Ask HN: Cost of living across the world (Ramen PPP Index for hackers)

I live fairly comfortably at $2,000 a month. The ramen profitable number for a single self-employed twentysomething is in the neighborhood of $1,500.

Some costs:

- A month's rent for a capacious apartment (by Japanese standards): $450 (This would be $700 inside of Nagoya, and you'd get a third the size of the apartment.)

- Utilities: Gym ($100), phone + Internet + cell phone + gas + electricity + water + sewage = ~$300

- Health insurance: $300 / mo, assuming your income is in the "typical Japanese twenty-something" bracket

- Pension: $200 / mo, ditto

- Food: A cheap meal at a restaurant runs $8. For Western food (pizza, Italian, etc), budget $15. My best friends manage to make $300 a month work for a monthly food budget -- I don't cook at all and spend closer to $700.

- A bowl of ramen: $1 if you make it yourself, $3 from a convenience store, $7 at a restaurant.

- Sundries: Prices are similar to expensive metropolitan areas in the US.

- Typical monthly wage for a programmer: if you work at a certain Japanese megacorp in Nagoya, you will earn $100 per year of age per month. All engineering salaries within five hundred miles of Nagoya are pegged to this number. Individual circumstances may vary (particularly for foreigners).

When I moved to New Delhi, my rent was $100. These days a livable apartment in New Delhi will cost around Rs. 15,000 ($330) + add cost of electricity($100), water and maintenance. In summer, electricity bill shoots up to $200 to $300.

The estimate of rent is very modest, a good two bedroom house can cost $2000 per month in Delhi or Mumbai. India tops the most expensive real estate market in the world.

A coffee at Barista or Cafe Coffee Day will cost between $1 to $3. Most hackers will require at least one coffee day if not beer. $100 per month will get you only two modest meals a day. Food could cost more than $200 depending upon what you eat.

Yes, most of the Indian population survives on less than $1 a day. They live on streets and barely get a single meal a day.

Numbeo has lots of crowdsourced data. They ask contributors for city data, so you can even compare between cities in your target country.

Hyderabad, India is at the top of their Consumer Price plus Rent Index for 2010.

Living in Asia was an amazing experience, but honestly, there isn't that much "adventure" to write about. I wasn't traveling, since that's expensive-ish. My primary goal was to do research in AI. That turned out to be quite challenging, with the lack of good libraries and peers, but the freedom to work on whatever I want made it entirely worthwhile.

My next goal is to get a job, back in the West. Who wants to hire a physics grad school drop-out who spent three years roaming, with no portfolio and no professional experience? A drop-out who will surely quit once he has enough funds to start roaming again?

Let's find out!