Singapore Expats

Hi everyone,

Stumbled across this site whilst trying to look for advice about Singapore.

I recently received a job offer, for an office position with an Oil company in Singapore, I have been working offshore and living in the UK all of my working life so this would be a completely new experience for me.

The one thing that is really concerning me is the cost of living, I am sure this has been mentioned a million times on this forum, but it really is the only thing stopping me at the moment from signing on the dotted line.

I currently earn 65k before tax in the UK, which works out around £3800 in my bank every month, I live fairly comfortably, rent a nice apartment, eat out, drive a nice car etc etc.

The company is offering me S$10000 a month, plus a pension and private healthcare, everything else I need to provide myself like housing etc. I am married, have no children, and was I to move, would have no outgoings in the UK, my wife is a primary school teacher so hopefully she would be able to find work reasonably quickly out there which would help a lot.

Do you guys think S$10000 a month is a healthy salary to live a decent lifestyle, I do not drink, I realise that I probably won't be able to afford a car but this really doesn't bother me, all I am looking for is a nice apartment pretty close to the city, and to be able to eat well and have the home comforts such as internet and satellite TV.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Kam

On taxes you will do much better here than UK. You pay like 30% tax there. Here you will pay like 5-6%

Dont count on your wife getting a job fairly easily. It can take quite a lot of time and she may eventually not get what she wants.

Since you dont have school going kids, you are better of in Singapore than UK , as the high taxes you pay there will probably get you cheap schooling whereas here, you need to spend a lot.

Its only rental that is going to be your significant cost. I think you will do better here than UK.

Kammy786 wrote:Hi everyone,

Do you guys think S$10000 a month is a healthy salary to live a decent lifestyle, I do not drink, I realise that I probably won't be able to afford a car but this really doesn't bother me, all I am looking for is a nice apartment pretty close to the city, and to be able to eat well and have the home comforts such as internet and satellite TV.

Yes, without child. Might want to think again if you have future plans for a family.

Spot on the car ownership issues here. You probably have to downgrade your spanking new 325 convertible to a 8 years old toyota corolla. You don't need it unless you have children. They don't have M25 (AKA car park) here for you to zoom around.

You should be able to get a very decent apartment (they call it condo here with lots of facilities like you get in some posh Knightsbridge apartment) near Orchard road.

You will definitely gain lots of weight here due to cheap food or eat well. Restaurants here are well cheap. The internet and cable tv here have similar price as the UK. They have Sky News and BBC News as well.