Job Discussion Forums

[elliot_spencer]

IS living off HK$12000 per month doable if you have free accom??

[Joshua2006]

Unless you are on the sauce every night then that kind of money should be easy.

[RiverMystic]

You've got to be joking! Sure, you can live on 12 000, but it is a pathetic salary. If you are a backpacker or a fresh uni graduate who wants to live on 7-11 noodles, you might stomach it for a year. But if you are an adult, forget it. Your quality of life will be crap.

[kowlooner]

Oh, that's silly. If anyone, it's the fresh uni grad or backpacker who'd have a hard time with that sort of salary due to partying tendencies. No rent to pay, so the $12k goes for other stuff. Transportation should be say $20 to $50 a day - call it $600 to $1500 a month. Food, $20 to $100 a day (obviously depending on how much you prepare at home, and the 7-11 noodles would put you in the middle), so $600 to $3000 a month. Top end for those two, and that's $4,500 a month, leaving $7,500 a month for other stuff. Put some aside for tax, but at that salary range only $30,000 or so will be taxable. So, $7,000 a month to blow as you wish. Of course there are other costs left out. Add 'em in and see how much of a difference it'll make. As Josh said, unless you're "on the sauce every night", it shouldn't be much of a stretch. Luxurious? No, but doable, yes, very.

[RiverMystic]

[oxi]

Lots of fun comments and opinions here. I'll just stick mine in too.

12k do-able. Yes, but I wouldn't want to do.

For what it's worth I spend about 20-25K a month. That's all in for me and the wife. Hey.... that works out at 12 each. How did that happen? I must be tighter than I thought.....

Some more of my numbers:-
Rent 9000.
Food 150 each a day maybe on average, more at weekends. I tend to eat in Spaghetti House for the lunch deals at HK$60 or 70, but I have seen noodles at less than 20

Have a good economically planned day.

[kowlooner]

Actually, those packaged 7-11 meals are a great way to increase your expenses, as well as your cholesteral. And yes, $20 for bowl of noodles available in lots of little joints, though not if you're in Lan Kwai Fong or the like. Definitely at the bottom of the price range, though.

With $7,000 a month to play with, after taking care of food and transport, and of course no rent to bother with, I'm not sure why you couldn't have a fairly fun standard of living! Even with your TV and Internet and pizza and nice cafe and a date and buying an English book (ever heard of the library?) and buying the odd shirt and shoes (how often do you buy shoes? and where do you buy your shirts? HK's a great, cheap place for that sort of thing) and all that, the only way you couldn't live on the OP's figures is if you made daily necessities of fun extras, which is probably what a lot of folks do.

Now, if you have a dislike of Chinese food, then it's probably going to be a bit harder to eat on a normal budget, and if you never prepare stuff at home, then of course you're going to run through that $7,000 pocket money rather quickly. Again, sort of the normal situation for a fresh grad as well as the occasional backpacker.

My expenses usually run quite a bit under that $12,000 figure. Have for a long time. Don't go out much on weekdays, but definitely spend during the weekends.

So, to sum up, same as before: Luxurious, no, but doable, yes, very.

Thanks for your input Oxi. Your figures sound reasonable. Does that $25k joint expense include your $9,000 rent, or are actual monthly expenses including rent $34k?

[oxi]

[Smoog]

doable? not in the slightest. survivable yes, but would anyone want to move to another country just to subsist?

When I first came here 6 looooonnnng years ago, I was working in a tutorial centre and getting eff-all. My rent was $5k (and this was in scummy Prince Edward). Because I wanted to pay off my student loan and visa asap I was sending as much $ home each month as possible. I budgeted myself to $200 /day (including travel which set me back at least $30 /day - and I was working 6 days/week). A coffee mid-morning was my only treat - another $20. I had a gym membership at $300 /month: $10 /day; only way I stayed sane and my only outing.
Power and Phone (home and mobile) set me back at least $300 /month: $10 /day. Internet connection was another $200 /month. Cable TV was another luxury (packaged with the phone/internet) I allowed myself so I had something to do on my day off. That was another $100 /month on top.

