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| Is the good life in Singapore out of reach for most ordinary folks? |
Firstly, the EIU uses a basket of 160 items to evaluate the cost of living in a city - and amongst these 160 items is a car. Now when you consider the price of a COE (certificate of entitlement) in Singapore, that immediately makes a car hideously expensive and that immediately sends Singapore rocketing up the EIU rankings. There is a simple solution: don't buy a car. Use public transport: if you're too atas for the bus and the MRT, then take a taxi instead (and they're not that expensive). It will work out a lot cheaper if you were to simply use taxis all the time because a car has effectively become a status symbol in Singapore. Now if you were to live in say a small town in Canada where everyone has a car, public transport is limited and you have to drive 20 km to get to work because there's just no other way to get there, then yeah it's different - a car becomes a lot more of a necessity but Singapore is a city state with a very affordable and efficient public transport network. This brings me neatly onto my next point.
Singapore's public transport is pretty darn good IMHO. I know a lot of Singaporeans will be screaming at their computers/phones when they have just read that last line because I know you've had some problems - but trust me, when you compare it to places like London, it is still pretty impressive. It is relatively cheap, breakdowns are rare and you know what happens to the workers who have the audacity to strike (strikes by public transport workers do happen in places like London and Paris unfortunately and public transport is more expensive in London and Paris).
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| Taxis in Singapore are a lot cheaper than in London. |
Secondly, food is cheap in Singapore when you look at quality vs price. You see, in every city there are expensive and cheap options when it comes to food - you can go to a posh restaurant or you can get hawker food. The cheap options in London are always pretty nasty - yes you can get a meal for around £2 to £2.20 (approximately S$4.24 to S$4.66) in the UK (just not in expensive city centers) and that would be some fried chicken, fries and a can of fizzy drink. (Please note that big chains like KFC, MacDonald's and Burger King are considered premium and charge a lot more as their quality is significantly better: we're talking about independently run places doing cheap & nasty fried chicken.)
It is cheap and nasty - I tend to avoid it because I know I would hate myself after eating food like that, it is so unhealthy. Oh the amount of fats and salt in such a meal, but if you want more decent food, you have to pay at least twice that. Let's contrast that to Singapore, where I can go to any hawker centre and with S$4 get a very respectable meal that will not leave me hating myself, but quite well nourished indeed. The only vegetable you will find in these cheap and nasty places is the potato whilst in Singapore, your S$4 can actually get you a pretty well balanced meal with loads of vegetables. Eating out is such a joy in Singapore and not expensive at all, compared to London.
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| At S$4, this is a much better option than what £2 can get you in the UK. |
Thirdly, I think it is a bit unfair to state that Singapore is the most expensive place to buy clothing just because there are loads of designer boutiques on Orchard Road. How many Singaporeans actually fill their wardrobe with designer items from the lagi atas Orchard Road boutiques anyway? The great thing about Singapore is that there are a range of interesting places to shop for clothes - now my favourite place has got to be Far East Plaza given that it is full of quirky, independent retailers. I find the big high street brands way too bland anyway given that they tend to cater for the mass market = boring stuff since the vast majority of the population are more interested in fitting in rather than standing out.
I actually live within walking distance from Regent Street (approximately 195m as the crow flies, across Silver Place and then down Beak Street) but that doesn't mean that I would get my clothes from the overpriced designer boutiques on Regent Street - why would I? Well, not unless there was some kind of massive sale on, but the fact is I am like most people: I know what I like when it comes to fashion, I know how to look for a bargain and most of all, I rarely walk into a shop and just pay full price for an item (well, not unless I really, really like it). So this EIU index is not taking into account the bargain hunter instinct in us - this instinct can play a big part in making our money go a lot further.
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| We all love a bargain when going to the sales. |
Fourthly, one of the reasons cited for Singapore being such an expensive place to live is the strong currency - which is confusing for a number of reasons. Even if you are a foreign expat working in Singapore, you are being paid in Singapore dollars and usually not the currency of your home country. So a strong Singapore dollar would make Singapore an expensive destination for tourists who are converting SGD prices back to their own currencies, but not for resident expats per se, if they are being paid in Singapore dollars. Furthermore, the Singapore dollar has actually fallen slightly against the pound - it was £1 = S$1.86 on the 3rd March 2013 but the exchange rate today (4th March 2014) is currently £1 = S$2.12, so relatively speaking, it has weakened considerably in the last 12 months.
