List the Cost of Living in Your Favorite International Destinations
08-29-2015, 11:54 PM
I really want to see this thread come back from the dead.
Here's my budget for Saigon from last month:
Rent: $275, plus another 40 for electricity and water. It's a studio just outside the very center of the city, looks brand-new. It's in an alley (a must, in my opinion), and the area is very clean.
I don't pay for Internet. I run AC maybe 4-8 hours a day depending on how much I'm home.
Food and Drinks: $330 for food, $65 for drinks.
Bearing in mind, when I say drinks I mean smoothies, coffee, etc. I don't go to bars or clubs. That being said, beer is extremely cheap here--anywhere from 50 cents to $1.50 depending on where you go.
Coffee ranges from just below 50 cents for roadside carts, up to $3 at the (upscale!) cafes. I usually spend somewhere in between, about $2.
As for food, I normally eat street food and cheap, local restaurants. I treat myself to sushi and nicer restaurants 2-4 times per week. Last time I got sushi, I spent $21 for 7 rolls--and not shitty, low quality ones either.
It's possible to spend as little as 45 cents on a banh mi (sub on a baguette), but it won't fill you up. I'm not going to write 10k words here about Viet food, but other cheap options are rice with meat (one serving of meat usually runs $1-$1.25) and banh bao (steamed pork and egg buns, 75 cents) that tend to be more substantial.
To put it in perspective, my lunch yesterday was a massive grilled pork chop, 3 fried eggs and pig skin with shredded pork, pickled vegetables and rice for $3.50.
Transportation: $90
This number is way higher than usual because I dropped $70 bucks on motorcycle repairs. I drive A LOT and I spend about $20 a month on gas.
Bike parking around the city is never more than 25 cents, usually about $10 a month if your place doesn't have its own lot.
Motorbike taxis are very cheap. I remember when I first got to the city, an hour round-trip journey cost me five bucks. Regular taxis run about $10 if you're going from the airport halfway across the city. Not sure about buses.
Gym: $20
You can spend a little or a whole lot on gym memberships here. Unlike western gyms which try to lock you into shitty contracts, Vietnamese gyms will actually give you substantial discounts for signing on for 3, 6 or 12 months.
Unfortunately there are very few mid-range gyms. For about $10 a month you'll get a trashy local gym with no AC, broken machines and few weights to play with.
I spend $20, and while it still doesn't have AC, it's got everything you need to get the job done (except a full squat rack).
You can pay up to $100 per month for boutique gyms, but I'm assuming guys here don't give a shit about hot towels and complimentary cucumber water.
Entertainment: Depends on how much stimulation you need, but I spent about a hundred bucks last month. Honestly, half of that was on video games.
Movie tickets are dirt cheap, maybe $4.50.
Toiletries: Brace yourselves...$4.
Toilet paper, toothpaste, everything is so cheap. You might spend a little more when you're setting up shop, but it's almost negligible.
Miscellaneous: $46
This includes trips to the dentist, hospital, ATM fees, etc.
Healthcare is very cheap here. Your misc. category may vary.
Visa: Roughly $40, but fluctuates.
The visa situation here (once you're already in the country) has been fucked for the past 8 months. You'll probably get a 3-month single-entry tourist visa, for which people will charge you anywhere from $130 to $350.
Obviously they are all full of shit, but you're not going to spend more than $50 a month for visa stamps.
Total: $1010.
You can spend a lot less or a lot more. I lived here on as little as $700 when I first arrived. It wasn't very fun, but it certainly wasn't poverty, either.
I think this is an honest baseline which you can use to plan a stay here, unlike some sites where I've seen BS numbers like $500 a month. At 500 a month you're living in a shithole and eating banh mi and bananas for every meal.
Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.