Moving A Family To Buenos Aires?

[Rich One]

Thanks Garryl, if BA is a paradise compared to Kolkata then I'm sure we'd be happy there!!

I'm trying to get my head around the accommodation issue... Do I understand correctly - if we want to get a longer term rental (essential as we have kids of course) we will have to put a lot of money up front? (can you give me an idea of how much? are we talking a one year lease and we have to pay the full rent up front?)

And if we don't pay cash up front we won't get anything longer than 1 month? But how do we do that if it's hard to get money into the country?! Bring it in the suitcase or something?!

Can anyone offer anymore help on the cost of groceries please? At this stage it's really a case of trying to tie down the costs so that we can see if it's possible for us to live comfortably there, but apart from numbeo I'm finding it hard to get up to date info (and that seems to be so important due to the inflation). Numbeo only gives costs per grocery item but really i need a rough idea of the total monthly cost...

Let your fingers do the walking .... I will mention again How to figure the costs of groceries ... Check the WEB pages for the supermarket chains and do some math,,,,!! Also check Jumbo and Carrefour....!

http://www.coto.com....anal/index.html

For a group of 2 growing children and 2 adults $200 per day seems like the bare basics no delicatessen or Prosciutto just mortadela . Figure $50 pesos a day per child in MILK alone...

 

[delancepants]

Yeah you're right of course Garryl, we can always make new friends. It's easier to set up somewhere if you've had friends who've done it before you though. I suppose now I have kids I'm more sensitive to that as it was so hard moving the kids the last time.


This is a very helpful forum. I tried posting on a couple of Bangkok forums and hardly had any responses even though I know there are plenty of expats there. Weird.

 

[garryl]

Yeah you're right of course Garryl, we can always make new friends. It's easier to set up somewhere if you've had friends who've done it before you though. I suppose now I have kids I'm more sensitive to that as it was so hard moving the kids the last time.


This is a very helpful forum. I tried posting on a couple of Bangkok forums and hardly had any responses even though I know there are plenty of expats there. Weird.

There are 100 times more expats in Bankok than BsASs.

 

[delancepants]

citygirl - I have not had much success in getting a response from the schools in BA. I suppose right before xmas probably wasn't the best time to try to contact them. Anyway I wanted to double check something with you. You said that a good bilingual school is about 6000 upwards per month. I'm not terribly experienced at this expat stuff but I'm assuming bilingual means that some of the classes are taught in spanish? But my sons don't speak any spanish right now. So am I right in thinking that we actually need an international school or do the bilingual schools have some kind of special program for non-spanish speaking students? (My boys are aged 6 and 3, well nearly 7 and 4 now) And if bilingual schools are not an option for us are the international schools a lot more expensive? Thanks

 

[steveinbsas]

citygirl - I have not had much success in getting a response from the schools in BA. I suppose right before xmas probably wasn't the best time to try to contact them. Anyway I wanted to double check something with you. You said that a good bilingual school is about 6000 upwards per month.

I believe this is a recent estimate for the cost of an "international" school:

Hi! You will most likely won't get any prices by email, this is something they disclose after an interview and if admission is still open. I would say that between 800-1000 usd.

Source:
Moving Soon, Few Questions.

 

[steveinbsas]

Thanks steveinbsas, I am familiar with the search function! I am aware from previous experience though that when one is not resident in a country that one wants to find out about, it's often best to get up to date info. Often one has no way of knowing whether the info on forums is still current without asking and this seems to be particularly important with BA as some things seem to change rapidly. Forgive me (as a homeschooling expat mother of two small kids and definitely not enough support or sleep!!!) for taking the easy route!

I hope the information Nikad provided is current enough for you. I found it with the search engine using the terms "international school."

All searches provide the results in chronological order so you will be able to see just how up to date the info is, and information that is only a month old probably hasn't changed a great deal.

 

[steveinbsas]

Yes, that's my concern about BA, that he won't find a job there. It's the top of the list for us in terms of interest. Neither of us have ever been to South America despite being drawn to it. I'm just not sure if the job side of things will work out. I guess we'll see what happens in the next few weeks/months.

There have been a number of wannabe expats who have actually moved to Argentina hoping to find a job. In many cases that strategy hasn't worked out very well.

You may already know this, but it's important for all job hunters to know that the job has to be offered first and the company must have "permission" from migraciones to hire a foreigner. It is not possible to get a "work visa" in Argentina and then go job hunting.

 

[delancepants]

Thanks for the advice steveinbsas. I have two kids so I wouldn't move country without ensuring that we had a job to go to. I think the BA dream may not become reality unfortunately, as my husband is not confident that he can get a job in BA (or actually any of our selected countries) so he'll probably have to go back to international contracting. That being the case I wouldn't imagine there are too many countries that would grant a visa to a housewife with two kids!

Also I heard from the British consular staff here that there is considerable anti-Brit feeling in BA, so that's a little off putting.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

Between BA and Toronto I'd choose BA. Toronto, a nice clean city is right on the edge of Lake Ontario. It is brutally cold in winter.
I know first hand because when my family lived in NYC we would visit my sister, who lived there, mostly for Christmas & New Years.
I remember lots of snow & ice and temps at or below freezing on a daily basis. Specially at night. The wind chill blowing in from the lake makes you want to stay indoors.

Here's a link to an article in yesterday's paper about rents in the city. The average price is $4,300 pesos. for a one bedroom. Which comes to about U$D 325.00
at $13.00 pesos to the dollar. http://www.clarin.co...1504050060.html

You can check the Craigslist / BA for jobs. http://buenosaires.c...ng=en&cc=us
I don't know what your husband does for a living.

Here's a link to Airbnb BA. The prices are in U$D.
https://www.airbnb.c...e&source=bb

Your children are still at the young age where they will pick up the language & make new friends easily.

 

[delancepants]

Thanks johnniewalker yeah the cold in Canada is definitely a minus, but actually I spoke to a friend of mine who is there and she has put me off, so Canada's off the list. And if my husband is not going to be with me then Germany's out too as I don't speak German and I don't think I can manage to learn a completely new language plus an international move with two small kids all by myself! So we're looking at english/spanish/french speaking countries that I could live in on my own as a housewife. I'm considering Spain now. (I'm English so visas are not a problem there)