Cost of Living in YOUR city.

[Crisis]

Originally Posted by Navo
^ Your mobile bill is just 10 quid?? Wow, I thought I had a good deal with Orange at 15 quid/month.

Also, you mentioned lunch. What about breakfast, dinner etc.?

Yes, Virgin are doing an awesome deal now. £10pm gives you 1200 mins, 5000 txts, 1GB net and 30 day rolling contract. Oh, and don't forget QUIDCO!

Breakfast and dinner costs are included in my weekend shopping. Obviously weekend shopping spend is an average figure. If I buy rice on a weekend, £10 will be gone just on rice!
I am single, so no roopchorcha expenses like Kabir other than facewash. And, I don't drive even though I have a license as bus stops are within every 10 mins. walk and trains take 5 mins. between stops and cover almost every inch of London!

[Crisis]

Originally Posted by Kabir
Useless without the city.

City = Greater London. I thought everybody knew where I live ?

[layperson]

Orpheusuddin your question is not a very valid one. I will tell you why: Cost of living can vary greatly depending on your lifestyle. Two people living in the same city may have very different costs of living. Your question should have been: "what is your cost of living in your current city?"

As an example: me and kabir live in the same city. Our costs of living are very different. I dont spend anywhere near $1000 for gorcery in a month !!!infact I cant even think what he buys with that much money. I probably spend $250 a month on grocery !!
On the other hand when I just started working(2007) my cost of living in this same city was only $1500 a month because I was renting a room in a condo. Now I spend that much on my housing expense only ( mortgage, condo fees, property taxes).

[iDumb]

I agree and I did lay out my lifestyle acutally... minimalistic. Are there NYCers who are surviving with much less money.. ofcourse there are.. but I don't know how they are doing it....

Multiple ppl might be sharing 1 bedroom apartment, living in poor housings, neighborhood.

My bill goes down by almost 2k, if I start living in my parents house, - ie don't need to help them with their rent, and didn't have student loans , which is not typical for many.

NYC is expensive for housing, if you can eliminate it.. it's not that difficult to survive... a lot of ppl having housings from their parents/grandparents.. so they are ok.. coming new, having nothing, it's tough with average income...

[iDumb]

And I thought Canada was expensive as well... restaurants and stuff...

[layperson]

Restaurants are expensive depending where you go. You can have a subway dinner for $12 or you can ton Alice Fazooli's and spend $40 for dinner for one. Most of my expenditure is eating out. Just the last weekend I went to two places, a seafood restaruant where I spend $75 and then Alice Fazooli's where I paid $76. I probably end up spending $1000 or close to it on eating out.

[iDumb]

subway restaurant is not really restaurant bro, it's fast food :p. I think it's norm to have a bill close to 100 for a dinner of two, in any jodu modu resturant in city.

Yes eating out frequently will cost you a lot. I hardly ever eat out, not because I can't afford it (i probably can't lol, not like you at least) but I just like typical home cooked bangladeshi food. Nothing beats that.

[BrianLara7]

You can survive cheaply in NYC given that you don't try to act like a millionaire. Live in Bronx/ cheaper parts of Queens/ brooklyn. Smaller apartments, cook own food, shop around, look for deals etc. I have lived comfortably enough in NYC (by myself) for less than 1000 bucks a month.

[deshprem]

Originally Posted by BrianLara7
You can survive cheaply in NYC given that you don't try to act like a millionaire. Live in Bronx/ cheaper parts of Queens/ brooklyn. Smaller apartments, cook own food, shop around, look for deals etc. I have lived comfortably enough in NYC (by myself) for less than 1000 bucks a month.

man i would love to experience hard core NYC life.

[iDumb]

brian stop talking bullshit.... u have answered urself... u lived by urself and u probably lived in a closet in gun firing neighborhoods. Go raise a family and talk. Less than 1k a month, gtfo. You did not live "comfortably".

