Local Salary - bad idea?

[steveinbsas]

I´m a little aghast at some of these figures.

My boyfriend (argentine) is a lawyer and is being offered jobs at $1000 pesos per month. His sister is an architect and is being offered the same.

Hunh??

What duties would this pay level entail?

The pay to clean the toilets in a lawyer's or architect's office should exceed these figures.

Even the lowest paid house painters can make $100 to $200 pesos per day.

 

[nlaruccia]

Here the subway workers earn more than doctors. The people that sell the subway tickets earn around $6,000/month and subway drivers earn around $12,000/month. Where can we sign up with the same union is what I want to know.

 

[tez]

I agree with KatharineAnne.But then again I don't have any hard facts to put it against. My boyfriend works for a large domestic company as a chief executive and makes about 8000 pesos a month (some of that is paid as "expenses" as in fuel and insurance for car, car repairs, internet, etc), and his friends call him the rich boy. That allows him to live in a posh apartment in Palermo and to play polo (albeit he gets a good deal for knowing some people, but it's an $$$$ sport), but he is living literally paycheck to paycheck with that kind of expensive lifestyle. I'm not 100% sure on this, but: from what I have deduced his father, in the same company after 30 years and a much higher up position, makes 15,000 pesos a month. On this he is able to support a family of 5 (in combination with his wife's private school teacher's salary I assume), send all his kids to private schools plus one to an expensive private university, change his car often (now a VW Vento, which is expensive here), vacations, etc. They do well. I could be off by a bit but I think that is how it is in this particular family. (I'm sharing so much personal info because I am thinking it will be helpful to others! ah!)

If you can come out here and earn 10,000 pesos (USD 2500ish) I think it would be worth the change. You could have a great time here with lots of great experiences and not be bad off financially. Good luck.

Edit: some posts have come up while I was writing. As for the lawyer or architect, maybe the work isn't full time? I have spoken to a few accountants here and they expect about 1000-1500 pesos a month, which I always assumed was what they received from several clients. Maybe the examples are different... In my bf's company, a new Asistente de Venta makes about 3000 pesos a month plus expenses (lots of time in the street).

 

[mini]

How much higher can you get than Chief Executive? I thought that was the top?

 

[tez]

A chief executive of the company, not to be confused with Chief Executive or CEO. Sorry, poor word choice: he is an executive, important might be a better word, as it's not an entry level salary, not even mid-level. The word "executive" alone doesn't really say anything for the use on this thread since it covers quite a few pay grades it seems, so I was trying to clarify. I don't know how to better word or describe the position so people can use the salary information.

 

[SaraSara]

A chief executive of the company, not to be confused with Chief Executive or CEO. Sorry, poor word choice: he is an executive, important might be a better word, as it's not an entry level salary, not even mid-level. The word "executive" alone doesn't really say anything for the use on this thread since it covers quite a few pay grades it seems, so I was trying to clarify. I don't know how to better word or describe the position so people can use the salary information.

Could it be "Senior Executive" or "Top executive"?

Whatever the title may be, thanks for posting the pay rates. That kind of information is hard to come by.

 

[mini]

A chief executive of the company, not to be confused with Chief Executive or CEO. Sorry, poor word choice: he is an executive, important might be a better word, as it's not an entry level salary, not even mid-level. The word "executive" alone doesn't really say anything for the use on this thread since it covers quite a few pay grades it seems, so I was trying to clarify. I don't know how to better word or describe the position so people can use the salary information.

Yes. I was confusing it with CEO. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Ashley]

I'd be really interested to see what kind of credit-card debt these people have. Given that sending your kid to a bilingual private school here is about 2000 pesos per school and one of the cheapest cars new is about 40,000 pesos, I don't think that there is any way one can sustain an opulent family lifestyle with private schools, new cars, holidays, fashionable clothes, electronics, etc on 15,000 pesos unless you've got no children, are in debt up to your eyeballs or have family money stashed away and an apartment already paid for.
I think 15,000 would be an excellent salary to have for a single person (or a couple) living a somewhat luxurious lifestyle, but for a "polo-type" family...there's no way they could keep up appearances on that!
My husband earns a similar wage to your partner (a bit less) but has a very average lifestyle. Our apartment is pretty small, in an average area. We don't own a car but live a comfortable lifestyle. Most of our income goes on rent and then food, I would have thought (including eating out at average places a couple of times a week - which is our main "luxury") and he is able to save a little bit. The colleagues of his which do flash the cash have a lot of debt, despite earning similar salaries...

