Hola, hows life in BA?

__OJ__

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I'm planning on taking a long trip to BA for an undetermined amount of time teaching english/spanish. Does anyone know what the job market is like and also life in general. Any feedback would be much appreciated
 
Welcome, in general terms BsAs. is an expensive city to live in accomodation wise, cheap to eat , travel about etc... Working and living on a local salary is hard. There is a wealth of info on this board, search for previous posts...many on this subject.
 
I would say overestimate your budget greatly. If you based your budget on the info that’s on the internet generally then your not going to have half as much as you will need.

In this city the prices of things vary greatly depending where you are. Different situations that you may not have foreseen may end up costing you a small fortune if your on a tight budget. A very basic example would be say you earn 6 pesos an hour, which my friend does, in an English speaking job. A bottle of coke costs 6.50 pesos. In the kiosko it can cost between 7-11 pesos. Okay so you say you might avoid the kiosko, but what if you really want some coke?

If you don’t drink coke then this might seem like a silly example but you can pretty much apply it to any situation and any product or service. Things cost more if they come out of a fridge for example.

It’s tiny amounts of money if you convert them but when you work here you forget about whatever currency your used to and think only of pesos.


That’s not even beginning to mention how one day you can go into the supermarket and your favourite product could have risen by 2 pesos.
Over estimate your budget by at least 50%- I.e work out how much your going to need and then add 50% of that on top again.

Buenos Aires is an amazing city and has amazing people but I got caught out by listening to bad advice about the cost of things and the amount of work and am in a bit of a pickle because of it. So just trying to warn others.
 
To live comfortably, I'd plan on spending 70-100 pesos a day. That includes groceries and daily trips to a cafe or two. Some days I wouldn't spend more than 40 or 50 pesos. I went to the grocery store everyday, however. (I'm weird and only buy what I need on a daily basis.)

On the weekends, I'd easily spend 100 pesos a night, if not more sometimes. I really like nightclubs. :)

$1100 USD a month is what it takes to live nicely and worry-free in Buenos Aires (in my opinion). After eating out a few times, groceries, transportation, rent, that's about the going rate. You probably wouldn't spend all of it, though.

Let's see how many disagree with me. ;)
 
Accommodations are certainly expensive... as a tourist (vs local).

It's true you can spend upwards of $100 pesos per day (lunch out @30, cafe @10, dinner easily 50-70...). You can certainly go cheaper, buying all groceries at small stores, fresh fruits etc...

Bring lot's of cash you'll burn through it ..!:rolleyes:
 
If you use the search engine of this site you will find a lot of useful information.
 
Katser said:
That’s not even beginning to mention how one day you can go into the supermarket and your favourite product could have risen by 2 pesos.

Nonethess, last week the nearby pizza factory rolled back their recent price increase.

The 13" cheese pizzas are six pesos, again (the increase was one peso).

Some might say they taste like the box, but I "smother" them with jalapenos.
 
Guys you are buying a 13" pizza to less than £1= 6 pesos? Those pizzas cost at least £10 in London. You pay 1.10 pesos for a metro ticket there, London about 15-20 pesos.
But I understand that it must be a very expensive city by local wages... with all that inflation over the years, checked the current prices of everything including accommodation, it seems very cheap to me, or maybe it is Europe/ London that is so expensive.

Jan 2010 Rank Country, City (Oct 2009 Rank)[Change in Rank]
1 Japan, Tokyo (1) [0]
.
.
268 Uzbekistan, Tashkent (267) [1]
269 Bhutan, Thimphu (262) [7]
270 Argentina, Buenos Aires (266) [4]
271 China, Dalian (271) [0]
272 Yemen, Sanaa (263) [9]
273 Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar (272) [1]
274 China, Guangzhou (273) [1]
275 Zimbabwe, Harare (276) [-1]
276 China, Tianjin (275) [1]
 
Those statistics are pretty misleading.
Irritating as well.
My student loans company insisted that I should keep repaying my loan as per usual because according to them Argentina is as cheap as Afghanistan. Maybe they made their price indeces shortly after the crash.

Budget for threshold levels of subsistence in europe or the US, and you'll be pleasantly suprised by how well you can live here. Bank on it being cheap as chips and you might be sorely disappointed.
 
anatolie said:
Guys you are buying a 13" pizza to less than £1= 6 pesos?

Only at the pizza facroty, but I prefer their pizza with onions and sliced tomatoes for 10 pesos...amost twice the price but well worth it!

But I'll never say it's great pizza
 
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