How to save money in China

A big part of the expense is the rent, which unfortunately is fixed and on the rise almost every year. There are of course some ways to bring it down by sharing the flat, or living further outside of downtown.
But also some tricks to have a good deal are:
A-  Not rent through agency but rather people who are leaving and looking for replacement; as agencies tend to call the landlord at the end of the lease to "update him" with the new market price...
B- Sign a 2 years lease in order to slow down the increase. Also and most importantly,

In terms of living cost, here it depends on lifestyle and self control.

- Going out: Cheap and free alcohol is not recommended because it is usually fake especially when it is draft. Bottled ones are usually a safer option.

- For food; try to eat more Chinese or cook at home.

- Groceries: Besides dairy food, i order most my things online and it cost cheaper than super market. Otherwise Metro is the best option.
A good place to shop is the "almost expired stores" which are almost everywhere. Usually they might be selling things that run out in 1 day, or 3 month with the price varying accordingly. Some stuff like olive oil, wine, nuts are a safe investment and can cost much cheaper than supermarkets. Dairies and canned food are safe as long as they are consumed before the expiration date.

The last part is transportation. i personally take mostly the subway, or commute by bike. I only take taxi's when i don't have other option as usually it doesn't save much time in rush hours. Walking is also a good habit!

on the accommodation issue. yes we find that different agent gave us different kind of price and the commission is so high @ 35%. where can we get to know ppl who are leaving and we can take over? is there a forum or community that i can join?

For meals ,you can try up the "Mei tuan"app

for the renting the house, you may search the website"ganji" or "58.com", and if the message displays that it's published by the house owner, Then you can contact him or her, and talk about the rental.

ic...thanks. will try that.

There are many expat websites, i usually use smartshanghai, but also Bonjourchine if you speak french. The idea is to find someone who has to leave, and therefore take their lease without passing through an agent. You may take the same lease, or negotiate directly with the landlord. Of course, the leaving party should introduce you as a trustworthy friend.

Putting aside the 35% commission; i tend to receive msgs and calls from agents around 1 month before the end of my lease. Basically, some agencies share a comon database and therefore has visibility on when your lease is gonna expire. Therefore, they wait 30 days before (for example) when they call the landlord and notify him that the new market price has increase 1000~2000~3000 RMB... That is when you will receive a bad news from the landlord without even knowing what happened. With such an increase; the landlord will happily pay his part of the commission to the agency even if he kept you or got a new tenant.
And if you refuse to renew, that is when you will turn to the agents who by "coincidence" contacted you around the time your lease was going to end; and therefore help you find a new place and pay another 35%.

i have some queries..i have search on www.58.com and also anjuke. the published price seems abit too unbelievable compared to the pics of the hse they posted.  why i make this comment was because we approached JRE before and the price they quoted us was was up to 4 times more exp than those website.so im very confused now which is the more reliable website that we can trust. and my colleagues has been warning me on the scams. for the first month we are thinking to stay in a airbnb and slowly look for an apartment when we are physically there.

Yes this is a typical fishing scam. They use these mirage to get you to meet with them, then once you arrive, they tell you the place was taken and recommend something else close to the price you saw, but much crappier. This is in the aim to depress you and "show you what's the standard based on your price" and therefore push you to accept the beautiful much more expensive things they will show you later on...
They also use tricks to get you to take the flat that you liked and that is 1 or 2k more than you budget. Usually on your way out, the agent will "coincidently" come across his colleague who informs him that the place has been taken. The agent however will tell you that you can still call dibs on it if you pay a deposit; usually 500~1000RMb which makes you stuck to it.

FYI, best time to find a place is June/July as this is the period where demand is low and people tend to leave. Starting august/septembre, you will have loads of people coming is (most notably students) who will push the demand up and so the price, The next window will be October...

yeah, there are some scams, but more are not.
You should find the message that's posted by house owner, which usually are marked" 个人”or “房东”， at a reasonable price.
Then contact.

yes, bforest thanks for the recommendation i will continue to lookout from there.

olrip, too bad my hubby need to start job in Oct so we have no choice but to stay in airbnb for short stay and at the same time look for housing. can i ask if we approach the direct owner, do we need to sign contract? cos im afraid if the owner half way come and tell me that they need the hse back, how am i going to look for a place in a short period of time. this is our first time in china and we are not sure of the culture and anything we need to take note of when coming to hse rental.

Well for the lease it is a big thing in China. If you want to take from a legal perspective; even if there is a contract between the landlord and the tenant, the document has no legal value unless one of the signatory has the license to do so; such as an agent. Which is why some landlords insist on having an agent to sign the contract and that is the correct way to do although it is what we hope to avoid.

But at the end of the day, it is all about trust and the people you have to deal with. I personally avoid renting from people who want to live from the rent; for the obvious reasons such as having them telling you 10 days in advance not to forget to wire the money; and of course, the systematic increase at any possible occasion. Also, they tend to be the ones who will never return a deposit.

That is to say, i tend to rent from owners who do not live in the area, who have this property (preferably more than 1) and are looking to have someone who would maintain it in order to resell in a couple of years or for their children to live in. Example, my current contract is directly with the landlord and even recently we renewed it without having in agent in the middle. I pay on time and he never complains nor visits.

The previous one was an opposite case; i had signed a 2 years lease around mid September for a flat that was lower than my standard but acceptable (through an agent). The landlord turned out to be an asshole as 9 months later he informs us that he wants to sell, to which we replied that in that case we will move out and that entitle us to 1 month free rent or payout... That was also 3 days before we have to pay the rent (3 months in advance at a time) and we informed him that we will from now on pay 1 month at a time. He then said that he changed his mind and is not looking to sell.
Basically we understood the message, he wanted to kick us out but did not want to meet his end of the bargain. We left, lost the deposit, but luckily for a better deal where i currently live. We learned that he rented the place 2500rmb more, which explains the whole thing...