Ultimately, it depends on your personal circumstances whether or not you find Singapore an expensive place to live. If you are a young person living with your parents (so you don't really have to worry too much about rent or utility bills), you're happy to use public transport, eat at hawker centers and hunt for bargains when it comes to shopping, then Singapore can be pretty affordable. But if you have to rent your own place (or if you're trying to get on the property ladder), you insist on having a car, eat in nice restaurants and pay full whack at the designer boutiques on Orchard Road, then that kind of lifestyle can make living in any city an expensive experience.
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| How much you spend depends on what kind of lifestyle you have. |
So that's my take on this EIU report. All I have seen so far on social media is a lot of anti-PAP venom about how the PAP has not done enough to help the poor in Singapore as Singapore becomes the most expensive city in the world, but I thought I'd add a little common sense to the debate. Believe you me, I am no fan of the PAP but I thought I'd be objective about the issue here. So, over to you: what do you think? Do you live in Singapore? Do you find it expensive? Are you able to compare and contrast the cost of living in Singapore and other cities? What are your experiences? Do let me know what you think please, that's what the comments section below is for. Many thanks for reading!
PS. I have been forwarded a link on Facebook to this article on Yahoo Singapore by Benjamin Chiang on the same topic - it is another chest-beating exercise to tell the rest of the world just how much better Singapore is than everyone else; but when I got down to the comments section, I actually sat up and perked up with interest because of the overwhelmingly negatively reaction to Chiang's piece. Interesting how Singaporeans readers held Chiang to account in his overzealous super pro-PAP stance. Looks like Yahoo and Chiang misjudged the public mood on this. Anyway, do follow up here: please click here for my response to Chiang's article. Thanks!
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| Is iiving in Singapore affordable or expensive for you? |
Simply, fairly and clearly put. One of your best posts.
ReplyDeleteThe only minor addition I would add is that the methodological issues are long standing. Since the basket of goods is the same regardless of location, in the 90s imported items were much more expensive, particularly for food. Steaks are not part of local diet.
And your observations are the same observations I've made since I moved back to Singapore nearly 10 years ago.
Well thank you, I knocked this one out in a hurry to be honest. I'm not a big fan of steaks either - I'm still slightly bemused at the way my Angmoh buddies can eat huge amounts of red meat at one sitting whilst I need my veges (that's my mother's impact on me - I always have vegetables with every meal).
DeleteWhich city/cities are more expensive than S'pore then, in your opinion then, Kaishun?
I can't speak for places I haven't been to. But in descending order,
ReplyDeleteAnywhere in Switzerland
Copenhagen
Stockholm
Tokyo
Paris
London
New York
I found Germany surprisingly reasonable, throughout.
Switzerland is definitely expensive. I didn't find Stockholm that expensive to be honest - I live in London and have lived in Paris and both have been okay as well, but then again, as a local I know how to find bargains to suit my budget. I didn't find New York expensive when I was there, but then again, I was a guest of a local who showed me around, helped me avoid the tourist traps ...
DeleteReykjavik is hideously expensive because everything has to be imported from North America or Europe or further afield as virtually nothing is produced locally (well, apart from whale meat...) and so you're paying for shipment costs. So in Singapore, v little food is produced locally, but a lot of it comes cheaply via land or sea from Indonesia and Malaysia but for Iceland, the food in your typical Icelandic supermarket has a lot more air miles and a huge carbon footprint. That's why it's so freaking expensive and shopping in Iceland is a miserable experience.
Germany is affordable I agree.
Think it's all relative to your standard of living. For the same standard of living e.g. house size, proximity to work, ease of transport, eating out, New York would definitely be more expensive than Singapore. But I lived there on much less than I do now.
DeleteSimilarly, if I needed to live in Tokyo, I could probably live out in Chiba or Saitama for cheaper than I do in Singapore. But that's a different standard of living.
Can imagine just how expensive Iceland is.
Oh yes, and completely forgot about Hong Kong. Where accomodation can be had in Central for the same price as in Singapore for a quarter of the space.
One of the things that is not taken into account is that for many of the other expensive cities, one is able to move further out from the city center and be able to afford a larger house for a family and a car with space to drive around in. For someone to do that in Singapore, you'll need to move to a whole different country up north. Some of my friends have done that.
ReplyDeleteI have talked about this point (moving out of town to the distant suburbs) previously here: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/getting-on-property-ladder.html and http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/what-is-situation-with-foreign-talents.html
DeleteLiving in China and paying high prices for the street food here makes me missed my cheap SG hawker food more and it's not just about the taste only but the real value for money. SG street food has real meat and at a much cheaper price.
ReplyDeleteA sales assistant in a retail shop or supermarket earns about $1,500 in SG and that person would earn RMB$1,500 here in PRC city where I live.
