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What happens if Argentina gets too expensive? What are alternative cities/countries to move to when it's overpriced in Argentina?
- Thread starter Larry
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Jeb Spencer
Well-known member
The best thing you can do anywhere is just plan as best as you can. Argentina definitely makes things challenging when making a budget but honestly if you own your own place and live within your means you can control your budget. My monthly condo fees might have jumped up % wise but to keep things in perspective it might jump from $100 to $200 so that is only $100 increase even though it's 100% more. If $100/month is going to kill you then you are going to have issues no matter where you move.
In BA the expats spending the most money are people that go out to eat all the time. Besides that it is really manageable. Utilities are cheaper than home. Transportation is very cheap here. You don't need a car here or can take public transport very cheap anywhere or do what I do and walk most of the time when I'm in BA. My apartment is in Palermo so nothing is too far.
You will be totally fine @FuturoBA. If you aren't spending a lot of money in the States, you won't hear either. The biggest wildcard factor is having to move around in rentals as you can't control what your costs might be and moving around from place to place but you own your own place so that eliminates that problem.
Buenos Aires is still an ideal place to retire to on a limited income. Even if you don't own rentals can be had here for not too much. Befriend a local and they can be a guarantee for you on a long term rental further getting your price down further. Or if you really want to save a lot of money you can move outside of Buenos Aires and prices go much much lower.
Jeb Spencer
Well-known member
This is true. Flights were very expensive previously but I think with tourism falling drastically airlines have had to reduce their prices to EZE. Rentals are cheap compared to other places in Europe. In Spain and Portugal things like dining out are very affordable. Italy is expensive with accommodations in the summer.
earlyretirement
Moderator
I think the flights just depend on which city you are flying out of and what time of year you are traveling to BA. In our summer it is winter in BA and tourism is much slower so airlines usually discount more. In summer my ticket was not cheap. I went in January and tickets from San Diego were about $1,700 USD each. I went with my wife. They are always typically expensive in January. And our flight was more than half empty which is the first time I have seen that in January. It is interesting, the airline didn't discount even though it was so empty.
Even from the West Coast in the summer I can fly to Madrid for about the same price as flying to Buenos Aires. I'm still trying to decide where we will go this summer. We just got back from London and Paris and the thing that kills you in Europe is a really nice hotel or apartment which are very expensive and probably what kills the budget. Especially if you need a bigger property. Buenos Aires is great for that as you can rent great places for not a lot of money.
Italy gets really crowded in the summer with a lot of tourists. We are thinking about somewhere in Spain. We did Spain and Portugal a few years ago for the entire summer and it was awesome. Food is so cheap in Spain and Portugal. Good meals can be had in Buenos Aires too but at the nicer places prices have really gone up. But it's still a great city. My family doesn't want to go somewhere cold in the summer. We did Buenos Aires 2 years ago in the winter. My kids don't like skiing. I actually like Buenos Aires in their winter.
If you don't have to worry about private school tuition and you own your own place you can get by in Buenos Aires very reasonably. Also, if you watch your dining out. I think right now the category that kills you the most is dining out. My local friends have been complaining about that quite a bit. My friends with kids have had brutal increases in tuition but things fluctuate there. And this isn't the first time tuition has gotten expensive in USD terms.
@Jeb Spencer nailed it. Even if your HOA bills go up it's not a huge amount in USD terms and there is a limit to how high they can go. Even at these levels now, some buildings have many that are paying late. Much like anything else, if expenses go up and you can't afford it, you have to cut back. Same as Argentina. They are just cutting back on expenses because they can't afford it.
The arguments people are making about BA being too expensive. That isn't true. If you can't afford BA you certainly can't afford the USA!
I don't understand how things are so expensive here. I'm constantly shocked every day. I go to the supermarket and it is mostly not high quality compared to grocery stores in the States.
Almost everything is expensive in the supermarket. Walking around Palermo the prices are not too much different than the States in many places. Starbucks has drinks for 7000 pesos. I don't get it.
How and why are prices so much here???
You can't compare grocery stores here with the US. Night and day. Lots of competition in the USA and less taxes. Lots of variety and many things are grown there or cheaply imported there. Not the case in Argentina.
There are a lot of monopolies in the local market in Argentina. With the protectionism, it makes it tough on consumers. Imported goods are very expensive so local businesses charge nosebleed prices and charge whatever the hell they want. No cheap imported goods = no competition.
