My friends based in Singapore, roughly same criteria and food living standard as you described, about 2K sgd a month or 1.5K usd after exchange rate. This doesnt factor in car, housing, schooling, recreation, utility, and medical. And food are to some extend subsidized or indirectly price controlled by government (through market intervention by state-based companies). You had it better at 1K usd. At least, you can move to somewhere rural midwest and have your own farm. To do the same in Singapore, he will have to be multi-millionaire owning multi millions USD small plot the equivalent of a poor family home land area in suburb in 2nd or 3rd tier city in America. I am sure someone similar in NY or San Fra will be even worst. Again, at least they can run to somewhere cheap.
refurb|2 years ago
It’s pretty common to eat out for most meals. The plethora of options and low cost is obviously a big driver, but it’s getting hard to find meals for under $5 now.
So 150 meals a month times $5 is $750 for food. And that’s eating super cheap. The more hearty hawker meals are more like $6-8.
Of course not everyone eats every meal out and there are people that cook at home a lot (seems to be more common with Malay), but when this 25 year old colleague making $5,000 per month told me they spend $1,000 per month on meals I was surprised.
When I was in the Bay Area our family of 4 spent $600 per month on food (all prepared at home). That was shopping at Costco and Asians markets and not really counting dollars while doing it.
CuriouslyC|2 years ago