A plate of economic rice in SG is $3 with 1 real meat and 2 veggies.
In the Tier 3 city where I live a box of takeaway rice from Walmart cost RMB$7. It claims to have 2 meat and 1 veggie. But in actual fact it's 2 veggies with small bits of meat and 1 all veggie.
Who has the better deal and value for money?
No, food cost is 0.466% for the PRC worker and 0.2% for the Singaporean. Plus, the SGer has got real meat in his lunch pack. So for food SG wins.
The mystics and abuses of using indexing to infer. Whether its the FTSE, STI, HSI or Inflation or COL indice, the methodologies involved are premised on broadbrush parameters and qualifiers. Such are the necessary processes required to generate these indice, which serve as useful indicators of "global" trends.
ReplyDeleteAbuses and mis-interpretations occur when folks proclaiming conclusions with misguided inferences from these indice. Appreciating or qualifying the basic parameters involved are usually bypassed.
The EIU report on "expensive cities" is one such incident where abuses by common folks and pseudo-experts are rife.
For expatriates and biz travellers, understandable for the relatively hi-cost items.
Accessibility to the key items to the general public and their relative costs and ranges are missing in the author's inferences ...namely for the general public ..
1) Food : One can have 5$ to 300$ meal per person.
2) Transport : 2$ trip on public mass transport system to 5-100$ taxi/limo service...
3) Health service : lt 10$ outpatient to 5000$ private consultation
4) Holiday/Leisure : 100$ to 10000$ menu for ordinary folks annually. A general-average spore worker can afford 1 or more oversea holidays as compared to their counterparts in OZ, UK or other developed countries.
....and more
Well said sir. All i have been seeing on social media is people screaming bloody murder over the article just because the headlines say Singapore is the most exp city to stay in. How many of them have actually read thru the article fully and understand how EIU evaluate their ranking? I would say little to none. Yes designer clothes are more exp here compared to New York (which is the benchmark), but how can it be cheaper when some of the brands are from America and we have to import from there?
ReplyDeleteAnyway using just expenses to evaluate whether a city is good or not is not a good way. If it's only just about expenses, then people would have all gone to Mumbai to stay since it's the cheapest city to stay in according to the report. A much better ranking would be like Monocle's Most Livable Cities Index, which measures more other than just cost of items.
Hi Limpeh,
ReplyDeleteI am a Brazilian of Japanese descent living in Singapore, and I really enjoy reading your blog. :)
I agree with your analysis. The point is, the EIU ranking is based on the POV of expatriate employees, just like their "World's Most Liveable Cities" rankings. For some reason, both ranking assumes than an expat employee commutes by car, and unsurprisingly, there are only 2 European cities in the "World's Most Liveable Cities" ranking (the other 8 are from Australia / NZ / Canada).
So, expat employees need (according to EIU's opinion...) a car, don't eat in hawker center, and don't have access to Singaporean education / housing / healthcare subsidies. It makes sense to say that Singapore is the most expensive city for them.
I would say that, from the POV of a local middle class family, Sao Paulo (where I come from) is more expensive than Singapore in nearly every sense (except housing, which is comparable when you consider all factors such as subsidies, proximity to the center, building security and maintenance fees, etc.).
Muito obrigado pelo seu comentário Edson!
DeleteWell, there are all kinds of expats in Singapore - having spent time in S'pore as an expat myself back in 2011, there are some who do assimilate and totally go local (I even have a British friend there who has valiantly thrown herself into learning Mandarin) to those who avoid contact with locals as far as they can... and everything in between the two extremes.
So yes you do have the expats who do insist on having a car and buying designer clothing on Orchard Road, but the question is, should they set the benchmark or do you let more ordinary expats do that - those who have far more modest lifestyles (and represent your typical expat in S'pore these days).
I am quite out of touch with Singapore. My siblings always complain how expensive it is. I have noticed that my nephews and nieces spend a lot of money on eating out at nice cafes and restaurants as well hawkers. Basically, they eat out a lot. Nice clothes. Cars. Maids. Weddings --- someone's always getting married, which means presents/angpows. Birthday presents. Special occasion presents, ... No wonder they say it is expensive. As a two-income family, my husband and I get by much less. Taxation in Canada is much higher, but this is how we spend less: we eat out once a week as a treat, nothing too fancy unless it is a special celebration. We pack our own lunches. I buy clothes from Costco or on sale (my work does not demand brand name clothing), We have two cars out of necessity, but they are modest cars. No maid, just an occasional cleaner, I buy things on sale for Christmas and birthdays, In Canada, people are a lot less brand conscious. I have noticed more frugal people at work, and they all lead very decent lives. I somehow feel that people in Singapore spend money on 'props' to help appearances. Perhaps I am wrong. Like I said, I am quite out of touch, and my observations are based only on family and friends and the odd visits in the last 20 plus odd years. What I am saying is, yes, cost of living in Singapore is high (especially to buy a private property or a car), but there are ways to keep costs down. I think Singaporeans simply have higher expectations of what a basic lifestyle should be.
