Hi,
We are hoping to move to Argentina in January 2017. We will have an income of approx. 50,000 ARS per month for a family of four. This would need to cover:
- Rent on a three bedroom apartment in safe family friendly neighbourhood (Palmero looks good, but would welcome any other suggestions, particularly cheaper areas with good bilingual schools).
- School fees for two young children.
- Bills, foods etc.
- Entertainment. Don't need to eat in best restaurants, but would like to be able to do some theatre / cinema / music events.
Appreciate that the interest rates may make this difficult, but would 50,000 be enough to cover this?
Louise
Unfortunately if you're truly not moving here for 1.5 yrs it's very difficult to tell what 50,000 pesos a month will be worth! Right now if that is net, that is fine for a family of 4.
In terms of schools, tuition can also vary widely. What ages are your children? Fees usually jump from inicial, to primaria, to secundaria.
We live in Villa Urquiza and have a much larger place than we would be able to afford in Belgrano or Palermo. The neighbourhood is connected by train to Palermo Hollywood and by subte to microcentro. Where you are working may influence heavily where you want to live as travel times can be terrible with traffic etc.
We send our son to Sir Thomas Malory in Urquiza. it's non-religious, bilingual (english begins at age 3 informally with stories, songs, basic vocabulary ie colors, weather, body, transport, animals, basic classroom etiquette ie asking for items in english or permission to use the bathroom etc), full-day is cumpulsory from age 4 so that they can start half day in english (a year earlier than a lot of other institutes). We really like the school so far, it doesn't have the profile, status, nor high prices of some of the more well-known institutes but for us it is exactly what we wanted in a primary school, close by, bilingual, and still very contained and small (only one division of max 25 students per year, so about 250 or so students in the entire school). There are two other bilingual schools in the neighbourhood as well, one of which I don't like the location (next to the train tracks with trains running by every 5-10mins) and the other told me if I wanted in I should have signed up when I was pregnant!
Many of the higher profile bilingual schools are concentrated in Belgrano. However up until Salita de 5 most are only half day, so if you have a child of that age and don't want to be travelling most of your day you may want to live nearby to whatever school you choose.
HOWEVER -
If you are moving in 2016 and not 2017 you need to contact schools now to find a placement for March 2016. Schools are notoriously bad at responding via email, so you may have to call some. If your Spanish is not fluent, consider it a method of weeding out schools! If they market themselves as bilingual they should surely have someone on staff that can respond to your phone calls in English. There are some schools that are more flexible and will try to let foreign students in midyear (though really that doesn't matter for you as if you arrive in January they will be here in time for the start of the school year in March)
Most schools are already interviewing for 2016 and some close their lists soon. There is usually a bit of shuffling around at the beginning of the school year, so places can come up at the last minute. Again, a lot are more flexible with foreigners so you may be able to get somewhere to hold a slot pending an in-person interview, but Jan/Feb most schools are closed so it may be hard to get in and have a physical tour of the grounds until shortly before the school year starts up.
The American and British embassies I believe have lists of private schools on their pages, or look on the International Baccalareate website for argentina, they maintain a list. Beyond that many are mentioned on these pages and there are a couple of Montessori or Waldorf options as well that you should be able to find with google..
