Ask HN: Where can I live off 1k USD per month?

I had been paying a little over $1,000 USD per month in Tomsk, Russia.

I had about 125 square meters in the center of the city, right across from the main university campus, 600/600Mbps unmetered symmetrical fiber with a static ipv4 address ($10 a month from domru), unlimited 4g (a little over $10 from megafon), ordered delivery for literally every meal, and used taxi apps for all my travel.

The bureaucracy and paperwork for existing is probably a fair bit more than what you’d be used to in the US - e.g., needing to register your residence every time you go to a hotel, go back to your apartment, etc. But, the process for actually getting stuff done, like getting an apartment or getting bank account, is actually pretty simple and something you can navigate easily on your own or with any Russian speaking friend.

Healthcare was good too. I had a good experience at the state run hospitals when I, unfortunately, needed surgery; patient staff, quality work, and I didn’t even carry my wallet in and walked out paying nothing. Similarly, ambulances were another painless experience, not even asking for my insurance.

FWIW: I think the typical “nomad” is often quite a bit more right-wing and concerned about taxes and money than I am (don't take offense, just an observation!). The city is fairly liberal for Russia, it’s young, has a nice academic scene, etc. I’m not sure I’d stay forever, but I don’t regret the years I spent there. It was a lot of fun, people were nice, the experiences were wild, and university was great.

Downsides:

- Access to foreign products, electronics, or even things as simple as English books can be lacking.

- There's nothing anywhere near as convenient as Amazon, so be prepared for visits to actual stores when you need a cable or something and have fun navigating aliexpress, avito, and similar.

- Racism is still a thing and even though actually getting my apartment was easy, finding a landlord willing to rent to an "Omar" was a lot harder ("for slavs only" is an unfortunately common thing in realty listings). Similarly, my Chinese friends experienced a fair bit of serious discrimination when the pandemic first began. If you're light-skinned and have a white-sounding name, I don't imagine you'll face any trouble, though.

- Although Tomsk is significantly more liberal than many other areas, and I don't think anything particularly terrible would happen, it's probably not got the most vibrant of LGBT atmospheres on the planet.

- Weather is just brutal. From the windchill of -51 I experienced to the 30+ summers.

- Get an apartment with a boiler. Most people use city-provided hot water for showers, but that means every summer, you'll lose your hot water for a week or so while they do they annual maintenance otherwise.

Thanks for your response.

The rat race can wait , I think 6 months focused on game dev will get my game to where I need it to be. And if not, at least I had some fun.

Any big cultural shocks.

Also as someone pointed out: money "earned" by not paying rent is untaxed.

Yeah, it may be harder if you're a foreigner. I'm a foreigner and I managed to do it, though. If you have the cash I don't think landlords would care.

For me, the biggest hurdle was saving up the deposit. Koreans have easy access to cheonsae loans at 2-4% interest rates. It's very difficult for foreigners to get a loan in Korea.

Colombia. Both in Bogotá and Medellin you will be able to live comfortably and the internet is pretty good in those 2 cities. I pay USD 387 for a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment relatively near the city center in Bogotá. Food is quite affordable a very good restaurant with entry, main course and a glass of wine would be less than 15. A big mac costs less than 5.

The big advantage is the plummeting of the Colombian peso in comparison to the US Dollar. 1k USD is almost 4x the minimum wage, and most people make less than the minimum wage and survive so 1k USD for one person puts you in a strong upper middle class actually.

The only caveat is that most people have poor English, so some Spanish is a must. Maybe in Medellin could be different since there is a huge number of expats there, but in Bogotá at least, most people won't speak English.