Cost of living in 2010?

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What is the cost of living in Penang presently? I don't want a maid, chauffer or gardener. I think I prefer a rental property to buying a place.

A stand alone house would be nice rather than a condo.

Cupert

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I'm not yet in Penang but I found this thread from last year very useful.

http://www.my2home.info/index.php/topic,455.msg5010.html#msg5010

At the bottom of page 1 of the thread, you'll find an excellent breakdown from Danny on his monthly living costs last year.  If you're renting, obviously you'll need to add that on, and any expensive hobbies I guess  .  Everyone's going to have different lifestyles obviously but it gives you an indication.

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Papaya, good news. Whom am I kidding! It is great news.

I can get use to RM3000 and a bit over. WOW!

The amount seems unbelievably modest compare to the high cost of living here. Any idea of how many expats move over to Malaysia because of the reasonable cost of living?

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hi, cupert,

Well, there's . . . er, me for one. And I moved from Singapore.

I left the UK in 1983. I remember going back for a visit a few years later. I'd just arrived from Heathrow and got into central London and went to a pub. After a couple of years away it's natural isn't it? I hadn't got a lot of sterling so I paid for the pint with a 50 pound note. The barman asked if I had anything smaller as 50 pounds was hard to change.

I wonder if it's the same now?   

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hi Scott

...maybe he will tell you: "sorry pal... that's not enough..."   

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I lived in UK for approx 6 years and I am not sure how I survived there. Everything and I mean everything was so expensive. The marvellous thing about living in UK is that when you go travelling, you tend to find the cost of living in most places cheap compare to London. Of course, there are exceptions, namely Paris, New York, Tokyo and most northern European cities.

When we were visiting Singapore and KL in November 2009, we felt ever so 'rich' as AUD1 buys RM3.3 and Sing 1.3  . Of course, it was a different story in Feb 2009, when AUD1 buys RM2.4. We kind of felt riped off. 

Cupert

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I live in the London, believe you me it is called "rip off Britain" for a valid reason. It indeed is very expensive to live here. However, most of Europe has seen massive price rises especially the countries that have joined the Euro. If UK was to join too, one can only assume that the cost of living here will go out of the roof. I too am looking forward to moving to Malaysia in the new future.

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hi,

The Malaysian government has just delayed the GST proposals. When GST was introduced in Singapore I was there and the cost of most items went up. It just generally went up.

Same when decimalisation happened in the UK. Everything got rounded up, and then some. The pound in my pocket stayed the same, it just turned into loose change. Same with VAT.

Same with the introduction of the Euro. I was in Portugal at the time and all items went up. For example, a bika (one shot of espresso) cost 40 or 50 escudos. Overnight it became 50 cents (1/2 a euro). The rate of escudo to euro was 200 to 1.  It should have been 25 cents. It wasn't.

In all cases, the respective government produced statement after statement showing that prices hadn't gone up.

I guess with the strength of the A$ and the C$ then folks from these countries are the nouveau rich, and good luck to them. Together with anyone who owns a gold mine.

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The dreaded GST.   

When the Howard govt decided to introduce the dreaded GST (breaking one of their many election promises just like all decent pollies do), we in Oz were all in a flutter!  When it was finally introduced, from memory, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. Some of the prices did go up but generally most stay the same.

Hey! is there any Oz MM2H members here, please help me out..........here! Did my memory serves me well???

Same with the GFC! The cost of living went down ......for those who are working and who have mortgages to service. Petrol prices went down ... interest rate for loans went down......but what really puzzles me is that AUD rate went down inspite of the fact that we didn't have a recession???

So there were some positives and negatives.

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Just out of interest I've extracted this from a UK website called moneysavingexpert.com
Interesting to see Malaysia included and Thailand too. Of course only a handful of countries compared and I've no idea what goods specifically were included.......................

"Here's the price of a basket of goods inc beers, water & meals, which costs £72.14 in the UK (Brighton), compiled by the Post Office at today's exchange rates (it can vary by city too - this was priced at tourist resorts):

Hungary (£37.40)
Bulgaria (£39.52)
Thailand (£42.31)
Spain (£45.26)
Bali (£52.51)
Kenya (£52.60)
Malaysia (£57.71)
Croatia (£63.46)
Greece (£64.02)
Egypt (£65.45)
USA (£75.70)
Turkey (£76.08)

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hi,

Something to gauge things by. Private doctors serving in government hospitals and health clinics are paid RM80 per hour, medical specialists get RM100 per hour, and surgical specialists RM120.

I've just had a ding-dong over a car repair where the workshop wanted to charge RM200 for "wages" for a 2 hours job by 1 mechanic and a boy with a hammer (the apprentice, and no reference to Donald). And that's on top of RM600 in oil/parts where the mark-up is 100%, at least.

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What is the cost of living in Penang presently? I don't want a maid, chauffer or gardener. I think I prefer a rental property to buying a place.

A stand alone house would be nice rather than a condo.

Cupert

You mentioned in another thread that you're an Aircon Fan and I have to admit that I'm one too - even after 5 years in the Tropics - sad I know and especially so when we view our monthly electricity bill 

If you're thinking "stand alone house" you might want to consider the costs of aircon (AND aircon service costs if you are using it regularly).  I wonder if there's anyone on here in a house and uses regular aircon?  I'm presuming in a rental house that you'd have to pay for the aircon servicing yourself?

We're planning to end up in a high rise condo and hopefully lots of sea breezes up there, so we might just wean ourselves off of aircon.  Who knows.

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Hi Papaya & Other Posters<

We are also planning to buy a high rise modern condo & will be visiting Penang in early June to have an initial look. Couple of queries you or others may be able to comment on:

1) Roughly what might be the monthly strata management and/or property taxes for owning a 200m2 condo say valued about 850,000 RM ?

2) Roughly what are the acquisition costs re buying such a condo i.e. legal, stamp duty etc ?

3) Again could someone throw light re monthly electricity bill assuming above moderate use of a/c ?

4) Finally, what does a cappuccino currently cost in Penang at a reasonably presentable cafe (not a flash hotel) ?

Many thanks,

James

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I think if you live in an attap house, you are less likely to switch on the air con and therefore reduce the electricity bill. 

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Looking for reasonably priced beach front attap house