With the exception of super huge cities like Paris, London and Hamburg 2000 USD is enough for a very good life even in western Europe. I lived in a couple of places in Germany, smaller to mid size cities, with an average of around 800 EUR per month in a single room apartment alone plus food and other costs.
Sure 2k will buy you much more in the east than in west but one really must have the aptitude to live in a place that is very corrupt, psychically and morally dirty, depressing and everyone is super unhappy and always complaining. Wouldn't call that the good life.
Maybe because eating with your hands while shitting liquid and paying baksheesh every time you want a package from outside of the country while your power goes out is not most people's idea of the good life. Just sayin'.
While the language is probably inappropriate, the contents are sadly not far from reality IMHO.
As per the food, I love Indian food, I eat very spicy and I love curry, peppers and hot spices in general, but I yet have to meet someone that has spent any significant amount of time in India eating Indian food without getting some form of diarrhea.
The comment is mocking part of another culture (eating with one's hands). That's the racism.
Living under fear of being shot over an argument or your children being shot in school shootings or living where paedophiles or sex abuse runs amok in top institutions (Larry Nassar, Sandusky/Sports, Epstein/Hollywood, Clinton/Trump/Politics are just some high profile examples) or being screwed by inflated healthcare costs is also not most people's ideas of a good life, but no one here seems to be mocking American culture.
And hundreds of millions of Indians are perfectly happy with their lives in India, so it can be "most" people's ideas of a good life.
Shitting - 1.3B would have extinct by now if everyone was doing that. Food and water changes take time to get acclimatised.
Power - you must have been in poor quality apartments. In most prominent cities, there is hardly any power outage even then We have 100% power back up here in most apartments in Gurgaon and most cities in India.
Truly, one can live like a king in India for $2k in most cities. You have house help, driver, cleaner, gardener, masseur, baby sitter etc available for dirt cheap. I pay Rs 500/- (~$7) for an hour of massage with masseur providing service at home itself.
I am not saying all is fine with India but yes if you know your way around, you choose good cities to live, you can truly live life king size here compared to any other country.
Frog in the well is a common saying and I don't think you sound as intellectual as you intend to.
The parent comment is correct though, you can most definitely get all the luxuries in life with $2000.
Nevertheless, your original post was racist. You generalized Indians to be people eating with their hands as if its a bad thing. Not to mention your insensitive comment about Indian food.
Do you have anything substantial to say? Or just covert racism?
Was scrolling through this hoping to see a mention of Spain or Portugal.
I've lived in quite a few countries. Here are my rents, always furnished, always in a reasonably good location, with the exception of Alexandria Egypt:
- Chiang Mai, 2012, Nice studio apartment, $250 USD/m
- Alexandria, Egypt, 2012, Simple shared apartment in bad location, $100 USD/m
- Berlin, 2013, Shared apartment, 330 Euros/m
- Barcelona, 2013, Very simple Shared Apartment: 270 Euros/m.
- San Pedro La Laguna Guatemala, 2014, basic 1br Apartment, $180 USD/m
- Santiago, 2015-2017, A few nice 1br apartments, about $700-$780 USD/m
I'm now back in Australia and paying $1350 AUD/m (about $1050 USD give or take) for an unfurnished one bedroom in South Yarra, which is one of the best neighbourhoods in Melbourne to live.
Morocco is pretty cheap too, and is very close to europe. Tons of (even poor) French pensioners move there to retire and get a lot more for their money. Now if you are well off by western standards you can have an absolutely amazing quality of life, beyond what you can realistically achieve in a lot of western countries. The country is amazing and has lots to offer as long as you know how to, let's say... get around and not be overly naive.
Fanciest life for the money, and the rental prices are at rock, rock bottom now.
While Dubai is a "city of millionaires," in comparison to posh places in the West, it's very cheap.
Downside, you will have to reconcile with your conscience about living in a kingdom of a man who raises hand on his own family.
- Colombo
Sri Lanka is the most developed South Asian country, by far. My surprise was though... very few speaks English, much less than in India. So, learning Sinhala.
- Istanbul
Istanbul is a quite fancy, de-facto European, city without a doubt, and Erdogan's financial wizardry ensures rock bottom lira whole year long.
I’m kind of surprised to not find Ghana on that list. It has all of the benefits of most of those countries but best of all it’s an English speaking country in the British commonwealth. Familiar goods and a familiar language.