Go into any supermarket in the USA and you have 30 different kinds of beer from all over. Different brands from everywhere. Look here and it's almost all dominated by Quilmes owned brands and they don't have to compete. That lack of competition allows them to charge whatever the hell they want.
The peso is also overvalued by quite a bit making USD prices higher. Once the cepo ends we should see some relief.
There is no efficiency here either. And quality control is lacking. There is a lot of junk here. You can do that when you have little/no competition. That will change as import taxes get eliminated. But it will probably call the local market as they are too dumb to lower their prices.
Taxes are crazy high here and the consumers pay for that. Also many places if you notice have a ton of employees and none of them are doing much. If you go into a restaurant they employ too many people. They could get by with less people but all of those worthless employees are getting passed on the cost to consumer.
When I go to the USA now many places have automated to get rid of employees. You order with kiosk or touch screens. We will probably see more and more of that in the USA. Would love to see that in Argentina to cut down on employee and prices passed on to consumers.
There are probably a dozen more reasons but that is the majority of why things are so high here
Yes sorry, I meant total cost of the trip, and believe me it's not even close. Italy is really expensive for a country with so many great locations to visit (not like all touristss are going to the same few spots) and whose economy isn't that great.
OK thanks for clarification. Yes you are probably right about total cost. Italy accommodations can be expensive but they also have some hostels but not sure if you want to travel like that with family.
Maybe I am too hard on Argentina. I am just frustrated with how things are going. It is difficult to be forced out of a country that I love.
Fair point. If your city has a direct flight to BA (like LA), that airline will charge a big premium because they know most people will pay it rather than take two flights. If there's no direct then they're competing with other routes so it's quite cheap. However, that is even more the case with Europe because there are dozens of options to get to your destination if you can't fly direct, yet still flights are considerably more expensive than BA, at least in summer.
I can only imagine how frustrating that is Larry, and I'm sure it's little consolation that there are other options because they involve uprooting yourself. But at least they do exist.
Once you get to Argentina it isn't bad at all. For a big city rental prices are very reasonable. You can find anything from super budget $15/night places all the way up to $1,000 night places.
I find Italy expensive in the summer. Crazy hot too. No thanks. I know the prices went up a lot in BA since 2023 but it was too cheap back then. Even if they went up 200% that just shows you how ridiculous pricing was. Most of my local friends are complaining about increased costs but at least their salaries have also jumped up.
Cali Baby
Member
@Larry I think that you think Argentina is the only country that used to be affordable and now it isn't. That is how the United States is too for many people. We have also had a lot of inflation! Prices went up a ton after covid and never came down. At least in BA you have affordable rentals. Try going to any major city in California and see if you can find decent housing cheap. It doesn't exist!
In BA at least you can find cheap food too. Sure it went up but there are still some affordable places if you get out of the bubble and touristy areas. My parents were able to buy their house when it did not cost a fortune. Try buying now in many cities and it is impossible!
Prices seem to have gone up but I still see apartments online for under $100k in BA even in nice areas. They might not be big but if you are retired you don't need a big place. A tiny apartment in LA will cost you a fortune.
All my friends and I don't have any hope of being able to afford a place in the USA where we want so it's not just you that are forced out of the city they love. That happens everyday to many of us especially in California.
People move all the time. That may sound insensitive but at least you have options like @CraigM mentioned. I went backpacking around South America and you can still find fairly inexpensive COL in parts of Brazil, Colombia, and especially Peru. You can go to some rural areas of Peru or cities like Arequipa that are nice and not expensive.
No sense crying about increased cost of living daily. We know the feeling here in California and most of us have had to leave the state we love. I can't see BA getting cheap again like that. Sounds crazy but it could get more expensive in the future. I went to look at some apartments and all the developers tell me that prices are going to go way up not down.
People underestimate how expensive the US is. My Argentine friends imagine the US as this utopia where everyone is making hundreds of thousands per year and life is easy. That is far from the case. Our salaries might be higher but our expenses are much higher too.
@Cali Baby makes great points. Unfortunately many of us have to leave our cities. Most people in California eventually leave because it gets too expensive with taxes. They get replaced by more affluent people. In my neighborhood I don't have any original neighbors from when I moved here 20 years ago. They all left for Texas, Florida, Arizona and Mexico.
