31–40 of 84 posts
Wherever numbeo and expatistan get their data, it's utterly hilarious that the summaries rank San Jose CA about the same as Valanecia/Alicante Spain. Let me just say, there is an absolutely ludicrous error somewhere.
Just a thought at least.
You're comparing cost of living without taking into account median salaries? I don't think any comparison is complete without some sort of salary survey.
Inflation is theft.
Can this be repurposed as an independent price index/measure of inflation? That is, independent of the World Bank/governments and government-funded economic bodies, which could be useful
It would be even better if you could input what you spend your money on. E.g. if someone buys a lot of alcohol, then the cost of living depends more on the alcohol tax.
Would be nice to take into consideration Sales Tax, Income Tax and Property Taxes. In the states it can be fairly misleading if you ignore these factors as some states have no personal income tax as an example and others have crazy sales tax and personal income tax combined with property tax. All these drain a persons resources when they move from one locale to another. Not sure how to capture "soft" stuff like healt…
I would prefer this one focused on doing what it does right.
Would be nice to take into consideration Sales Tax, Income Tax and Property Taxes. In the states it can be fairly misleading if you ignore these factors as some states have no personal income tax as an example and others have crazy sales tax and personal income tax combined with property tax. All these drain a persons resources when they move from one locale to another. Not sure how to capture "soft" stuff like healt…
numbeo.com has that (but Expatistan's display of price in both currencies is nice)
You're comparing cost of living without taking into account median salaries? I don't think any comparison is complete without some sort of salary survey.
I get this comment a lot. I agree that it makes sense to compare also local salaries to see which city is the cheapest one to live in as an employee. However, Expatistan is not about finding cheap cities to work in. It's about comparing cost-of-living, independently of your income. Expats are usually not linked to average local salaries in any meaningful way, anyway. I explain it much better in the website: http://ww…
This looks very similar to http://www.numbeo.com which was also created in 2009. Is it the same data?
The questions and purchase options in this crowd sourced list are extremely similar to the 'basket of goods' she was seeking. Prices are also pretty similar to 2008/2009 but a bit askew from today (particularly food, which over the past 5 years has experienced significant inflation).
Was there a surge of this type of information collection at the time (I can't recall anything of note online), or has a relocation / relocation-type consultancy released past data?
Once again asking about "expats", which just means "rich immigrant". You could get totally different answers if you were asking for "main immigrant part of $CITY". The survey to collect data even says "Do not enter prices that can only be found .. in [e]specially cheap neighborhoods", which usually means "immigrant".
Rich expats are pretty much by definition not "immigrants", they're usually visiting for a few years with a fat "expat package" courtesy of the company. But these are increasingly a dying breed, and most expats are neither fat cat expats nor dirt-poor refugees, but somewhere in the middle. Also, much of the calculator asks for things like a liter of gas or a bottle of Coke, whose price is not going change radically n…
Not necessarily. There is a Big Mac Index[1], that looks at the price of a Big Mac from McDonalds, which shows that the price of a very standard product (a Big Mac) can vary by location.