Sure you can move to Costa Rica but outside of the tourist zone you’re going to have to learn Spanish.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 24.7 ms ] threadSure 2k will buy you much more in the east than in west but one really must have the aptitude to live in a place that is very corrupt, psychically and morally dirty, depressing and everyone is super unhappy and always complaining. Wouldn't call that the good life.
As per the food, I love Indian food, I eat very spicy and I love curry, peppers and hot spices in general, but I yet have to meet someone that has spent any significant amount of time in India eating Indian food without getting some form of diarrhea.
Living under fear of being shot over an argument or your children being shot in school shootings or living where paedophiles or sex abuse runs amok in top institutions (Larry Nassar, Sandusky/Sports, Epstein/Hollywood, Clinton/Trump/Politics are just some high profile examples) or being screwed by inflated healthcare costs is also not most people's ideas of a good life, but no one here seems to be mocking American culture.
And hundreds of millions of Indians are perfectly happy with their lives in India, so it can be "most" people's ideas of a good life.
Power - you must have been in poor quality apartments. In most prominent cities, there is hardly any power outage even then We have 100% power back up here in most apartments in Gurgaon and most cities in India.
Truly, one can live like a king in India for $2k in most cities. You have house help, driver, cleaner, gardener, masseur, baby sitter etc available for dirt cheap. I pay Rs 500/- (~$7) for an hour of massage with masseur providing service at home itself.
I am not saying all is fine with India but yes if you know your way around, you choose good cities to live, you can truly live life king size here compared to any other country.
Thanks for illustrating the point.
you can truly live life king size
In Chinese there is a saying, 井底之蛙 (jǐng dǐ zhī wā). https://www.echineselearning.com/blog/kids-chinese-learning-... (PS. I am not Chinese)
The parent comment is correct though, you can most definitely get all the luxuries in life with $2000.
Nevertheless, your original post was racist. You generalized Indians to be people eating with their hands as if its a bad thing. Not to mention your insensitive comment about Indian food.
Do you have anything substantial to say? Or just covert racism?
That said, getting packages from outside of India takes four weeks, and that sucks.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I've lived in quite a few countries. Here are my rents, always furnished, always in a reasonably good location, with the exception of Alexandria Egypt:
- Chiang Mai, 2012, Nice studio apartment, $250 USD/m
- Alexandria, Egypt, 2012, Simple shared apartment in bad location, $100 USD/m
- Berlin, 2013, Shared apartment, 330 Euros/m
- Barcelona, 2013, Very simple Shared Apartment: 270 Euros/m.
- Medellin, 2014, Simple shared house, $250 USD/m
- Lisbon, 2014, Reasonably nice Shared Apartment, 330 Euros/m
- San Pedro La Laguna Guatemala, 2014, basic 1br Apartment, $180 USD/m
- Santiago, 2015-2017, A few nice 1br apartments, about $700-$780 USD/m
I'm now back in Australia and paying $1350 AUD/m (about $1050 USD give or take) for an unfurnished one bedroom in South Yarra, which is one of the best neighbourhoods in Melbourne to live.
- Mumbai 2017, really bad location (almost a slum). Shared room in a 2BHK costed me 190 USD/m
- Hyderabad 2018, really really good location. One room in a 3BHK costed me 200 USD/m
- Pune 2019, one of the best locations I have lived in. One room in 2bhk costed around 180 USD/m
- Bangalore 2020, outskirts in a poor underdeveloped and cramped location. One room in a 3BHK costed 200 USD/m
Looking at the price, I want to ask which Hyderabad? That's very cheap.
Fanciest life for the money, and the rental prices are at rock, rock bottom now.
While Dubai is a "city of millionaires," in comparison to posh places in the West, it's very cheap.
Downside, you will have to reconcile with your conscience about living in a kingdom of a man who raises hand on his own family.
- Colombo
Sri Lanka is the most developed South Asian country, by far. My surprise was though... very few speaks English, much less than in India. So, learning Sinhala.
- Istanbul
Istanbul is a quite fancy, de-facto European, city without a doubt, and Erdogan's financial wizardry ensures rock bottom lira whole year long.
Sure you can move to Costa Rica but outside of the tourist zone you’re going to have to learn Spanish.