ReplyDeleteI think you're focusing on the pros of Singapore and let me now point out just one great thing about Canada: SPACE. You have more living space. Both in terms of your actual dwellings and the more abstract concept of personal space where you know you're in a HUGE country and there's space for everyone given how sparsely populated Canada is. Think about that from a Singaporean perspective: you need to be really rich to have a lot of living space (ie. a big house) and even then, you are constantly thinking what will become of the country once the population hits 6 million, 6.5 million and beyond as the government keeps packing in new migrants, especially from China...
DeleteJust to put things in perspective: the population of Yukon is 34,000 - that's about 11.5% of what you would have in Ang Mo Kio or Tampines (about 300,000), Yukon is a bit smaller than Thailand just to give you some SE Asian perspective. So you have 11.5% of the population of Ang Mo Kio (not Singapore, but just Ang Mo Kio) in an area slightly smaller than Thailand.
And you can't put a price on that.
Few people want to live in Yukon. That is why it's only 34 000 in population, The metropolitan cities are more populated, but you are very right. We have lots of space. I always wonder why our malls are sprawled across a huge lot rather than upwards. Then I reminded myself that we have the land, especially in the suburbs where I live. I was actually focusing on the lifestyle choices of the Singaporeans I know. I feel that the notion of Singapore being an expensive place to live in is by large due to the lifestyle choices made. I agree that housing and car ownership are expensive, but many of the other factors are just choices they make. I agree with most of what you said in this blog regarding food, clothing, and transportation. There are good alternatives --- hawkers, clothing stores outside of Orchard Road, and the MRT which is still cheaper than owning a car. Perhaps being an immigrant overseas, I have had to make choices that are thrifty because I know that no one will help my family when in need. I have noticed that my nephews and nieces have their parents to rely on. Perhaps that is why they spend more, and then they whine about how expensive things are. For example, I have one nephew who is an architect. Wifey does not work because they have a child, They have a maid (FOR WHAT?), and they always complain they have no money because things cost so much, Seriously, get rid of the maid and put wifey to work. Anyway, I apologise if I am rambling on. It's reporting time at work, and I am out of sorts.
DeleteHiya Di. I am up late drinking a hot mug of honey when I should be sleeping. Anyway, in response to your points, yes - Canada is one of those places where land is so available for most people (not unless you wanna live in downtown Toronto), but otherwise, even Toronto has super big sprawling suburbs and I feel sorry for people in Singapore who don't have that choice. I have posted pictures of my visits to the countryside in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland on my blog and you get the idea - trees, green fields, lakes and sky and hardly anyone as far as the eye can see. I choose to live in central London (for now and I like it here) but I can move to the countryside tomorrow if I want to - I have that option, Singaporeans don't. They just have to make the best of the situation in S'pore (and yes get rid of the maid!)
DeleteJust in case my beloved nephew is reading this, I want him to know that I love him dearly, and I am only airing my opinions as an observer. When you see/hear a loved one struggling financially, you just want to step in and offer suggestions because you hate to see them suffer. Sometimes, my motives get misread. :)
DeleteHere in Los Angeles, a typical lunch at the food court very easily could set someone back by S$10. While, a 3km commute by taxi could come up to S$19. In that respect, Singapore would not necessarily be the most expensive.
ReplyDeleteLooking from the perspective of the average Singaporean worker, whose wages have not quite kept pace with the cost of living, the sentiment of living in the most expensive city in the world is understandable.
Going off topic regarding the Yahoo article. If the author thinks that the BBC reports are merely taking cheap shots, Al Jazeera news report on poverty in Singapore would be blasphemy.
Well, yes - that's pretty much to be expected really. It's so easy for a broadcast journalist to do a piece from the roof gardens of MBS and talk about how expensive Singapore has become - when really, the ordinary folks in AMK or Toa Payoh have quite a different experience. The fact is, those on lower-income do have cheaper options on most aspects (except private car ownership and property prices) - so whilst no one is arguing that Singapore is a cheap place to live, I am questioning whether it is really the MOST expensive place to live and how this EIU basket of goods produced this answer. It's a question of methodology and if it's dodgy, then people should ask questions rather than just believe it.
