| Usually those cost-of-living indexes for expats like the one you link to at CNN, measure the cost of living in the foreign country with 100% of the comforts that one would have in America. For example, when I lived in Shanghai as an expat a few years back, foreigners had to live in those special housing areas... We lived in a 1000 sq ft house for US$5000 a month (paid by the company that sent us there)... In the US, we had lived in a 2000 sq ft home which would probably rent for about US$ 1500... so by the standards of that CNN survey, we were paying 3 times as much, for a major step down in "quality of life" (not really).
Similarly, if you try to buy groceries only at American-like supermarkets (does the Wellcome at Shanghai Centre still exist?), and not at the Chinese markets, things could get pretty expensive. And if you would only buy foreign brand name clothes and other products, that was pretty expensive too at the time. Also, since Americans have a car in the US, cost of living in China probably includes a car and English-speaking driver, which, at the time, I think cars had a 100% or more gov't markup over what they cost in the US. Sure, you could get around by taxi really cheaply, but theoretically that would be a reduction in quality of life. I think my family managed to save up a pretty good amount of money because we were compensated by the company as if we were living at "American standards" with all the trimmings when it wasn't hard to live cheaply, and effectively, equally as well. |
Life in New York is Tough for Me