Steve you´re completely correct, you can´t get a furnished, all-expenses paid apartment with 2 bedrooms for U$S 300 a month. But nobody expects that anyway...
Furnished, all expenses paid apts are directed mostly to foreigners, so of COURSE they´re going to be expensive! You get what you pay for, of course! But what I am saying is that 1500 DOLLARS a month is a great salary here. Now whether that allows you to live like you did in america, probably not, and that´s something the original poster needs to consider himself. You won´t probably live like most americans do, but you have to weigh up the benefits and disadvantages yourself. Many peoeple choose to live here anyway, and there are various reasons why they do.
About whether I am upset by illegal foreigners ´taking´ argentines´ jobs: are you kidding? how many americans come here to work for what argentinians get paid, under the table? You´ve got some young people teaching english (myself included) but I don´t know of terribly many other cases. And your english teachers are NOT taking away argentine jobs - a native english speaker, believe it or not, is one qualification no argentine will never have (except rare cases), so when you talk about ´taking away jobs´ you usually talk about taking away jobs that natives can do, not jobs that they can´t do or don´t do as well.
And if this bank garantia thing is true, I stand corrected. I had never heard of it, and my boyfriend´s family has a apartment rental business. But maybe they have just never told me about this
If it´s true this is certainly great news...because the garantia thing can be a real problem even for argentines, especially those from the interior!
Well I hope the original poster has not been totally scared away by all of this talk. Even if he decides to rent a furnished apt here and not have roommates, he should be able to live a very decent life on what is left over (500 dollars a month is MORE than enough to live on, excluding rent). It´s really something that´s up to him, not to what we humble people think...
