@xb6asd
You put it quite well.
@Tonyaod
Your breakdown of living expense is fair and compares with my experience except I cooked and ate at home most of the time without any great savings.
mmkunmingteacher is so off the wall it is hard to take him seriously. And given the lame questions he posts I seriously doubt he could figure out how to live as cheaply as he claims
I think you could live off 2k a month... Cheap shared apt about 900... Baozi for breakfast, 3 kuai, dinner (2 meals worth, cooking at home, leftovers for lunch every day) 20 kuai. That's 700 kuai for food a month. Total 1600 so far. Say 200 for phone/internet/water/power=1800. So 200 left over for clothes and any outings. You could do it, but it probably wouldn't be that enjoyable! I would call that "basic living" or "barely living"!
Add on another 500 for activities and the occasional western indulgence and you will get to the amount most foreigners could live on here if they were living frugally in shared cheap accommodation.
Add on another 500 and you would get to the amount you could live on by living frugally and travelling a little. Or nicer accommodation but still shared.
You would go up to 3500-4000 by living alone or shared in really nice accommodation plus western indulgence, travel and going out a bit.
4000 plus if you eat out all the time and spend a lot on clothes etc. This would be an amount I would call "living well" with an active social life and spending on luxuries plus travelling a bit.
More than this is easily done too, depends on how much partying, travel and luxuries.
It depends on your circumstances too though. If you live with a partner and share an apartment still, your rent costs halve. This is what I do and live off 2000-3000 a month easy with some travel, she probably spends not much over 1500. But my partner always cooks local food for us and is good at it too :-). I still have a western breakfast (oats, banana, western milk) and half the time have western lunch (sandwich, bread from wicker basket, tomato, bacon, cucumber, cheese from Metro). Occasionally go out to dinner, hardly ever go to the movies (just wait a bit and pay 5 kuai on youku!), once a month go out to a pub, lots of free fun like hiking and walking around parks etc. Throw in the occasional travel and it's pretty easy for us as a couple to live off 4k to 4.5k a month.
rent: 2000kuai (fully furnished apartment in Green Lake area)
utility bills: 100kuai internet, 20kuai gas (cook every day at home), electricity 120kuai (no solar power only electric heater for water), water bill is only paid once a year
==> 2300kuai
Occasionaly eating out in Western and Chinese restaurants, but eat Western food at home (eg bread and cheese, cereal for breakfast) and buying a lot of fruit and dairy. Going out a the weekends to have a drink or two.
==> 2500kuai
plus travelling, clothes and so on
I probably spend about RMB4000 a month, all included. Largely this has to do with drinking at foreign-run places and eating out, either at foreign-run places or, usually, at nearby local ones, which are quite cheap. Cooking is my big laziness, if I cooked more at home I could cut it way down. In short, it's easy to live cheaply, and the luxuries I allow myself that are listed above are simply because I can afford them. I could do without them in a minute, and have lived without them in the past.
OK, add a certain amount for land travel out of China several times a year for visa purposes.
You guys sure live cheaper than me. Of course I have a wife and daughter to pay for as well, but:
3,000 per month for rent and utilities just about beats what most of you guys claim as a total. A few days ago I dropped more than 2,000 grocery shopping at Metro, although that's only about once per month, but my wife makes other frequent trips to the market and I know I spend a few hundred a month at the bakery.
My wife also goes through about 1,000 a month for medication (heart condition), plus I have very frequent travel (at least 10 times a year).
Last month I spent about 15,000 to attend a conference in Shenzhen. The Hilton hotel took up 13,000 of that for 5 days.
All in I go through about 20,000 per month.
Thanks for your comments! Of course it depends on a person's lifestyle and choices. Going out for drinks&dinner, and generally speaking Western food and wine, represent my biggest expenses, even though I buy most of vegetables, fruit and meat from the local market (and that's why I think I "only" spend around 3000 a month). I thought 3000 could be an "average" sum and it sounds like it is, since people posted here something in between 2000 and 4000 a month.
@AlPage
I couldn't agree more.
It's very easy to blow money when you have wife and kids.
Also what people haven't calculated are unexpected costs. They always break our neck.
Also you need to calculate the holidays you need to take out of your paid holidays. Etc.
Having a wife and baby girl, easily pushes you on the 10,000 kuai /month limit line.
For a trip home we saved money for about 6 month, saving every penny.
And I will say this, if you don't make at least 20,000 to 25,000 kuai a month I would really advise against having a baby in China.
Kunming is surprisingly expensive compared to other cities, rent is cheaper than in BJ or SH but that's about it, and it's changing rapidly.
Without wife and kid I think living on 4000RMB a month net. is possible, but then you better have health insurance and pray everyday that nothing will come up out of the ordinary.
so in general, BJ rent is about 2000 - 3000 kuai cheaper for proper housing not like some run down student dorm for a few hundred bucks.
And in Beijing to actually 'get by' you need about 10,000-15,000 kuai. So do the math, keep in mind that food and eating out is much cheaper there, than in KMG.
@sbarella
better to go with 2000 or 4000. People are either living frugally or living well. Not too many will go both ways. I think the median is closer to 2000-2500 given the sheer number of single student/teacher foreigners. Again, without including rent and items you listed. I personally am around 2500 in Kunming per month, but I'll easily spend that amount in days in Shenzhen.
@Alex
yeah but a few days in every city would burn your cash quickly.
since you would rely on cabs and hotels.three days in Chengdu next week, we estimate about 3000kuai, hotel about 180=540kuai.
Taxis (huge city) =3-400kuai.
Food (it's Chengdu) = up to 500kuai
thats....1440 kuai then add the flight or train and then you are at 3000 or more kuai.
I guess Shenzhen is similar.
2500 is possible if you are trying to get by as student, if you have an internship or not much to worry about from home or to take care of here. If you want to start to live or start building a life here. You need more, much more.
For example if you want to buy a house just that adds up 800 kuai just for mortgages for a tiny little hut.
I wish I had but we can't even afford the initial loan from the bank.
Sad but true.
If your not a family of three or four, try is using the metro or brt if you got time.