Dinner invariably consisted of going to the local dai pai dong for rice and two types of unidentifiable foodstuffs crammed into a styrofoam box and dripping with MSG. That was $20. And invariably brought on migraines and occassional bouts of low-level food poisoning. Yet I still went back regularly because I couldn't afford anything else.
I still needed breakfast and lunch. Breakfast: cereal is $30 /box and lasts a week at most + milk - even the uht crap is $20 /carton and I'd go through at least 2 a week. That's another $300/month: $10 /day.
Lunch if I bought it would set me back $20-$30/day for similar sort of muck I could buy for dinner. If I had time in the morning to make it (sandwiches only, there was no microwave or anything at the centre) would cost me about the same but at least be healthier.

Power + Phone: $10 /day
Breakfast: $10 /day
Lunch: $30 /day
coffee: $20 /day
Gym: $10 /day
Dinner: $20 /day
travel: $30 /day
Internet + Cable: $20 /day
Total of $150 /day for absolute bare necessities = $4500 /month.

Indeed, it's nowhere near that low a level as I've not added in all those other necessities like clothing, toiletries (paper, toothpaste, soap etc), fruit and veggies (unless the idea of scurvy appeals to you), other foods, cleaning agents etc etc.
How often do I buy shoes? Not often now. Emphasis now. Reason? I buy very good quality shoes that cost ~ $2k. I've bought 3 pairs in the last 2 years (Only reason it's this many is because one I bought last year have proven to be extremely uncomfortable). Quality does last. But it does cost. I used to buy cheapies ($200-$300) from the MK markets, which would be lucky to last me 4 months. One pair lasted me 6 weeks before the entire sole wore away and fell off. luckily it was just before payday though I had to wear it for another 2 days like that until my pay cleared and I had a day off to go shoe-shopping.
Add another $200 /month for footwear.
Sure it's false economy but I couldn't afford to spend anything more on a pair of shoes. I was trapped into buying crap quality stuff.
Same goes with clothes. I'd buy my pants and shirts from the Fa Yeun st and within a couple of months they'd be falling apart. One day, very embarassingly, I bent down at work and my pants pulled apart at the seam! Fortunately one of the office girls went out and got some needle and thread for me so I was able to repair them and continue teaching (and get home) without further embarassment. I still wore them for several more weeks afterwards because I couldn't afford new trousers.

"Oh", says kowlooner, "see! It is doable!" while conveniently ignoring the fact that the above is subsistiance-level existance. It doesn't count spending money on anything else. It truly is the absolute basic one would need to survive. Yes 'doable' if you want your life to consist of nothing more than eating the same low-quality, msg-ladened foods, trudging to work and heading straight home. every single damn day and not doing anything else. You may as well be in prison! It's not a sensible nor sane way to live. Living like that will very likely bring on severe depression - I was certainly close
In the first 6 months I was here I didn't go out once. My day off I stayed in because I couldn't afford to go out.

This was 6 years ago. Prices have gone up quite a bit since then. I'd say the above would be closer to $250 /month now: $7.5k /month. My power for eg has certainly jumped up just in the past 3-4 years. It used to be comfortably under $150/month: Last bill was $400.

ohh...that still leaves you with $4500!

Again, the above is subsistance. If you want to do anything extra - buy slightly healthier food for eg, that will easily set you back another $1000 /month. Nicer clothes? another $1000 gone. Last time I went to Tung Chung factory outlet I bought 3 pairs of trousers and 2 shorts and didn't have much left out of $1000 (with $30+ for travel, $50 for coffee and a bite to eat + $10 for a bottle of water and the day's shopping cost me $1000). One of those shorts only lasted 3 months btw. That was 6 months ago and the rest are still going strong. But again, I can now afford to spend that much on clothes in a single day. 6 years ago I couldn't. I had to buy crap as it was the only stuff I could afford.

