Cheap expats

[Gringoboy]

Cheap expats?
Depends on your definition of 'expat' really. In my book it means someone who has left the shores of their mother country to settle in another; so by that definition, I must be an expat.
When i arrived here in 2005, it was a relatively cheap country to survive in. Not any more, and like many others here, I earn in Pesos. I long ago gave up making exchange rate comparisons with the UK. No point, this is the real world whether we like it or not.
On a lighter note, we were at a family bbq yesterday (all Arg except me) and we spent most of the time discussing the price of meat.
Now that IS a priority for all Argentines.

 

[andebobandy]

The thing that amazes me is the complaints about quality for the price from many expats here on the board. I am always reading how you can't find good pots and pans or other kitchenware or that the baby items are cheap like strollers and car seats or that there are no well made clothing. It's as if the expectation is for everything to be cheap just because it's Argentina. The quality of the items that you find is poor because, you DON'T WANT to spend the money to get EXPENSIVE and GOOD QUALITY things. It's the same everywhere and here. Go to Ikea and spend nothing but get cheap stuff, you can't complain about the quality. Go to falabella and get cheap stuff, you can't complain about the quality.

My pot and pan set at home was nearly $800, my knives were like $400. Here I got my entire kitchen set up pots, pans, dishes, utensils, knives, mixing bowls and everything for $500. I didn't buy bottom of the barrel stuff. I was being frugal. But I'm not complaining about the quality. The quality is what it is. I thought I did pretty well. There are places that you can get amazing quality items, but you will pay for it.

It's a choice to buy cheaper and by virtue poorer quality items, you can buy a $50 Peso wallet in Plaza Serrano, a $15 dollar wallet off a table in Union Square or a $500 dollar at Hermes. Gotta pay to play.

 

[Celia]

This country is a rip-off.....I ordered a little tikes plastic car for my son. Walmart charges 47 dollars for it, here it was 659 pesos!!!! They never delivered it, even though I have a confirmed order number.

6 weeks later after many emails and calls they tell me it is out of stock and the new price will be 800 pesos!!!! 200 dollars for a plastic car worth 40....I could buy a real second hand car in my country for that, and I won't be buying it for my son now. His dad will make him one instead...

 

[fifs2]

Gotta pay to play.[/quote]

mmm don't agree with respect to quality clothing, especially for kids. If I buy a t-shirt in M&S for 5 pounds I don't expect it to last for life, but perhaps a year without the seams falling apart, the color being washed out or the shape disappearing. Problem is if I buy an equivalent kids t/shirt here for say 50 pesos in Cheeky or Grisino it's a bloody mess in a matter of 4 or 5 washes. That's even true if I buy a kids tshirt from mini akiabara or paula cahen d'anvers where the price is more like 80 pesos plus. My second son is using key bits of my 1st son's wardrobe which surprise surprise comes from Europe. One of his jackets was lent to 8 other baby boys and came back impeccable. The price quality relationship for clothes here is appalling and getting worse...and no I'm not happy to just sit and complain and use my trips to Europe and those of my friends to bring back a whole seasons worth of clothes for the kids that are the envy of my friends here.

 

[citygirl]

Agree that price doesn't equal quality here. I bought a 400 peso linen dress from Claudia Laretta and a button came off before I wore it. I took it back to the store and they just shrugged and told me that was common. 180 peso going out shirt and it pulled apart at the seams the second time I washed it.

For what those prices are - I expect quality. And again, especially with clothing, I just haven't found it here. I am lucky enough to be able to stock up on things when I go overseas for work which is what I've taken to doing. But that's a luxury many don't have.

I don't mind spending money on things that will last. I do object to spending money on shitty quality. Which unfortunately, is often what you find here, even with the "name brands".

 

[perry]

Complaining about being charged high prices for bad quality is not cheap and just about everyone I have met here agrees that prices paid for quality is very low . I cringe when I buy something here because I know it will have a fault and then there is no service for this .

I find it ironic that many complain about crime but we are getting robbed daily with some of the prices charged for very basic products that can cost up to 4 times as much in dollars in Argentina. There is something seriously wrong in the system that allows for such gross price gouging .