Lliving like a millionaire would be renting in manhattan. Go look up craigslist and the rent there. I bet it's more than ur monthly salary. it certainly is mine.

Show me the break down of your expense.

Here is the current rentals in queens like u said for SHARING rooms......
http://newyork.craigslist.org/que/roo/

[Kabir]

Originally Posted by layperson
As an example: me and kabir live in the same city. Our costs of living are very different. I dont spend anywhere near $1000 for gorcery in a month !!!infact I cant even think what he buys with that much money. I probably spend $250 a month on grocery !!

True, cost of living can be very, very different between individuals. It's not a myth that I would spend close to $1000 in grocery. We try to cook with the purest, freshest ingredients. We almost never use canned food and all the ingredients go fresh in our food. We also host guests frequently. We love seafood and spend a considerable amount of money there.

There's always junk food at my place - but they're things like pop chips and other healthier options that don't come cheap.

We've been eating like this since earlier this year and our grocery cost has grown up from 500 to around 1000 now. In between, we were eating organic only, which may have put the cost past 1000. But lately we've gone back to eating non-organic and focusing on semi-organic (antibiotic free) meat.

Like Orphy, I prefer to not eat out a whole lot. I realized how much I hated it when I traveled this Sept for business and was eating out for a week. My company doesn't cheap out on meals - so I was eating in good restaurants - but I simply hated it. The quality of food at my place is better than any of those upscale restaurants I've been to in the last one year.

[BrianLara7]

Originally Posted by iDumb
brian stop talking bullshit.... u have answered urself... u lived by urself and u probably lived in a closet in gun firing neighborhoods. Go raise a family and talk. Less than 1k a month, gtfo. You did not live "comfortably".

Lliving like a millionaire would be renting in manhattan. Go look up craigslist and the rent there. I bet it's more than ur monthly salary. it certainly is mine.

Show me the break down of your expense.

Here is the current rentals in queens like u said for SHARING rooms......
http://newyork.craigslist.org/que/roo/

lol, calm down man. You seem royally pissed about how expensive NYC is.. well how about moving out of the city or moving to a different state? I heard the redneck states down south are cheap as hell. New york might be expensive but you have enough opportunities to make money as well (sell drugs, join a gang, become a politician etc)

[One World]

How ironic it may sound but there is some truth in the post above. Actually a lot of second generation school students do marijuana in the back of their parents. I have seen few of my cousins doing it while their parents are having the picture of them being religious, praying regularly, health concerned and studious as hell. It is funny that my aunt has lot of trouble to run her family in NYC but she won't move to another state because of the availability of native groceries and community, also whenever I tell her that you have loads of property in Dhaka, why are you struggling here year after year - her only excuse would be better life of her children, which is not really happening as they both are addicts and alcoholics.

[iDumb]

Originally Posted by BrianLara7
New york might be expensive but you have enough opportunities to make money as well (sell drugs, join a gang, become a politician etc)

you my friend are a winner. Aren't you? First you tell me you live comfortably with less than 1k a month, now you tell me there are opportunities in NY in drugs, gangs and poiltics.

Why not florida? You can rob the elderly.... i think it's more profitable? and housing is cheaper there too...

[iDumb]

Originally Posted by One World
How ironic it may sound but there is some truth in the post above......children, which is not really happening as they both are addicts and alcoholics.

I don't think kids doing some marijuana and drinking is the end of the world. There is one thing God bless you with, that is there, the brain.

If the kids are smart, they would be able to do everything, party, drink, marijuana and will end up being really really successful.

The problem is with average, below average kids.... these ppl need proper guidance, otherwise they kinda get lost in the wrong crowd and then blame society and expect us to take care of them with food stamps and free rent because they are entitled to it as a human being.... same human being that have no problem stabbing us for a quarter.

[dolcevita]

Student , Paris
rent :354€
Mobile:22€
Public transport:24€
Food+restaurants: 300/400€
Leisure:200€