Going out on a date? forget doing that more than once a month. Here especially, the woman will expect the man to pay for everything. Eating out anywhere but the grimy local cafes will set one back several hundred. Forget about going out for a night on the town. At $50 /stubbie of beer a round of drinks can cost $500.
a night out once a month + a dinner date once a month (good luck with finding a girl here who is happy going one one day a month!) = $1000-$1500 gone.
going to the cinema? That's now up, and over, $100 /ticket.
Want to get the hell out of your scummy flat and head to a nice beach out of HK? Depending on where you live that will take you an entire day and set you back at least $50 for travel. Plus $ for water and lunch.

Want to fly home to see all your friends and family? forget it! Flights out are $10k+ usually. How can you save that up on $12k /month? You come here for that and you're basically trapped here.

To sum up, $12k will allow you to exist in HK but not live. Anyone who says otherwise is in serious denial or just doesn't have any sort of life at all.

[kowlooner]

Gosh, where are you living, Smoog, for your power bill to skyrocket more than 2-1/2 times from $150 to $400? After all, electricity rates have been flat for the last decade (actually down, due to rebates), though CLP did raise rates last December - a whopping 3% (less, actually). That suggests a consumption issue, not an inflation issue. And for other costs to hypothetically jump 70% (from $150 to $250 per day) when inflation has averaged a bit over 2% for the past 5 years? Sure, some prices have jumped, most notably property (not an issue in this discussion) and definitely prices in foreigner-centric hangouts (got a burger in a hotel the other day for $150! crazy). But transport rates have been flat while telecom rates going down (check out the cell phone competition, not to mention internet).

As for your clothes buying experiences, ever heard of sales? If you're spending some $1000 a month on clothing, that's your choice, but most people can do quite fine with far less than that. In addition, most people don't arrive in HK totally naked (hopefully), so one can assume a newbie doesn't need to completely stock his or her wardrobe. And if you believe that quality costs top dollar, all I can say is you're in a marketers dream psychographic. Not sure what kind of shoes you're buying at $2,000 a pop, but even Clarks won't cost you that much.

And how often are you shouting $500 rounds of beer? As for the expensive girls, find someone else with a better set of values.

In any case, as noted previously, the issue was whether the $12k figure was doable, and it obviously is, with caveats, also previously noted.

So, yes, you can actually have a life on $12,000 a month. Yes, you have to budget. Yes, you have to accept that you can't be free-wheeling. Yes, you have to make choices about what you do, like most grown-ups. A lot of it's about attitude and approach. Then there's that old quote: he who loves pleasure will become a poor man. If one's definition of "having any sort of life at all" is going out all the time or spending large amounts when you do, then of course that $12,000 is not going to go far. Otherwise, with a little common sense, it's plenty.

One more time: luxurious, no; doable, yes, very.

Actually, that leads to what I think is the real issue. I think the main problem for newbies is ignorance combined with culture shock. First, they simply don't know where the real bargains are nor how to budget and manage time and money effectively. Then the culture shock issue can drive them to seek friends who have often been here a longer time and who are more settled, and who can thus afford a more expansive lifestyle. In that sort of situation, it could be very difficult to manage on $12k. I think that's where we who have been here a longer time can provide real help.

[RiverMystic]

Headline screamer in a year's time.

40 kg NEWBIE ESL TEACHER DEAD FROM MALNUTRITION:
KOWLOONER ARRESTED FOR MISINFORMATION

[Smokey Dando]

Perhaps Kowlooner should let the orignal poster know that he/she does in fact work at a tutorial centre and it is in his/her interest to suggest $12,000 HK is a reasonable salary.

The fact is $12,000 a month is a joke. Sure you will survive, but why bother. Also consider the resentment you will feel when you learn almost every other foreigner is making about three times that salary or more.

Also keep in mind that tutorial centres are vastly profitable. The working hours are awful and you will not be treated with any respect. It is my very strong advice that you do not accept this disgraceful salary. Look around, if you are qualified you will find much better.

[Jospeh]

I am currently living in Hong Kong on $13000/month, which has to cover my accommodation. I work Mon-Fri in a primary school. I've done occasional extra work at weekends which has brought in a little more money. This is my life:



Accommodation - Originally rented a room off a local in TaiKoo for $4000 (+$200 bills in summer). Felt very uncomfortable there, so moved into a two bedroom flat in Wan Chai with two friends (they're a couple). Flat is $8800, I pay $4000. It's tiny, but I'm either not in it or not doing anything in it which requires a lot of space. 'Kitchen' is pretty much a corner of the living room, which isn't great, but I can deal. The shower isn't over the toilet, that's all I ask.

