out how outdated it was:
"An interesting book, but really only workable if you have $400K--$500K in assets. What's worse, Terhorst assumes you'd be living off the interest generated by investing your assets in CDs earning a currently unheard of 8% interest.
In addition, the book doesn't touch on health insurance. I'm guessing that when he wrote the book almost 15 years ago, health insurance was far more affordable than it is now. Either that, or he was assuming that you could self-insure if your assets were so high.
I'd like to see this book updated for the 21st century--I. E. How to "live off your assets" when interests rates are 2% or less, and how to live on "$50 a day" (Terhorst's mantra) while still securing health care."
If you read the author's homepage you can read that he is currently living 60 kms outside of Buenos Aires until March 2010. He even writes that his one book he wrote is out of print, but he still trying to sell it like it is worth anything.
Why does he not update his book, especially with today's economic woes? I think we know the reason why.
Cornoir
The October 2009 cost-of-living stats from [url]www.xpatulator.com
[/url] show Buenos Aires at #266, in their rankings of 276 major cities around the world. By comparison, Asuncion comes in at #259; Montevideo comes in a #216. And what the heck? Only Brasilia in Brazil is mentioned, and it's at #12! (And my home town ranks #95.
I'd like to know what the income-tax picture is for expats in Argentina, especially retirees who are getting their pensions from offshore. I know that Brazil taxes worldwide income, whereas Uruguay taxes only what you earn in Uruguay. What's the law in Argentina?