singleteacher

Hi everyone,

I would really like to pick your brains about relocating to singapore.

I will be moving over by December 15th 2014, I have a job already as a secondary school teacher with a monthly salary of SGD 3502. As I see with many people on here, I have never been to singapore before and would like to know what sort of a lifestyle can I expect on this salary.

I am looking to share an apartment as I dont want to get too lonely, ideally a condo with pool etc (as seems to be quite standard), I am more than happy on public transport and will be planning to cook at home during the week,

Having said all that I do like to eat out at weekends and go out for drinks and/or exploring the new sites of SG.

As yet I do not know the area I will be working in, do you think this poses an issues in terms of price changes?

How much (approx of course) can I expect to spend on public transport, rent, bills and food per month.

Any information you can provide I would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,

Kind regards,

Natalie

bakedbean

Just to say Welcome to the forum

singleteacher

Thank you

sgcal

Hi, I'm from Singapore. I have to say that the rental here is pretty expensive. 1/3 of your salary will be gone if you want to stay in a condo and it is about the same price no matter the location.

bakedbean

Welcome to the forum sgcal.

I'm a bit out of touch with Sing prices, though I do pop down now and again, but I was thinking that the OP's salary would be a bit low. What do you think? Though I imagine this would be deemed as a "local" salary?

ex reg

It is a 'local salary'.
And if there are no add ons for accommodation etc and the salary stated is before tax, which might not be much in this instance, then I'd say it would be difficult but not impossible to enjoy things in Singapore.

Difficult to give reliable costings as the info to work on is sparse, but a shared 3 bed condo costing below S$1200 pppm might take some finding.

S$15 per day on food might be possible eating in coffee shops but you can't do that all the time ,imo.
Cooking at home for one person might well cost you more than eating out.
A one day splurge on food and some drinks at the weekend might costS$100 to S$200, but all these guesses depend on the individual and some posters will say the figures are high while others will say they are low.

MickG24

Shared flat rentals are rather high at the moment, I have seen master bedroom's rent for anywhere between $800 to $1500 pcm. Smaller bedrooms slightly lower. You can rent a brand new whole condo in certain areas for $2,500 a month to put that into perspective. The single room / shared flats market is rather crowded with a large number of S-Pass people not being able to afford anywhere else, plus of course the lower paid locals.

MickG24

I also work in SG education, but post-secondary, although I have visited a number of secondary schools as part of my job.

What you will notice are the main differences between the UK and SG schools - schools here are huge, as others have said. They have excellent facilities, considering the lack of available land. However some of the classrooms themselves are incredibly basic - think bare concrete walls with a couple of fans attached to the wall and "open" windows to the outside world.

The kids themselves are great, very rarely do you get anything like the mis-behaviour seen in UK schools. They are used to being spoon-fed answers mind, which can get frustrating if you are trying to teach anything creative. The locals put a huge weightage on paper qualifications and good results, to the extent that the majority of your students *will* be going to private tutors after school has finished.

bakedbean

I can believe that. Isn't that a sad reflection on UK kids.

StevenH72

Hi Natalie,

I can't help with overall budgets (I'm moving over in Jan, so trying to work up my own), but from what I've seen in SG there are a lot of ways to enjoy yourself inexpensively.

Hawker centres offer great food at very reasonable prices (S$5-7) which is a great way to eat out if you don't fancy cooking. Public transport is also pretty cheap (compared to the UK anyway), so you can get around the island very inexpensively.

Good luck with everything, and I'm sure we'll bump into eachother at one of the meet-up events.

Steven