There are loads of stories like that; people getting kicked out and losing 1 or 2 months rent. Legally it would cost you more to have a lawyer to handle the case. Which is why, with an agent or not, the lease can be as good as toilet paper if the landlord decides as such.

wow...sounds challenging. im feeling so stressed out now.

I actually find it really hard to save money in China, everything is too convenient here, and you can buy anything and everything through wechat, there's food in every corner. It was honestly much much more easier for me to save money in Europe. If anyone has a good remedy for saving money in China please share it with me also. :-DD

If you do have problems in find a suitable one, you can contact me and I may ask my friends in Shanghai to see if they can give help

Oh wow, I feel your pain my landlady in Shenzhen gave us a 2 weeks notice apparently she sold the flat so we had very little time to get move out luckily I know a lot of people and found someone within the same district who was looking to rent her flat so I got lucky that why, Btw I'm pretty sure the landlady will not give us back our 2 months deposit because of the cheap stunts she's pulled. I've always had amazing landlords or landladys but this one, no matter how much I tried to be nice to her, she is a just a real piece of work and always looking to increase the rent every 6 months. So I'm hoping the new landlady will be good to us. I've heard so many terror stories about landlords in China that I'm a bit apprehensive.

sure bforest, will message you when we got there. thanks for the advise.

hi yixhing, yeah im not there yet but heard a few horror stories here.

Well i personally still use cash and avoid the fast payment methods for obvious reasons. I can count, feel my spending and restrain myself when needed. Unfortunetly, i look stupid these days taking out my wallet of cash to pay in a bar  .
Most people tell me that with Wechat and Alipay, they don't count how much they spent, so that is a part of the problem.

Regarding landlords, it is a trap and there are always those fake smiles when you first meet them. That is why i prefer to find a tenant leaving who can give an idea of what to expect. Of course, they can also be lying.
But what is for sure, even if the landlord is nice and all and the price is attractive, there is always a catch. In my current flat, the landlord basically is keeping it for his girl who lives with her husband in the US. The moment she decides to come back, i know i will be kicked out... Hopefully she wont 

There are some great suggestions here. As I currently reside in Beijing, here are mine.

1. Always use public transportation. When a city has great public transportation, use it. You're just throwing money away if you get a car to move yourself around.

2. Scope out the best groceries store prices and shop for groceries once every 2 weeks. You wont believe how much of a difference it is to shop at local small shops for groceries than supermarkets and high-end retailers. However with that being said, I do take my time to ask the shop owners where the produce, meat and etc comes from as I dont like buying produce, meat, milk, butter and etc that are processed by factories. I prefer grass fed meat or farm raised/ grown produce. I've completely stopped shopping for anything that comes from China. This will take a while for you to locate as some shop owners will consider you a nuisance when you ask these questions but I've found some which entertained me and even showed me where they get their goods or if they are farmers themselves. So use your discretion when you buy. Support local farmers than giant corporations.

3. Grow your own simple herbs and simple produce. I've recently started this and have seen it save me on some produce and herbs that I spend on. Some of my friends in New York go one step further and work with all the tenants in their building to grow a small farm on the roof of their building. A community shared garden. Growing chillies, curry leaves, tomatoes, onions, garlic and potatoes is easy for a person or two in Singapore and also thanks to the weather.

4. Pay yourself first when you get your salary. The percentage depends on you. I pay myself 25% of my salary and use the rest to pay bills and entertainment.

5. Generate multiple sources of income. Its important in this age to have more than one source of income than you job. Always plan for this and create it.

6. Try to avoid spending money at high end restaurants, bars and hangout spots.  This is a major drain of your finances. You can always allocate a small sum of cash for one outing to these places but never take your credit card or debit cards when you go out to these places. You only take that limited sum of cash that you have allocated and go. so when your drink or enjoy your time, you will not overspend that what you have allocated.

7. Split the rent with a friend by sharing an apartment. This helps loads as cost of rent in Singapore is expensive as in other expensive cities.

8. Don't do any purchases in credit cards if you can't pay them off in the next month. Rolling outstanding balances eats your savings and finances like a flesh eating bacteria if you cant control your debts.

9. Join your office gym or go to a community workout gym. These days gym memberships are also hefty and can be a waste if you don't go to the gym at least 3 times a week. Using the office gym or a community gym is way cheaper and they usually have all the necessary equipment for you to work out with.

10. Be a minimalist in your home. Try to have things in your home that you will use. Don't buy stuffs that you would only use for once or twice and it ends up being an ornament for the rest of its life. Donate clothes that you don't use, donate and recycle newspapers and magazines that you have lying around after being read only once. Try to subscribe to online news and magazines that usually has all articles that you need to know or read about. Go through your storage and sell stuffs that you don't need or never use. These things grow over time when you keep buying and storing them and they end up taking up lots of storage space. Soon you will be renting a storage unit to store your stuffs which you aren't gonna see or use for quite a long time. Next thing you know, its your locker they are betting on in Storage Wars.

Well these are just some of the key things I do to live minimalist in an expensive city. It helps and saves me money to enjoy travelling and having new experiences that I cherish and long for.

Good luck!

I've visited here numerous times. Hotels usually charge $4/8 US but those typically do not house foreigners ( so ask if you will be registered through the police database - better yet register w/ the police station & they will tell you which establishment is legal). Local residents ( from your husbands work...) Can arrange/commision (maybe thru commissions...$) are better at getting you an apartment & they will get you a fair price. So get a local friend to do the "leg work" for you