My plan is to retire in Buenos Aires once I finish working in a few years. I got fortunate that real estate has tremendously gone up since I bought my house. That along with my 401k will be my retirement. I plan to sell my house and move into my small 1 bedroom apartment in Palermo. I have for the past decade had friends that told me California wasn't worth it and prices are going to crash. Let me clue you in on something. They never did and prices keep going higher here.
earlyretirement
Moderator
Spot on target. The USA is great. Probably the best country in the world, IMHO. Great place to raise kids too. But it's very expensive and the middle class is shrinking. The cost of living has really skyrocketed in many areas. Just about everything has gone up in costs. From groceries, to utilities to insurance and property taxes. California is brutal. No arguing that.
Housing to buy or rent is expensive here. I have many, many friends that have moved out of California since I moved here 14 years ago. Many to lower cost of living and lower tax states like Texas. But even there although it is more affordable and no state income tax, property taxes are brutal there. When I lived in Dallas, my property taxes were insane! So the government gets you one way or another.
Ha. Yes, people have been telling me that there will be a crash in California for over a decade now. Property prices could correct. That is true. After all, in my neighborhood values have tripled since I purchased here in 2011. What I am finding in desirable areas is that people leave that can't afford it and more and more people are coming in from outside the USA. On a monthly basis I see more and more people buying here not only from outside of California but also from outside of the USA. We have many affluent people from Asia, Mexico, Latin America, India, Europe moving here.
Forget about what median salaries are in the State. It doesn't matter when more and more people are moving in. It is unfortunate but when prices get too expensive or uncomfortable for your budget or circumstances the only thing you can do is move to a more affordable city. That is pretty much the same scenario all over the world.
Avocado
Well-known member
But it not so easy like you say. Many of us have all family here. Jobs. It impossible for us to leave.
Lots of expats seem to want that upper middle class lifestyle and are unwilling to budge. The majority of complaints are about costs of eating out more than the cost of food. I guess I always believed the former was a luxury and should fall to discretionary spending. And for those complaining the loudest, what's not just the rise in your coffee or favorite restaurant, but also the rise in total??
James Bond
Well-known member
Expats like to complain just like Argentines LOVE to complain (just ask my girlfriend). It isn't just food that went up. Although for many expats that is probably what hurts the most. I know I loved going out to eat and going to cafes. The culture there consists of meeting up with friends often for drinks, coffees, dining out. Many have to cut back.
@FuturoBA at least for me last year I just felt like it will take a while to solve Argentina's woes. I knew that it will take time. I could see my monthly condo fees jumping up each month. Utility bills which felt almost free jumped up. Still not bad compared to some countries. Where we felt it was medical premiums, private school tuition and just about everything else. There was no way to know if salaries would jump up to match.
It wasn't just dining out. Our monthly expenses jumped up when you factor in everything. You are lucky and you have an apartment purchased so you won't have to hassle with rental increases. Maybe some day I will move back but Spain quality of life so far beats BA with the uncertainty of things.
And people discount if Milei is successful things could stay expensive for years and years or get even more expensive. With Argentina you never know. My guess is that once the cepo ends the blue dollar will go up but inflation probably will also go up a bit. No one knows for sure.
If you don't have kids I don't think you have to worry much. You can manage in BA without healthcare insurance if you are single and healthy. With no private school tuition and only having to take care of yourself it will not be too expensive compared to the US based on my experiences traveling to the US.
Betsy Ross
Well-known member
This is true. I know many people like this that are always complaining but don't want to cut back on lifestyle. I doubt anyone is dining out everyday in the USA. You would go broke so I don't understand why people expect to be able to do that in BA. I consider dining out at restaurants a luxury. Even going out for coffee daily outside of your house I consider a luxury. My sister goes to Starbucks daily in Southern California and it adds up!
I don't know how some people do it in the States. Every time I go to Santa Barbara to visit my sister I am amazed at how expensive restaurants are there. We went out a few months ago and I picked up the check as she was paying all the time. I picked up the check and was shocked at how much simple places even for salads cost. Plus they added on all kinds of taxes and fees. There was a mandatory 18% tip and sales tax was almost another 10% and they had some mandatory healthcare fee of another 4% of the check. It came to about 32% of the total on top of the $25 salads.
Correct. If you don't have kids you can manage here quite well.
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