Please inundate me with info about Buenos Aires!

Hi justinerene,

Welcome to Expat-blog!

getting a job here is not easy as u thought no matter what kind of experience u have. The language is a problem, u need to be able to speak and understand Spanish.

Cost of living here is escalating almost monthly. U need to earn minimum US$2000 to survive because rent for studio is around US$700-1000 plus per month. Transportation minimum 1.20-1.50 peso by bus, 0.80-1.60 peso by mitre train.

Living as a foreigner everything seems expensive here.

My experience in Buenos Aires is clearly much different than that of Choumpon.C.

I have lived and worked here since 2006 doing a variety of different kinds of work and can assure you that my Spanish is not good enough for a job requiring any level of proficiency in the language.  With that in mind, I completely disagree that you have to be able to speak and understand English in order to get a job.

I completely disagree that you need USD 2000 a month to live here.  I lived quite nice my first year here on USD 10,000.  Things are a bit more expensive now, particularly restaurants but you can live on less that 2000 a month, it depends on what kind of lifestyle you want. 

I can show you tons of studios that rent for less than USD 500 per month with all bills and fees included so I must disagree with the rental rates listed.

The minimum for buses is actually 0.90 and for the train I use to get from Vicente Lopez (outside of Capital Federal) to the city costs 0.75, so those numbers are incorrect as well.

As to whether or not things seem expensive here - well, that is a pretty subjective thing and it really depends a lot on where you come from in the States or the world as to whether or not it seems expensive.

I moved here from California and my overall cost of living is less than 1/3 of what it was in California.  I also cannot get over the price of things such as wine - they seem almost free to me they are so cheap by comparison.

Overall, I think most people find exactly what they expect to find when they come to Buenos Aires.  I came with an open mind and with every expectation of having a wonderful time and Buenos Aires has never let me down.

To answer your questions: 

No you are not required to have a job prior to arriving here, but jobs are almost impossible to obtain here.  The people I know who do the best either work for multi national companies and have their job prior to arriving here, or they work as freelancers or with their own companies.

I fall into the latter category now having 100% of my work in the USA.  For the first 3 years I lived here I worked freelance as a writer, journalist, photographer and website designer and did just fine making most of my money down here. 

As to RNs being in demand, no - I do not really think so.  Jobs are hard to obtain here and with a free university education up to a bachelors degree there are tons of unemployed people with professional degrees to include doctors, nurses, engineers, psychologists, lawyers....  There are not enough of those jobs for locals - a foreigner would be pretty much out of the running for consideration....

Buenos Aires has a great reputation for top notch health care workers which is great news as the average Argentine eats about 80kgs of meat a month! Mate, the national drink, is a natural amphetamine and probably the cause of everyone staying up so late, are you ready to eat dinner between 10pm and 12? The sherba that goes into mate is considered the food with the most antioxidising benefits more so than kiwifuit or green tea. Good luck with your research see you here soon.

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