I'm assuming you mean $240K per
year? Or is it a lump sum over X years? Per year you would be fine, no problems at all. Even a lump sum over two years you would probably be fine.
Any monetary comments in USD are converted at the blue rate, or the official rate if it was before the blue rate separated quite a bit from the official rate. I'm not sure where and how your husband will get paid (half here in pesos, other half in the US in dollars?). If you get paid anything in the US and want to bring money down here, well, that's a complicated subject. But in that case the blue rate may mean more to you than otherwise.
If they pay your husband 50% in pesos, you won't get $125K USD worth of money here. The official rate as I type is around 8.40 pesos to the dollar. The blue rate (black market) is about 14-1, which is much more realistic a value of the peso. So at the official rate your husband would be paid a little over $1 million pesos, while the real value of that based on the blue rate (although black market, it is considered close to a free market for dollars) would be around $1.7 million pesos as I type this.
The blue rate is uncertain, but few think it will drop below where it is, at least for an extended period of time. No one knows how fast the official rate will rise to meet inflation.
I'd be surprised if you were to be paid dollars, here in Argentina - that's a LOT of dollars for a company to come up with in a year, but I suppose it's possible. If they are going to pay in you in dollars as well here, make sure you understand how they will be paid and who has control of the actual cash, how much extra taxes might be taken out, etc. Dollars are tightly controlled here and it's probably only going to get worse in the next year or two as Argentina's Dollar reserves shrink.
1 - I don't know much about private schools that speak
only English - I'm sure there are some (maybe someone else can comment). But there are high-level schools that do half-and-half (half day of English, half Spanish). I have girls in private schools here, Spanish courses but teach English, and I've paid anywhere from $100 USD a month to $200 USD a month per student. The high-level (at least half) English schools ran about $500 USD a few years ago, maybe at worst add another couple of hundred USD.
2 - I live in Recoleta, which is next to Palermo. I pay about $1200 USD a month for rent and building expenses. 170 sq mtr apartment, three bedrooms, an office, maid's quarters (which can be used as a small bedroom or storage space, or even have a maid live-in if you were so inclined - probably about $400 - $600 USD a month for a live-in).
Palermo is probably a little cheaper but not by a whole lot. Palermo has nice places to live, but it has recently been rated as the neighborhood with the most robberies (probably fewer police than Recoleta and Microcenter, but still a concentration of middle- and upper-middle class families, good targets for robbers). I'm not at all saying that Palermo is a dangerous place, but you have to be careful here anyway.
Bigger apartments can be harder to find - most are 1 and 2 bedrooms, a decent percentage of 2 bedrooms come with maid's quarters. You'd have to look on a map for other barrios and see what might be good, but neighborhoods bordering Palermo are pretty good for newcomers and you don't want to be too far from work because rush hour can be a bitch whether you're taking a bus, subway or taxi (or driving).
I pay almost as much in food as I do rent. We're 5, three adults (one of whom just turned 18 and is attending university) and two minors. But we eat well.
Electricity is cheap compared to where I come from, even without subsidies. We pay about $150 USD a month in the summer when our A/C units are running (usually just at night, or when we have someone over).
The more modern the apartment and its building, the higher the rent, expenses, etc. My building was built in the 70s and it lacks certain things that I'm used to (central air/heating, for example) but it is a nice, though older, apartment.
You might look at a house in Belgrano (next to Palermo, the other way from Recoleta) or other neighborhoods close by. I've seen rents for anywhere from about $1200 USD to $2500 USD, and recently heard about a 4 story, 200 sq mtr house with a nice lot (grass!), barbeque, pool and a small apartment on the back of the lot. It was going for $1200 USD, but it needed to be finished (built in 2001 it was never moved into and lacked some electrical runs and a little finishing here and there). The pool was full of water that had been stagnant for 5 or more years. Another comparable house nearby without a pool for about $1400 USD a month. Houses that are not in closed neighborhoods typically don't pay expenses, but pay service and property fees which are not usually as much as building expenses.
Make sure the company is going to provide a means to guarantee the housing contract. Two year contracts (long term) almost always require guarantees. These guarantees are mostly required in the form of property and mitigates the possibility that you will occupy the apartment without paying for it, or destroying it. Someone in your position shouldn't have too much trouble, I'd imagine. At the kind of salary you're talking about I'm assuming your husband is connected with a big company who should be able to handle this sort of thing easily. Just make sure it's discussed as part of the employment contract.
3 - Many people do not wish to drive here. I do - I've driven all over the world and am quite accustomed to craziness. But the drivers here are pretty crazy (most crazy that I've encountered - even compared to Italy where you used to be able to drive on the freeways and stop off for gas and top yourself off with a mixed drink! - Don't know if that's still the case...). You can look at various websites to see what car values are. I haven't bought a car in some 6+ years. I have a 1999 Renault Megane 5 door, 1.6 liter car. I spent about $9K USD when I bought it. $20K - $35K USD (depending on at official or blue rate, and what kind of car) should get a pretty decent new car. Used cars are not much cheaper than new cars of the same model until you start getting fairly old (which is why I bought a car that, in 2007, was already 8 years old).
You have a monthly tax on cars (I believe less than ten years old, but don't remember now), that could run you a couple of hundred USD a month or more, depending on the value of the car. Plus, many apartments (I don't know the percentage) don't come with parking, so you may have to pay for a parking spot in a local garage (or rent a space from an apartment or space owner in an apartment building that does have a garage). In Recoleta, I'm paying about $107 USD a month for parking at the moment (1500 pesos).
Insurance is relatively cheap - I pay about $285 USD per year for my car. Newer and more expensive cars will be much higher but still cheaper by a long shot than what I'm used to in the States.
I feel like I have to have a car if at all possible - I'm not all that much a city boy and love to be able to walk two blocks to the garage, get my car, and get out of the city on occasion. For the most part, however, I walk (within 20 or so blocks) or take taxis to get around locally. Not a lot of street parking available (and often difficult to understand if it's alright to park in a spot, even with a lot of other cars around), but there are a number of garages throughout the city you can park in for tooling around in the car.
4 - Domestic help is in the neighborhood of $50 pesos an hour (at today's blue rate, about $3.57 USD). I think for a live-in (we don't have a live-in) that you are probably talking around $5000 pesos a month, but anyone else feel free to correct me.
Make sure you are ready, as a family, to adjust to significant changes here. Living here can be great, particularly once you get the hang of it. But aggravations will be an on-going situation, most likely
