Okay, to answer the first post here. I came here thinking my wife and I were going to live here forever. Now we're planning on leaving after 3 years of our stay. And its not because the country is the worst thing imaginable. Its just that economically, the numbers just don't add up at the end of the month.
As for this debate about whether Argentina is expensive or not, I posted the following numbers on another post. They describe in real terms the expenses one has to pay put side to side between BsAs and Glasgow. The starting salary for a junior auditor at an audit firm in Argentina is
55200 pesos (pre-tax) and the same position in the same audit firm in Glasgow pays a starting salary of (pre-tax) 22,000 GBPounds which is roughly
154,000 pesos (multiplied by 7, the rate today is 7.144). Anyway, let's see the numbers:
Glasgow:
Rent (in a nicer part of town, 1 BR apartment): 525 pounds (Approx. 3756 pesos);
Council Tax: 130 pounds (Approx. 930 pesos);
Electric and water (they don't use gas at all, everything is run on electric): 75 pounds (Approx. 536 pesos);
Apartment Expenses (upkeep, elevator, etc): (Landlord pays so) 0 pounds (Approx. 0 pesos
);
Eating Out (if they go out only once every weekend): 60 pounds (Approx. 429 pesos);
Groceries: 120 pounds (Approx. 858 pesos);
Public Transport (calculated at 22 days a month and if a separate ticket is bought every day. It costs less if you buy a monthly ticket): 71 pounds (Approx. 508 pesos).
Total: 981 pounds (Approx. 7020 pesos, rounded off with other expenses:
7500~8000 pesos).
Buenos Aires:
Rent (in a nicer part of town): I don't pay rent so someone help me out here.
Council Tax: Someone help me out here too.
Electric/Gas (this is the average, and with subsidies; last time I paid 20 pesos for electric): 100+30 = 130 pesos (Approx. 18 pounds);
Apartment Expenses + Water (we pay it all together): 800 pesos (Approx. 111 pounds);
Eating Out (if we go out once a week): 600 pesos (Approx. 83 pounds);
Groceries (this varies from month to month but not considering groceries bought for guests etc.): 2000 pesos (Approx. 279 pounds);
Public Transport (since we don't have full day pass here, I am going to use 2 subte trips for this calculation. Calculated for 22 days a month): 110 pesos (Approx. 15 pounds).
Total: 3640 without rent and council tax (Approx. 508 pounds). Like I rounded off for Glasgow, I will do the same here and round it up to ~
4000 pesos.
For Glasgow, if we take out the rent and council tax, we have: 8000-3756-930=3314 pesos.
The numbers for Glasgow are provided by a friend of mine who lives in Glasgow and are currect. I'd appreciate rent and ABL numbers from a nicer part of town like Palermo (not Puerto Madero) to give us a picture of what's more expensive and where you can have a better quality of life.
GS_DirtBoy I disagree with you that you can get a better quality of life in Argentina for similar numbers but maybe I am not understanding what you really mean(?).
Alex, come on down all you want. No one is stopping you but I will just advise you to take what's written on these forums somewhat seriously because most of what's written here is a true representation of Buenos Aires.
