Yup Singapore has been named the most expensive city in the world!
The BBC have an article saying that Singapore is the most expensive city in the world to live in. We certainly have noticed the increase in cost over the 9 years we have been here. Recently I said that there are 2 things that could make us want to leave Singapore, cost and haze/air quality. Clearly losing my job would also force us to leave but that’s not us deciding.
It’s clearly a matter of perception though, a friend didn’t feel that the cost of living had changed in the last 5 years even though all these surveys would disagree.
For a starter we have seen rents triple in our time here and the SGD 2 hawker meals don’t exist anymore. At the Singapore Writers Festival one of the speakers at the food writing talk said how the cost of cooking oil for a hawker stall is the same as the Michelin star restaurants. Now there is probably a small difference in cost as they will use different types of oil but not that much compared to the price of the end product. So the restaurants can afford to soak up the increase much more than the hawker stalls can.
The government has made moves to help the lower-income people, especially the nation builder generation. Singapore is only so big so if the population keeps growing there are only going to be greater demands and competition for space.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this or what I’m trying to say, if anything and it probably shows. Guess this is just a brain dump on the cost of living kicked off by this survey that I’m sure is going to fuel local debate on the matter.
I don’t know if I totally agree, but it kind of felt like it when we traveled there. Of course, just traveling through, you don’t get a chance to find the hidden inexpensive or free gems usually. 🙂
If you live here some of it is definitely offset by the low taxes, but I don’t remember NZ feeling cheap when we were there of x-mass….
Part of it is driven by the cost of cars and we don’t have one (they are too expensive!)
Ha! I knew it. That rent thing has to give sometime – it can’t keep going up like this. Ridiculous! We were in Tokyo saying how the property prices sound like a bargain – that’s when you know it’s bad 🙂 .