How much money do you need to live each month?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I'm curious as to what users are spending each month. Add up all your expenses (rent, utilities, debt, food, clothes, health, entertainment, medicine, etc.).

[Devrim]

It depends what you mean by need. Last summer I had hardly any work and we lived on about $800 a month. It was really unpleasant though.

Devrim

[black magick hustla]

on about $800 a month.
Devrim

this btw

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I mean how much do you need to maintain the standard of living you have right now.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

$800 is around 25% of the amount needed to rent an average 1 bed room apartment here for a month. :bored:

[coda]

find your cost of living index and compare.. (there are other ones online if you don't like this one)
http://www.bestplaces.net/col/

[Meridian]

$800 is around 25% of the amount needed to rent an average 1 bed room apartment here for a month. :bored:
Wow, really? I thought it was expensive where I live but a small apartment goes for about 800 a month here.

To be honest, besides rent I use extremely little money.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Wow, really? I thought it was expensive where I live but a small apartment goes for about 800 a month here.

To be honest, besides rent I use extremely little money.

Yeah, sadly. Average rent for a 1 bedroom is $3,100. Ain't capitalism grand?

[Niccolò Rossi]

$800 is around 25% of the amount needed to rent an average 1 bed room apartment here for a month. :bored:

Jesus. You can rent like a 2 bedroom weatherboard house for under $300 a week here in South-West Sydney.

EDIT: Bear in mind the Aussie dollar is just above parity with the US dollar at the moment

Nic.

[black magick hustla]

$800 is around 25% of the amount needed to rent an average 1 bed room apartment here for a month. :bored:
i live in a shithole state

[black magick hustla]

Yeah, sadly. Average rent for a 1 bedroom is $3,100. Ain't capitalism grand?
is this correct tho? i entertained moving to nyc for a while and i dont remember seeing those numbers in working class bouroughs like brooklyn

[black magick hustla]

jesus fuck nyc the hipsters had it right when moving to portland

[Sasha]

coincidentally i wrote this yesterday on the cost of housing in amsterdam:

The social rent houses used to be owned by an cooperation, sadly the government turned them in corporations a few years ago.
If you make less than about 40k a year you are eligible, if you make less than 25k the state pays about half of your rent.
So in the end I pay about 290 euros a month for a 42 square meter apartment out of an (combined with my gf) 1500 income.
Wich still sounds like a lot but in the free market my house could easily fetch well over 900 euros a month.
A while ago the centerright government wanted to liberalize all rent but luckily that got stopped. note though that its only after 9 years on the waiting list i just managed to get an social renting house in a reasonbly nice neighboorhood on the edge of town (the waitinglist for the center is about 20 years), if your under 25 and not written on the waiting list since your 18 (so anyone not raised here) your left over to the wolves, most student rooms go for like 400 euro's for 8 square meters

after food and electricty and etc i dont manage to safe money at the moment

[black magick hustla]

man nyc is gonna end up like frisco

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

It's correct for Manhattan. I actually went with the lowest estimate I can find. The outer boroughs are a little cheaper, but not much. A cheap apartment in a place like Astoria, Queens would be around $1,300. It won't have an elevator and the building will likely be old and rickety.

You'll find that a huge number of the working class families have been here for a while and live in rent controlled places. So they may pay anywhere from 300-1000 for a multi-bedroom unit, depending on when they first moved in. People get on the leases of friends and family too. Most of the rent controlled places are super old and shitty. Landlords don't want to repair them. They want the rent control folks to move out so they can paint the walls and up the rent 300% for the next tenant. There's also housing projects, which have something like an 8 year wait list to get in.

And a lot of people have roommates. I've had to have roommates for the majority of the time I've lived here, or rent a room in someone else's place. That comes with its own problems.

But if you have a family and you're trying to house them, you're going to have to shell out a lot of money unless you find a rent controlled place (highly unlikely). Of course jobs typically pay more in New York too, if you can find one.

There aren't a ton of working class people moving to the city. Even immigration is slowing down. Those who do immigrate from poorer countries often end up sleeping several to a room.

Most of the people moving here have money. That's why they're building coops and luxury buildings left and right, while there is very little in the way of affordable housing being constructed for workers.

