Spanish-American Newcomer's Observations

[jb5]

Not buying the jacket price, but yes, good restaurants can be much less here. If you have a foreign salary you can live very well. You can have a nice enough apt with regular maid service, eat in good restaurants, go to clubs all weekend, have good health insurance, take taxis everywhere....on about $40K US per year is my guess.

Really nice housing does get expensive though, so if you want that too make it $60K. But like any other great city, living really well here takes significant funds. Walk around Barrio Parque to see living well BA style. $4MM houses, luxury cars that cost twice what they do in the US or Europe, dinners at the Alvear Palace.....NYC or London prices!

 

[puvenlee]

Been here around 6 months now...Agree with you on most of the things but couldn't agree on the clothes.
the non-imported, non-designer clothes here are just as expensive...

And most of which , frankly saying are of China Quality. Don't get me wrong... some are not even as good as the ones you can get in Shanghai.

 

[puvenlee]

@Napolean: I have yet to go to La Cabaña Las Lilas but have heard great things so its good to know these things. So then, a good steak runs about 280 pesos per person at this establishment?

I wouldn't bother with Las Lilas, other than for a nice waterside lunch in the summer. La Brigada in San Telmo has much better meat. Also meat quality at La Cabrera seems to be pretty poor now.

With respect to the somewhat dismissive remarks that you are currently enjoying a "honey moon period" which is destined to end once you become familiar with "real life", I would ignore them. I've been here 2 years now and love it as much as when I first arrived, and that was after 13 years of spending a month or 2 here each year. The advantages of this city far outweigh the disadvantages.[/quote]

But the problem is you don't really 'live' here for every 1 or 2 months each year. Try come with a tourist suitcase and live for a year...

 

[jb5]

Great steak at La Cabrera last night. Not cheap for BA, buy way cheaper then a similar meal in the US or Europe.

 

[marksoc]

10,000 pesos per month for a couple grants you an upper-middle class lifestyle. If not, you are all doing it wrong.

Lunch in a lot of restaurants: 35 pesos, less in the "real" ethnic restaurants.
Haircut: 25-30 pesos (20 or less outside BA).
Urban Public transport: let´s say FREE.
Rent: get a garantia, for God´s sake.
Elementary School to University: I believe in public education. White guardapolvos for my future children, none of them will wear "private" uniforms.
Health: In this one a cheap pre-paga even beats the expensive ones. I go for Hospital Italiano, for some people is enough with an "Obra Social", others prefer to rely solely on public hospitals, even if they can afford other options.

Etc... etc... etcetera.

But continue paying those expat and cheto services, some of us make money from it.

 

[Smcali23]

^
I found your post quite funny, but the part about the garantia is just wrong. If you could explain how everyone here could get one then it would have some validity.
But, yeah, generally I agree that you can live on far less than 10,000 a month.

 

[MizzMarr]

10,000 pesos per month for a couple grants you an upper-middle class lifestyle. If not, you are all doing it wrong.

Lunch in a lot of restaurants: 35 pesos, less in the "real" ethnic restaurants.
Haircut: 25-30 pesos (20 or less outside BA).
Urban Public transport: let´s say FREE.

While I agree that 10k pesos for a couple would grant a totally livable and nice lifestyle here (but not upper middle class), I have issues with a few of your points.

First, what do you consider a "real" ethnic restaurant? All of the "real" ethnic restaurants that I have been to in this city are much more expensive than the regular porteño restaurants, and though it's been awhile the last time I went to any of the restaurants I'd consider "ethnic" lunch specials were definitely not less than 35 pesos (Sudestada lunch special, for example, which used to be around 25 pesos is now 63).

Haircut for 25 pesos? Maybe if you're a man. As a woman getting a haircut in this city is a scary enough prospect. I had so many problems and complaints and general unhappiness with the results of haircuts from varying local sources (Roho to Giordano, etc. etc. cheap to expensive) that I had ultimately had to seek out foreigner hairdressers to make sure that I was going to get what I wanted and fix the mistakes done to my hair. I spent at least $400 pesos over time in bad hair experiments before I learned my lesson and decided to just pay for the expat services. Some of the hairdressers here are serious butchers, even at the high end salons. Yikes. A friend of mine who is an Argentine hairdresser and does hair out of his home with an almost exclusively local clientele charges $65/cut. I would be terrified by someone who was coming at my hair with a pair of scissors wanting only $30 pesos in exchange, and wouldn't want to play the odds to find the "right" one.

Lastly, while urban public transport isn't expensive, it certainly isn't free.

To the OP, I hope s/he stays in love with Buenos Aires. There is a lot to love about this place.

 

[Sleuth]

10,000 pesos per month for a couple grants you an upper-middle class lifestyle. If not, you are all doing it wrong.

Lunch in a lot of restaurants: 35 pesos, less in the "real" ethnic restaurants.
Haircut: 25-30 pesos (20 or less outside BA).
Urban Public transport: let´s say FREE.
Rent: get a garantia, for God´s sake.
Elementary School to University: I believe in public education. White guardapolvos for my future children, none of them will wear "private" uniforms.
Health: In this one a cheap pre-paga even beats the expensive ones. I go for Hospital Italiano, for some people is enough with an "Obra Social", others prefer to rely solely on public hospitals, even if they can afford other options.

Etc... etc... etcetera.

But continue paying those expat and cheto services, some of us make money from it.

This is hardly "upper-middle class." Middle-class, maybe.

 

[Barney]

Elementary School to University: I believe in public education. White guardapolvos for my future children, none of them will wear "private" uniforms.

Poor children

 

[syngirl]

The only couples I know living an upper-middle class lifestyle on 10k pesos a month are people whose parents bought them their apartments. Otherwise rent and expensas are consuming a good portion of that.

And I'm sorry but I don't think you can really consider yourself upper middle class if you're relying on public transport -- especially here, a car is a status symbol, and no one upper middle would want to be caught dead stuck on the bus every night. They'll take public during the week if they have to go to the centro etc but believe me, any self-respecting upper middle class Argentine wants that car in their garage on the weekends.

Also a lot of the middle to upper-middle people I know are couples that are living in a 2 ambientes -- ie if the family expands they're not going to be "upper middle" anymore -- we know a number of couples whose parents bought them the first place, now they have 1 or 2 kids and they're still stuck in a 2 ambientes because they can't save enough to buy a bigger place -- so while they might leave the nest at middle or upper middle, few can maintain or exceed the class they left their family home at.