Buenos Aires Is More Expensive Than New York, London, Madrid

[Somewhereinba]

It's only cheap if you have dollars and think in those. For most of us that live here, we earn and live in pesos. Not only are things net/net more expensive, they are also a much higher percentage of your salary.

I agree. To be honest I struggle to see how people live here on their salaries. Most recent shopping bill was 500 pesos for 2 weeks worth of food max. Take an average salary of 5000-7000 pesos after tax and thats nearly 10% gone. Rent is approx 3500 for a 2 bedroom apartment. Either people are lying about their salaries or getting money from somewhere else? Would love to hear from more Argentinians. I know a lot of the people in my city get money from parents and property passed down to them through family. Is this money from when Argentina was pegged to the dollar?

 

[StuckLikeGlue]

My boyfriend and I, between the two of us, make around $6000 pesos a month. Haven't really saved a dime in 2 years of living together, something always comes up that wipes out anything we had managed to save (fridge breaks, dog gets sick, etc). Our breakdown is:

$2500 rent + expensas
$500 bills (cable/internet, ABL, etc)
$1000 groceries
$600 for my health insurance (his is covered)
$500 dog food

That leaves about $1000 to, you know, enjoy life. Maybe dinner and a movie ($200) once a month. Suffice it to say....we don't go out much.

 

[Ceviche]

My boyfriend and I, between the two of us, make around $6000 pesos a month. Haven't really saved a dime in 2 years of living together, something always comes up that wipes out anything we had managed to save (fridge breaks, dog gets sick, etc). Our breakdown is:

$2500 rent + expensas
$500 bills (cable/internet, ABL, etc)
$1000 groceries
$600 for my health insurance (his is covered)
$500 dog food

That leaves about $1000 to, you know, enjoy life. Maybe dinner and a movie ($200) once a month. Suffice it to say....we don't go out much.

sounds tough! between two of you you just earn 6000 pesos. are salaries so low for i guess 'educated/qualified' people ?

 

[Ceviche]

I agree. No way BA is more expensive than NY!

 

[citygirl]

Borracho - where did you get those numbers? I'm having a tough time believing that average person ia a)earning 9K a month in salary and B) is paying 2k a month in rent.

 

[trennod]

sounds tough! between two of you you just earn 6000 pesos. are salaries so low for i guess 'educated/qualified' people ?

Yes, they are that low. In my office, graduated professionals with 3 years experience earn about 6000 pesos in hand a month (ie say 1200 dollars a month, less if we take the blue). Back home, their counterparts earn more than 3 times that, close to 4000 dollars a month. There is NO WAY, overall it is 3x cheaper here. Hence why living standards are lower.

 

[trennod]

So me being a bit of a geek was working some of these things out as part of my crazy Friday night. I did these very basic crude calculations. Its a bit of guess work and I'm sure some of you'll disagree on the numbers.

% cost of items after taking away cost of rent and travel from your salary.

Buenos Aires
Av Salary 9000
Salary minus rent 7000 (-R)
Salary minus rent & travel 6700 (-RT)

Rent = 28% of salary
Transport = 3.3% / 4.3% (-R)
Bread = 0.22% (-RT)
1 lrt Milk = 0.09% (-RT)

London
Av salary per month £2300
Salary minus rent £1550 (-R)
Salary minus rent & travel £1425 (-RT)

Rent = 33% of salary
Transport 5.4% / 8.0% (-R)
Bread = 0.1% (-RT)
Milk 1Lrt = 0.06% (-RT)

I agree with citygirl, borracho that average salary looks high. I saw some numbers this week saying average household income in Palermo was about 11000 pesos and thats a upper-middle to upper class suburb.

Its fine that public transport is cheap here, but for the quality its well deserved. Ever taken one of the trains that go to the province? You would have to pay me to ride that every day.

 

[trennod]

By no means am I a big fan of CFK, but it seems to me that Clarin (which is the paper I normally check out) selected those products specifically because they, well, are in fact more expensive here. I can't imagine the effect that inflation has on people earning pesos and it must be really tough if you have to deal with it, but it really doesn't help to have so many biased arguments on both sides. The govt says everything is perfect, the opposition blows everything out of proportion. I wish people in general could try to reach an understanding somewhere in the middle. That article doesn't take into consideration everything it should.

They probably wanted to select products that are sold in all countries so they could compare, hence they chose these. You couldnt expect them to compare a packet of buns from Argentina with a packet of lays in London, could you?

 

[StuckLikeGlue]

sounds tough! between two of you you just earn 6000 pesos. are salaries so low for i guess 'educated/qualified' people ?

My boyfriend's salary is actually pretty high compared to others... he's a recent graduate of culinary school and snagged a job as a personal chef for an expat here who earns in dollars!! Without that gig we would both be en el horno

 

[internationalguy]

They probably wanted to select products that are sold in all countries so they could compare, hence they chose these. You couldnt expect them to compare a packet of buns from Argentina with a packet of lays in London, could you?

I meant they were comparing products in a biased way, and again, I'm not a CFK fan at all. But they compare instant coffee.. chicken nuggets..lays. I'm just saying that we all know many things are cheaper here and they didn't mention any of those things. Meat, produce, dairy. All I'm saying is that you can convey a more appealing message if it looks fair and balanced, ironically that's exactly what Fox News fails to do, hence no one takes them seriously. If Clarin wants to show they really are right (and they normally are), they gotta stop taking cheap shots like this. That's all.

And I never said they should compare buns here with lays in London, that's ridiculous.