[black magick hustla]

tha treminds me a lot of frisco. the old industrial and construction jobs were alright in terms of pay and now capitalism is so decadent that it has been pushing industry out for parasitical service sectior types of jobs which dont pay as well, and therefore the only people that can afford living in places like that in those economies are people in management or professional positions, not the guy in the counter.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

That's basically it. Very few of the people who work at the restaurants, stores and construction sites around my place live anywhere near here. I talked to a guy working on a new building who drives in from Pennsylvania every day. He said he could never come close to affording rent for his family anywhere in the city, and he's a skilled worker in a union.

[Sasha]

mhmm, if i convert the prices NHIA gives to euro's than they are about similair to the free sector here, although it seems you get alot shittier housing for it in NYC.
glad we still have an (barely) functioning social housing system so that poor people can still live in the city.

[Dr Mindbender]

well my cost of living is confounded by the fact that im paying education fees and some outstanding debts. If it werent for that, id be paying much less. Plus i have some other miscellanous expenses such as the TV license which is quarterly and the hosting fees on my website.

Currently my rent is roughly $700 a month and to feed my family its typically around $50-£80 a week. I think on utilities we'd be looking typically $25 a week.

So in total i'd say (for absolute life preserving essentials) a conservative estimate would be $1200 a month. Id say to mantain my current standard of living would be around $1600.

[Summerspeaker]

Ignoring tuition and fees, around $400. With tuition and fees, $850.

[Lord Testicles]

About £450 a month.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Being on the cusp of homelessness for long periods of time is terrible. Not being able to find a way to make a living too. The capitalist system itself is the world's biggest terrorist.

[Bright Banana Beard]

I need about $900 just to get through with rent, utilities, and food.

[bcbm]

too much

[Magón]

I live in a house with a few people, so the basic utilities like gas, electricity, internet, etc. are all split up into even shares of those who pay for the certain utility. Minus personal school shit, my cellphone, and a couple other things, I live on a pretty low amount even though I don't buy a lot of shit over the year.

Of course, without roommates, it'd be a LOT higher and a lot more difficult.

[Ele'ill]

Very little.

[Bandito]

My salary is 200 euros per month. I pay for my flat 100 euros. You do the math.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

What kind of place do you get for that Bandito? How much are utilities and internet there?

[Kuppo Shakur]

Bout $50k.

[Bandito]

What kind of place do you get for that Bandito? How much are utilities and internet there?

A 30 square meters apartment, shared with my unemployed girlfriend. And the utilities (gas, electricity, water, internet...) cost us about 65 euros per month.

To put it simple, I do all sorts of shit in order to survive.

[Taikand]

500$/ familly of four. Damned be I if I can make sense how my parents manage to raise me and my sibling on this sum.(that's without taking into consideration the living cost index)

[StalinFanboy]

without counting school i pay less than 300 for bills. So i figure with gas and stuff (i drive to santa cruz a lot), i live on about 400 to 500 dollars a month.

[Le Libérer]

My expenses are about $1200 a month. My apartment is $500 a month, utilities are about $300 a month, food I average about $300 a month, but I buy local produce etc so it would be alot more if I lived in a bigger city away from the country. Seafood is fairly cheap here too. Being the south, a car is completely necessary so upkeep on that.

I do fairly well as far as my income, but I have children who often need my help, RS2K for the little he needs, and various causes I contribute to when I have any left over.

[Rusty Shackleford]

seeing as i make only about $500 a month. and a 2 bedroom apartment (splitting with a roomate) would cost about $400-650 a month for rent, utilities, internet, and food a month per person, plus 100-200 a month for car insurance, $40-50 every 2 weeks in gas, $40 for cell phone, $5 every few days for cigarettes, id say it would be about oh...

$670 - $1060/mo and then figure in maybe a hundred or so bucks for leisure every month...

god im glad i dont have kids.
but damn i hate not having a second job or my own apartment.

[Blackscare]

Apparently in Laos it costs about 100-200 if you live somewhat extravagantly, which is why I'm going in a few months. Beerlao costs a dollar and from what I hear, it's awesome. Everything I've seen in my fairly extensive research say's that Laos is really really chill. That is the most oft-used word I've heard described. Low crime, agrarian with cheap good food and very beautiful and laid-back cities, borders everything and you get visa-on arrival, and you can renew it by crossing the border (every thirty days) for like 30 bucks. You can rent a decent place for less than one hundred a month, and it'd be hard to really blow through the remaining 70 bucks or so considering the pace of the area and all. Cheap, chill, giant ass bottle of beerlao for $1 and a good meal for almost the same price and access to the more "exciting" countries any time, I want to go. Yea that makes me a labor aristocrat but I have to get out of the country and this fucking hamsterwheel of a life that I have.