DeleteI'm renting my own place in SG and i find it expensive since it's just a small dump of a room with no place to cook or wash. I can probably get a 1 room apartment in the suburbs of London for about the same price. And the other main issue is that my pay is very stagnant which i don't think happens in most Europeans countries (due to strong labor unions).
ReplyDeleteErm Choaniki, I wouldn't make that assumption about pay in European countries - some people do get pay rises due to labour unions true, but not all. I'm self employed and my pay goes up and down from month to month depending on how productive I am and how hard I work. My union protects me when things go badly wrong but doesn't guarantee the steady flow of my income because of the nature of the work I do which is contractual. So please don't imagine that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, for me, I pretty much control my destiny in terms of my future income, it is up to me to determine how much I earn this month - so I'd better get back to work now...
DeleteWell I shouldn't be so quick to generalise Europe since like almost half the country in unemployed in Spain and Greece.
DeleteUnfortunately i think you would have to agree that due to the comfy arrangement between the government and businesses, lots of people in Singapore are getting exploited. We do the same jobs and get a fraction of the pay compared to overseas counterparts. Business owners justify it by saying increase in operating costs doesn't allow them to pay us a competitive wage and the government justify it by saying we are laissez-faire. While at the sidelines manipulating every aspect to earn hefty profits for itself.
You made some factual errors about Spain and Greece - but I am so pressed for time now I will have to correct you later. I have a meeting in 25 mins and I have to finish my lunch and get there...
Deletehttp://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics
DeleteUnemployment in Spain/Greece is 25%; youth unemployment is 50%. Quite different - and maybe misleading. Youth unemployment includes students.
Thank you. I was about to post the exact same thing (but I had to run for a meeting and couldn't get round to google the figures.) Unemployment in Spain/Greece is around the 26-28% mark at the moment but youth unemployment is a lot higher (which explains why so many have turned up in London looking for work).
DeleteAlso, the situation is pretty complex - it's not that Labour Unions can guarantee a steadily rising income - in Spain for example, during the good times, the Labour Unions in Spain got so powerful they managed to secure all kinds of rights for unionized workers so if you made redundant a unionized worker it would cost the employer very dearly in terms of the kind of compensations they were entitled to if you made them redundant.
That meant that some companies simply couldn't afford to get rid of workers they couldn't afford because it would cost them so much to make these workers redundant - yet as demand for their products fell, they couldn't justify maintaining so many workers on their pay roll. So what happened? Catch 22, the companies went BUST and everyone ended up unemployed. So the powerful unions effectively screwed Spain over properly and made the problem ten times worse because had they had more sensible labour laws which allowed the companies in crisis to let go of some workers (and stay in business) rather than just go bust (thus making EVERYONE unemployed) - then things won't be this screwed up in Spain today. It suffices to say that Spain's economy is totally fucked up to say the least (hence the high unemployment) and many people point the fingers are the unions: they shoulder a lot of the responsibility for the mess Spain is in today.
Actually i know the unemployment rate shouldn't be that high but i'm dramatising it. Compared to SG with unemployment usually below 3% it is comparatively very high.
DeleteBut SG is suffering from structural unemployment which i don't think is measured. When you have PhD holders working as taxi drivers and lots of other potentially underemployed males working as security guards (glorified CCTVs) you know there is a problem. Just that PAP refuses to recognise it.
Well, let's not split hairs over the stats - I would say though that you need to consider that at some level, sure a union safeguarding the rights of the worker can be a good thing. But in the Spain example, it was clearly a case of killing the goose that laid the golden egg when the unions effectively forced so many companies to close, making everyone unemployed when really, they were just trying to prevent some people from being made redundant. So the role the union plays is actually more complex than most people think, especially in Spain.
DeleteBut yes, I can see what's happening in terms of structural unemployment in SG.
Hi LIFT, here's a really well-written article circulating around Facebook in response to the EIU report, in case you haven't read it. Worlds apart from Benjamin Chiang's piece.
ReplyDeletehttp://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/singaporeans-live-economic-ghettoes-064718251.html
Cheers
Amber
Thanks Amber, that was a good read and my 5 minute break (it's 8:45 pm and I am still working - one of those days when the work just doesn't get finished). He makes many valid points but I fear that the English is just a little bit too cheem for it to be accessible to many Singaporeans (now I'm just being condescending here...)
DeleteI'm sure most people would be able to understand it, but not fully (like maybe 70% or something). I particularly like how he dressed it up with a little bit of humour that doesn't go out of tangent with the overall tone of the article. Maybe most people may not get that...
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ReplyDeletepls do not post those comment only which you wanna hear but what others felt about it ! =)
ReplyDelete