A Comparison of Living Costs In Several Cities

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FOR THOSE DREAMING OF SPENDING THEIR RETIREMENT IN A CHEAPER COUNTRY THAN SINGAPORE: A comparison of living costs in selected cities.
The website https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/ has a fairly comprehensive and reasonably accurate database on monthly living expenses in cities around the world. And a fairly accurate Cost of Living Estimator where you fill in your personal details and they come up with a monthly estimate of your monthly expenses.
I obtained the results below after filling in my estimated requirements in many items from groceries to Internet bills, to gym membership, eating out and public transport cost. For a household of two. This estimate excludes domestic help, and health insurance. *You can judge for yourself, the degree of accuracy of sample items for Singapore in the second and third images below.
My estimated cost of living is S$1,367.00 monthly. ***Please note that I am not typical: I don't have an interest in clothes, electronic gadgets, household furniture, entertainment, travel. I don't own a car or pay rent.
In Numbeo, I could automatically transfer my details to another city and see the equivalent costs in the local currency. From this, I converted back to SGD using XE.com currency converter's rate as at today.
So, there you are, a Table of Monthly Cost of Living in several cities in the world expressed in Singapore Dollar, and sorted by lowest to highest.
No surprises here except: Is Johor Bahru really that cheap? Also note the significant difference in costs between Manila, Makati and Davao in the Philippines. Although there is less difference between Indonesian major cities Jakarta, Surabaya and Bandung.

Comments

  1. Ralph CarpenterNovember 28, 2017 at 11:05 PM

    That is a really informative post you shared and I guess you are going to help a lot of retired people through this. Singapore does look like a really cheap country though.

    ReplyDelete

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