Bills - Haven't paid any yet, but we're all moving out next week so I'm assuming my flat mates will tell me what I owe them soon. Last time I asked they said it would be something in the region of $500-600 for the three months I've been living here. I'm not worried about not knowing the exact figure because I know it won't be so high I can't cover it. We have internet but not TV (I don't watch it so that's not a sacrifice for me). I top my phone up with $100 every couple of weeks? Month? I only use it for texting people; Skype, facebook or email can be used for long communication. Commute is about $55/week, but could be $20 if I got up early enough to take the tram.

Food - I eat out several times a week, normally $20-40 type meals. I'm vegetarian, which limits my choice a lot, so I cook for myself quite a bit. I buy some western items, but not all that many. My diet here is worse than home, but that's borne of laziness and a disinclination to cook in a tiny kitchen with no oven. If I tried, I could eat just as healthily.

Other expenses - I spend little on clothes. I'm fat (which helps in terms of limited selection) and buy from wholesales and random sample stalls in markets. And I brought a load of stuff with me. I've spent maybe $600 on shoes in the ten months I've been here, and none were essential purchases. I'm not a big partier, so I've avoided the drain on finances that is alcohol. Sightseeing in HK isn't expensive - often free aside from transport (my employer has subsidised many cultural activities for employees though). I go to the cinema when there's a film I want to see, I send gifts home to my friends. Toiletries don't cost much, unless you have expensive 'needs'.



I came over here with an attitude of 1/3 accommodation, 1/3 expenses and 1/3 save/spend on travelling, and it's worked out fine. Until February or so I managed to keep a detailed log of my spending, and my monthly living expenses (so, everything apart from rent and bills) were in the region of $3800-5000. By Christmas, I had $25000 spare to send home, although most of it's gone on travelling. I've been all over Hong Kong, over to Macau, across the border into China twice and on two foreign holidays. I'm going to two different countries for a month after my contract finishes, on the money I've saved.

I have to laugh at the idea that this is subsistence living. I have done and experienced so much in the time I've been here, and I haven't eaten instant noodles once. I am indeed a recent graduate (last summer, in fact), so I am used to working with a small budget and living in a small place and having housemates. If you're fifty and have a nice house with all the trimmings back home, yeah, you'd probably not deal so well with downgrading to HK on a 12000 salary. I travel backpacker style, but I love it so that's not a downside either. Also, pretty much everyone who works for my company is in the same position as I am, so I have a ready made set of potential social contacts to use as a preventative against depression. I know that some of them have struggled with the salary, which makes me wonder if I'm exceptionally frugal - but then, I'm an impulsive spender and don't feel like I'm prohibitively limited here.

The jealousy factor - yes, I've felt resentful at times. I work hard. It's galling to know you can get a job in a kindy with no qualifications and little experience which pays $18000. The (NET scheme) NET at my school has a very easy time of it as NET positions go, and it's been hard watching her killing time and knowing she's earning $20-30000/month more than me. But then, she has years and years of experience and is a fully qualified teacher with extra degrees to do this TEFL thing. I'm winging it without even a TEFL certificate and before this year I had no teaching experience to speak of. I couldn't do this permanently, but for a year while I figure out where my life is heading? More than doable.

Smoog, don't you think living on the poverty line was your own doing due to your determination to pay off your student loan as quickly as possible? I don't know where you're from though, maybe you didn't have a choice. I don't currently earn enough to have started paying back.

[kowlooner]

Thanks for the input, Joseph. Sounds like you've got a great attitude as well as good habits and a very solid budgeting system! Do hope you get a raise, though. Best of luck!

[elliot_spencer]

Hey, sorry for the late reply.

The salary is 13000HK$ NET after tax... my accommodation will be FREE. So it'll just be spending money...

Are you still sure this will not be enough?

Thanks