 

[MizzMarr]

Totally agree with the posters saying quality does not match price here. If you buy something in Plaza Serrano you can expect for it to fade/fall apart, etc., in a short period of time. but if you pay good money ($400 for a pair of courdory pants, for example) I would expect for those to last for at *least* a year. In my experience nothing that I have paid good money for has lasted, and nearly everything has needed to be resewn, mended, or otherwise repaired or faded/pilled,etc., within a few months or a few wearings. It's pretty sad. Honestly, the inexpensive clothing that can be found in the States is a much higher relative quality, and high ticket items are guaranteed to last for a long time (years, if not more).

In terms of pots and pans and the like... being smart about where and how you spend your money can get you far. One of the big problems here is that a high quality of item that you're going to pay through the nose for costs 1-2x more than the very same quality item in another country. That said, I just bought a really nice quality german steel kitchen knife in P. Centenario the other week for $17 pesos, and it was a great deal. I don't think there's anything wrong with searching for the best bargains and making money go further than just being blase about spending and then end up simply paying too much.

I do agree that it's silly for someone coming here to be looking for a 300-400 apartment (much less in Cañitas--it wasn't that cheap even when I arrived in 2006 and things WERE cheap), but to compare Buenos Aires to other world cities such as NY is just silly. The cost of living here might be reatively more affordable, but not when you take local wages (even professional, high earning local salary paid in dollars or euros) into consideration. The only time it's relevant is if you're telecommuting and earning an American (that's USA, folks) or European level salary based in that currency.

 

[starlucia]

I bought a 400 peso linen dress from Claudia Laretta and a button came off before I wore it. I took it back to the store and they just shrugged and told me that was common.

As my Argentine partner says, "somos resignados." She recently bought a lovely 200-peso sweater and upon getting it home, discovered that a button had fallen off. I would have immediately taken it back to the store, but she just shrugged and said, "Eh, that happens with anything you buy here, we just sew the buttons back on." And when I tried to explain that price gouging is illegal in the U.S., and that a lot of businesses got into trouble for doing it during the NYC blackout, she looked at me like I had two heads

I think that complaining about inflation is perfectly understandable. People are going to complain about cost of living in whatever city they live in, but in BA, it really is a runaway problem. What I find offensive are the ex-pats that read a couple of bonehead travel articles talking about how cheap Buenos Aires is, move down here expecting to live like kings, and then bitch when it doesn't turn out to be as cheap as like, Ecuador (the implication that "all South American countries are equal.")

I remember a poster bitching about being unable to find an affordable Spanish tutor, because all of the good ones charged 50 pesos an hour or more, and the cheap ones didn't know how to teach. In actual cost-of-living terms, it's kind of insulting and exploitative to expect an experienced professional to charge less than 50 pesos an hour (not counting the unpaid prep work, the travel time, etc.) A friend who is a private tutor mentioned how many e-mails he receives from potential students, saying, "I'd like classes, but I don't want to pay 60 pesos an hour. Can you give me a discount?" Well, he's paying his bills, not providing a charity service, so.... no.

A few months ago I met a recent college grad who couldn't find a job in the U.S., so he moved to BA because he had no money and had heard "it was cheap to live" and he "could teach English, because I figure, everyone wants to learn English." When I met him, he was complaining about how he wasn't able to go out and socialize, because he couldn't afford the cost of a beer or a coffee. People! Do your homework! Justified or not, the Argentine economy is what it is. If you are looking for an Ecuadorian or Bolivian cost of living, you have to go to Ecuador or Bolivia.

 

[Davidglen77]

I too find that clothes here to be of very low quality even ones that are pricey. For example, pants pockets always end up with holes in them after a few months. I don´t carry much else besides a wallet but at some point I always find a coin falling into my shoe and then I think here we go again another hole in the pants pockets. And it´s not the stitching the comes out, its the actual fabric that is used just disintegrates or wears out very quickly. I have pants that I brought from the US when I moved here (4 years ago) that already had mileage on them when I got here and NONE of them have holes in the pockets. On the other hand pants pockets on pants I bought 6 months ago have already been repaired. Go figure.

 

[A&A]

I guess I just resent the snotty shits who bitch about prices and blog about it from their Mac Book Pros, with their iPhone docking station cranking out the latest iTunes purchases. And you know there are a lot of them....