New here, have few querie abut cost of living

Hey Man,

I am from Mumbai planning to relocate to KL with my wife. I have some questions. Its will be great help if you can give me some more info....
The KL company has indicated me 15,000 MR per month. My office address either will be at Bukit Damansara or at Jalan Raja Chulan.

Here are few queries I have:
1. I would like to stay near by the office address, so that I can travel by cab/bus or walk. Need a furnished condo/flat 1 bhk in the prime area. What the rent will be?
2. If the salary is 15k PM, what will be the Tax which will get cut straight away? Is there any tax slab for the same?
3. And what will be the overall expenditure (groceries + weekend movie & eating out + and basic stuff ......no parties/alcohol/cigarettes/extravagant stuff) apart from condo rent?
4. Any idea about EPF?
5. Is it safe especially at night?

Hope to hear from you soon.
Thanks

Hello Anotherguy
welcome, I am no in the process of shifting to PJ (almost a suburb of KL). I am from Mumbai. I have done some homework and here is my finding :
- Areas - South Bangsar, KLCC, Bukit Bintang are the areas where you will find Condos - fully furnished and semi furnished also. It is difficult to find 1BHK here in KL/PJ. You normally have 2 or 2 and half BHK or studio apartments. Rent should be RM 3000 pm for a simple 2 BHK. Remember that the area near your office is upmarket - like Malabar Hill. or Worli Sea face in Mumbai. So it is costly. Public transport is not very good, but still better in KL, so you should not have a big problem. check out iproperty.com for rental rates, and corelate with google map.
- Tax : Tax is 26% above RM 1 lac p.a. For first 1 lac you pay around RM 15000, as the slabs are lower. However you will need to pay 26% for the first 6 months, and depending on your stay and resident  status your tax will be adjusted according to the slabs. If you pay excess, yu can claim the same while u file ur return next year.
- expenditure : this is tricky topic, let me try to explain : take the following mandatory heads :
- rent (whatever u pay)
-   Transport - RM 800
- Telephone + internet+ TV - RM 300
- water - RM 30
- Sewage - RM 10
- eletcriicity - RM 180
- Grocery (perishable - milk, vegetables, fruits, etc) - RM 400
- Grocery (Kirana) RM 1500
- A good meal for two in a decent South Indian Veg restaurant costs around RM 50
- Taxi is min RM 3.5 and for aoround 7 km it costs around RM 8
I think this should give u a good idea. However I have considered a simple but decent lifestyle of a Mumbaiite, staying in Thane/Vashi/Borivali, in a 2 BHK Flat with a Santro/Alto car, when calculating expenses.

Hey SHinPJ,

Sorry for the delayed response. Thanks a lot for your detailed mail. It will be very helpful for me.
Thanks also for the nice breakdown of monthly expenses.

Regards

Hi tax is 26% flat rate  for first 6 months then goes down and you can reclaim.excess later. You will get about 12,400 after tax. No EPF for expats unless a perk from.your company. If you join they only pay 5RM per.month legal minimum for expats so most consider a waste of time doing that.

Expenses well KL is expensive. Cars are super expensive! Really depends on you. You can easily spend all of that or 7k but I reckon for most people 7k is the lowest spend after accomodation, food and the a local holiday a year etc. Most people spend a lot more than they budget.

With kids wouldn't be enough btw. But I presume you don't.