It's also very true the things people have been saying about the discrepancies between salary bands. I'm a university graduate, with post-graduate qualifications and six years of professional experience in competitive positions (here and abroad). I work for a communications consultancy here and am paid just a few hundred pesos more each month than our admin person! Employers just can't hire anyone at the bottom of the ladder any cheaper with inflation as it is and if there's no union protecting the rest of you, you're screwed! It also depends what profession you're in. I have more professional experience than my husband, but earn less than half what he brings in (in IT). I have lawyer friends who earn similar salaries to mine and friends who have basic admin-type jobs in large companies (with no university degree) who earn more than me!

I agree with KatharineAnne.But then again I don't have any hard facts to put it against. My boyfriend works for a large domestic company as a chief executive and makes about 8000 pesos a month (some of that is paid as "expenses" as in fuel and insurance for car, car repairs, internet, etc), and his friends call him the rich boy. That allows him to live in a posh apartment in Palermo and to play polo (albeit he gets a good deal for knowing some people, but it's an $$$$ sport), but he is living literally paycheck to paycheck with that kind of expensive lifestyle. I'm not 100% sure on this, but: from what I have deduced his father, in the same company after 30 years and a much higher up position, makes 15,000 pesos a month. On this he is able to support a family of 5 (in combination with his wife's private school teacher's salary I assume), send all his kids to private schools plus one to an expensive private university, change his car often (now a VW Vento, which is expensive here), vacations, etc. They do well. I could be off by a bit but I think that is how it is in this particular family. (I'm sharing so much personal info because I am thinking it will be helpful to others! ah!)

If you can come out here and earn 10,000 pesos (USD 2500ish) I think it would be worth the change. You could have a great time here with lots of great experiences and not be bad off financially. Good luck.

Edit: some posts have come up while I was writing. As for the lawyer or architect, maybe the work isn't full time? I have spoken to a few accountants here and they expect about 1000-1500 pesos a month, which I always assumed was what they received from several clients. Maybe the examples are different... In my bf's company, a new Asistente de Venta makes about 3000 pesos a month plus expenses (lots of time in the street).

 

[tez]

Actually, I don't think this family has any debt. I don't even think they have any credit cards. Recently they sold a family house in Cordoba on the mother's side and are now looking to put the money into an apartment here in BA, so if they had debt I would imagine they would use that money to pay it off since the rates would be outrageous... Also to clarify they don't have a polo family, only the son plays polo. To be honest it kind of surprises me as well that they do have such a lifestyle on that salary. I am not sure what a private school teacher makes either (the mother) but I think it might be as high as 8,000 pesos depending on how many hours, but again that is just from listening and deducing when the mom talks about co-workers complaining about their salaries and things like that-- I remember being surprised about how much it was. Further info: they do own a fairly large house (200m? I'm pretty bad at that-- 2 floors, 4 begrooms + quincho) in Caballito so we're not talking about a Belgrano family with all the money. I'd say they're upper middle? Vaguely related: they are of the class that was most affected by 2001, the dad lost quite a bit of money (USD 50,000 I think) in money invested in life insurance investments and whatever else was in the bank.

It also surprises me that they live so well but they aren't big spenders on things like fancy clothes and gadgets, so maybe that is the key. They are quite fastidious in some ways, but do do quite a bit of vacationing. So who knows. Still, when I asked my boyfriend if that was what he made, he said "mm por ahi puede ser" soo... I don't think I am too off on the numbers.

I'd be really interested to see what kind of credit-card debt these people have. .

 

[qwerty]

As long as the interest payment on your CC is lower then the real inflation your making money