desde_Holanda
Registered
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2021
- Messages
- 60
- Likes
- 78
With respect to the rise of the cost of living for people with foreign income, last month I made a quick and rough comparison between april 2023 and april 2024. Note: from the perspective of someone who has an income in Euros, not in USD.I have to say that the cost of living has risen a lot in the past few months, and the USD hasn't risen much, nearly similar to December 2023.
It really impacts our lives, because we don't speak Spanish, we can't find a job here.
I really like this country, culture and the people, but this is life. The economy forces us to make a choice.
If I'm paying the same amount of money for housing or school fees, I expect a better quality of facilities or standards.
We have completely achieved our goal of coming to Argentina, so I am seriously thinking of going to another country.
We are originally from East Asia. We went back for traveling last year, and I feel Asia is so different now. I see energy, opportunity, and a future.
But my wife suggests we go to the UK because she doesn't like the education culture in East Asia. Honestly, I think it's too risky to spend a lot of money to set up in the UK and find a job in a short time.
We have been discussing this for a month, but still, there is no conclusion. The only conclusion is leaving this country, but we still don't when
For prices in pesos I used the official inflation rate (apr 2023 - apr 2024), which gives a good coverage of the price hikes in the recent months. As much as I can remember now, inflation resulted in a factor of 3,8 (i.e. inflation of 280%), maybe a little less but definitely higher than 3,5. E.g. something that used to cost ARS 1000 in apr 2023 has a price of ARS 3800 in apr 2024.
In the same way I looked at the Western Union rates that I had in apr 2023 and the one on the day in apr 2024 when I made the calculation. Ofcourse in apr 2024 Western Union gave quite a lot more pesos for the euro than in apr 2023.
What I remember well is that this quick calculation resulted in an inflation in euros of 60% (apr 2023 - apr 2024).
Now, when taking into account:
(1) in April 2023 Buenos Aires was in my experience much, much cheaper than my home country. So this 60% increase in one year is on top of a very low 'base'.
(2) that some prices in my country in Europe are also still rising quite fast (for instance a regular glass of wine now easily cost EUR 6 - 7 on a terrace, dinner for two quite quickly going towards EUR 120 - 150, without going anywhere super fancy),
then I still think that Buenos Aires is relatively cheap, when compared to NW Europe.
Note: I haven't been in BA since Dec 2023, but get regularly informed by my partner who's still over there.