But yea, that's my upcoming living arrangement, I plan on making a thread on here with updates and expat shit here then :D

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Laos isn't that spectacular. It's one of the poorest countries in the world. There's little in the way of development or infrastructure. Malaria is prevalent. A lot of the cheaper guest houses are hot, noisy and full of bed bugs. The water is often not safe to drink. Foreigners are forbidden to have sex with Laotions, and yes you will be harassed and/or arrested if you're caught (ie. in the same hotel room). Drug use is expressly forbidden and the punishment is severe. The government, police, courts, etc., are as corrupt and seemingly arbitrary as you would probably expect.

You can get by on 200 a month in Laos, but it won't be extravagant. And unless you're there on a work visa, you can only stay a limited amount of time. It's unwise to stay longer. You can make a border run though.

If you have a reliable stream of income, you can definitely live fairly well in places like the Philippines, Cambodia, Nicaragua, etc. Most people do not. And most people are tied to their home region.

If you can go and want to, then do it. I'm not trying to discourage you. I just wanted to let you know a few things. I've spent a considerable amount of time in other countries, including some of the poorest. I usually enjoyed it. Sometimes I didn't. A lot of people from the U.S. that I encountered wanted nothing more than to return to their hometowns.

I would suggest taking a look at Cambodia. It's also relatively inexpensive, and you can get a year long work visa on arrival for $30 with no questions asked. Once in the country, you can renew it as often as you need to. There's a bit more in the way of crime in the capital, but it's actually pretty laid back otherwise.

[danyboy27]

i live in canada, Quebec.

my monthly salary after deduction is about 1552 dollars a month.

i would be able to ''survive'' with 900 a month, but my life would be shit.

on the other hand, if i would earn less money per hour, i would have almost no deduction and my salary would remain relatively similar.

we are heavily taxed in Quebec but shit, for the services we have i think its worth it, and if we could taxes corporation more, well lets just say our services would be less shitty.

[Enragé]

900-1100 euro's.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

i can live on around 120 quid a month, fortunately i don't have rent or gas/electricity bills. 5 quid a day is enough to get a fairly decent amount of food for the day if i walk everywhere. generally though i get more than this and can pay towards rent and bills as well as catch buses and feed my smokilng and drinking habits. my situation varies though, i either have enough money to live with some luxury, or no money at all. i'm very used to being poor, although i can rely on my family. we're all poor but generally look out for each other.

short answer: fuck all.

[Jimmie Higgins]

About $1000 to live Spartanly but without bouncing checks or going without meals. I split rent on a one-bedroom and pay about $500... maybe $150-$200 for food, another $200 for bills and subway tickets and $100 for whatever. Right now I make about $1200 a month. When I was making less, I was tighter with my money so some of the expenses I pay now could be reduced (not to mention fun things like netflix and candy and books and drinks n' stuff).

I try and save, but it never really works out that way because something comes up - I don't have credit cards (well, can't get credit cards) so that makes unexpected problems or emergencies really tough - of course an emergency is the reason I can not now get a credit card in the first place. But while I'm youngish and in relative good health it works out ok. People I know in the same situation have kids or chronic medical conditions and I have no fucking clue how they don't just run around trying to incite riots every day.

[MarxSchmarx]

I guess there's a difference between "need" and "want". In my area, if I really, really had to, I could probably reduce my monthly needs to under $250 within a year - the biggest expense is housing, but it would be possible to save enough in my job within a year to purchase a tiny plot of land about 1 hour away with a shack. The rest is using internet at public wifi spots, and pay the bare minimum in utilities and food and transportation. Actually transportation and taxes on the shack would take up the lions share of the $250 because the basic foodstuffs and electricity would be subsidized. A home phone with only local calls could probably be had for about 25 a month.

But this isn't realistic. I don't plan on staying here long term so in practice I rent, which comes out to about 700 a month. With utilities and food and transportation I'd say 850-900 is about average.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Being on the cusp of homelessness for long periods of time is terrible. Not being able to find a way to make a living too. The capitalist system itself is the world's biggest terrorist.Where's the "thank" button when you need it!