cost of living

Member since 08 March 2014

praveenpMember09 March 2014 06:01:29

Hello everybody,

I am Praveen from India and currently work with an Automobile company in Pune. I will be relocating with my wife to Santiago sometime in June. I want to know about cost of living in Santiago.

My company will provide fully furnished apartment and will take care of all the basic utilities like electricity, water, internet, phone and gas. They will also take care of transport. (car and fuel expenses)
What will be the cost of living for us? My wife will be dependent and won't be working and we are pure vegetarians.

Is 1500USD is more than enough to spend a good life with weekend outings, dinners and movies? I will take the decision based upon the saving potential. Also what is the exchange rate these days that we get for USD?

My wife is an MBA and currently work for a KPO and work in financial domain. Is there any chance for her to a find job there? She does not know spanish at all.

Thanks and regards
Praveen

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watchingtheweasels Active member

Member since 15 February 2014

watchingtheweaselsActive member09 March 2014 17:59:39

Good luck in Santiago. I'd recommend downloading and listening to Dr. John Cobin's excellent "Red Hot Chile" broadcasts. He is a former American turned Chilean and discusses life in Chile in depth:

overseasradio.com/john-cobin/

Here's his blog:

escapeamericanow.info/

With regards to the question of "My wife is an MBA and currently work for a KPO and work in financial domain. Is there any chance for her to a find job there? She does not know spanish at all."

Most of the resources I've researched say that unless you can speak spanish you had best forget about employment. Cobin in his podcasts recommends being able to move to Chile and be self supporting for 3 years - the amount of time he estimates a non Spanish speaker to gain the level of fluencey in Chilean spanish to be employable locally.

With your wife's background - and with her being located in South America there might be some unique self employment opportunities for her with the right connections - starting an andean natural resources investment fund and so on.

Good luck with your new life in Chile.

ricardopadro Contributor

Member since 11 August 2011

ricardopadroContributor11 March 2014 15:39:55

130

Hi "Salah Kutta" ... hahahaha joke joke!
well, i had friends from India and they said that Chile is like 2 or 3 times more expensive than India, for example they said about salary that with 1000 dollars (in chilean money) they can live good in India, but here was 2000 dollars. For rent a flat, with 350 dolars you can get a good flat, but here with 800 dollars you can get a good one.

A engineer earn per month between 1500 to 2200, a senior could earn between 2700 to 3500 (depends of industry, company and city). So if you said that they will pay your rent and living cost and also transportation, and also 1500 dollars i think is good.

I just want to mentioned that all my friends that had a wife, finally they come back to India, because here 95% of people can´t have a conversation in english, and their wife was bored to live here, so try to get a job for your wife too, you can search in www.indeed.cl

Also, all indians came with box of spices, because you can´t easy find here.

See you!