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Thanks. I'm in Cape Town and I was thinking of rent numbers - having heard that a room in a shared house might rent for 2000$/mo in SF vs. say R2000 on the chea

by zingar 12y ago

Thanks. I'm in Cape Town and I was thinking of rent numbers - having heard that a room in a shared house might rent for 2000$/mo in SF vs. say R2000 on the cheap end here. That rent number isn't based on fancy accoms but since I've been in the southern suburbs all my life some would say that I'm living an entitled lifestyle (CT Southern Suburbs =~ JHB Northern Suburbs). You could obviously halve your rent in some areas but then you'd be living (at least in CT) in places with serious infrastructure issues, cable theft etc. But I'm interested... from your background and expectations of standard of living, do you think you could make do with R5000 - R6000 /mo in SA? The same restrictions probably apply, share a room, no dependents, cheapest Net access and forget about buying new equipment on that budget.

danielbarla 12y ago
Rent prices are specifically incredibly high in SF (check the 2nd link I provided for the line-by-line breakdown), hence it being an obvious target for saving money. For SA, R2000 per month for rent seems very cheap to me; was that including water & electricity? I'm in the Pretoria area, which is supposed to be slightly cheaper than JHB, but then it varies greatly by area. A few years back, friends were paying around R6000 to share a 3 bedroom duplex with a tiny garden (including water & elec). A 4 bedroom house in my neighbourhood is for rent at R10000, but I'm not sure if that even includes municipality fees. In my experience, municipality costs come to around R1500-2500 per month for a house that size, with winter months spiking to ~R4000 if you don't want to freeze. To answer the R5000 / 6000 question, I can't really imagine doing that without both major cuts in standard of living AND cutting major corners with things like (health | life | disability | car | home) insurance, retirement, etc. I've already chosen to be frugal on some of these, e.g. opting for a hospitalisation plan instead of full cover (still ~R1100 p.m. for 1 person, although I'm not getting any special discounts there), choosing 3rd party for my car over (R200 p.m. vs R1200 p.m., but then you have to have paid off your car), but even then these costs add up very quickly. ADSL line rental + cheapest package is still going to be ~R200 per month. A visit to a doctor + medication is often around R500 to R1000. Even if you only budget R20 per meal (water + pap maybe?), that still comes to almost R2000, and we're already over the budget. Most of the software developers I know seem to have expenses in the R20000 to R30000 range. Some of the things which were optional in my 20s are non optional in my 30s, and this also changes the picture. So yeah, it's perhaps feasible if you forgo almost all safety nets and luxuries, and do not put away anything for the future. Personally, I would (and have) taken a different approach involving part-time contracting work. At the cost of reducing your spare time (I'm assuming we're talking about creating startups here, not just basic survival), it can completely change the risks involved. Again, it varies greatly, but e.g. a R200+ per hour rate is achievable relatively quickly if you're productive, and would give a R16000 per month baseline at 80 hours, or half-employment.

by zingar 12y ago

danielbarla 12y ago

Rent prices are specifically incredibly high in SF (check the 2nd link I provided for the line-by-line breakdown), hence it being an obvious target for saving money. For SA, R2000 per month for rent seems very cheap to me; was that including water & electricity? I'm in the Pretoria area, which is supposed to be slightly cheaper than JHB, but then it varies greatly by area. A few years back, friends were paying around R6000 to share a 3 bedroom duplex with a tiny garden (including water & elec). A 4 bedroom house in my neighbourhood is for rent at R10000, but I'm not sure if that even includes municipality fees. In my experience, municipality costs come to around R1500-2500 per month for a house that size, with winter months spiking to ~R4000 if you don't want to freeze. To answer the R5000 / 6000 question, I can't really imagine doing that without both major cuts in standard of living AND cutting major corners with things like (health | life | disability | car | home) insurance, retirement, etc. I've already chosen to be frugal on some of these, e.g. opting for a hospitalisation plan instead of full cover (still ~R1100 p.m. for 1 person, although I'm not getting any special discounts there), choosing 3rd party for my car over (R200 p.m. vs R1200 p.m., but then you have to have paid off your car), but even then these costs add up very quickly. ADSL line rental + cheapest package is still going to be ~R200 per month. A visit to a doctor + medication is often around R500 to R1000. Even if you only budget R20 per meal (water + pap maybe?), that still comes to almost R2000, and we're already over the budget. Most of the software developers I know seem to have expenses in the R20000 to R30000 range. Some of the things which were optional in my 20s are non optional in my 30s, and this also changes the picture. So yeah, it's perhaps feasible if you forgo almost all safety nets and luxuries, and do not put away anything for the future. Personally, I would (and have) taken a different approach involving part-time contracting work. At the cost of reducing your spare time (I'm assuming we're talking about creating startups here, not just basic survival), it can completely change the risks involved. Again, it varies greatly, but e.g. a R200+ per hour rate is achievable relatively quickly if you're productive, and would give a R16000 per month baseline at 80 hours, or half-employment.