Cost of living in Singapore 2010

Just 5 mins back got a call from one of friend as my friend is moving to Singapore and had various questions regarding Cost of Living in Singapore. So thought of writing a note, about cost of Living Singapore 2010, which can help many other people who are planning to move to Singapore.

My experience of past few months in Singapore says If you want to come to Singapore its a great place to work because of its cosmopolitan culture/City that accommodate people from various ethnicity Chinese (around 72%),Malays (around 14%),Indians (around 9%) and rest 5% had people from Vientnam,Indonesia,Taiwaan etc.The one of interesting point is that Government of Singapore maintained this around whole Singapore even if you are going to book any apartment here around 72% are booked for Chinese people ,14% for Malays and 9% for Indians to avoid ghettoes of any particular ethnicity in ant district.(I wish we can adopt such type of approach in India to avoid any Hindu/Muslim/Sikh/Christen ghetto in particular part of India)

Singapore mainly entertains 3 industries Banking, Medical Services and Tourism. These are considered as high paying jobs here while Construction and Port Services provide employment to unskilled workers (Most of them are from Bangladesh)


Accommodation:
There are two types of accommodation in Singapore, HDB (Housing societies developed by Housing and Development Board, Singapore Government) and Condo (These are the Housing societies developed by Private Developers).Condos are considered lavish as these contains all sort of state of the art gymnasium, club houses, Spa, swimming pool etc. House Rent is the most costly factor in cost of living as It cost somewhere near to 1800-2000 SGD (for 2+1 HDB) and 3500-4000 SGD (for 3+1 Condo).2+1 are 2 BHK ,3+1 are 3 BHK.There are very few 1+1 available in Singapore. If anyone interested for 1+1 ,he/she can go for Studio apartment.

Its hard to get accommodation in Singapore through private contacts so need to go with brokers who charge half months of rent as brokerage and you need to pay one months rent as security deposit to Landlord and you need to pay rent at the starting of every month (so you will be paying rent always in advance.)


Transportation:
You are not suppose to have Car here as its very very costly to maintain car here until and unless you are working as associate Director or Director.
For transportation, Singapore rely on underground Metro,MRT (Mass Railway Transit) here that's very very very convenient and cheap (100 SGD Max for month),Its not crowdie like metro trains in India.MRT is the best and cheap part that I found in Singapore as it connects whole Singapore, It saves your transportation time as well as money. You can easily travel from one end of Singapore into other part of Singapore in around 50 Mins max.These MRTs are color coded so Singapore has Green Line, Red Line, Purple Line and Orange line,so once you got your office address you can check on MRT website that which line suits you best to search for accommodation.


Fooding:
If you are a bachelor there are lots of food courts available in Singapore which have all sorts of food starting from Indian, Malay, Chineese,Muslim food, Thai food.(One time meal cost around 8-10 SGD in food courts)However if you are purely vegetarian then its tough to find pure veg foods in food courts.if you are looking for purely veg restraints you can find them easily in large numbers in Little India.(One time vegetarian meal cost around 10-12 SGD in little India)
If you will cook food at home along with your family then your fooding (including monthly grossary)+Transportation should cost you around 1500-1600 SGD in a month.

So in 3800-4000 SGD you can spent life like gentlemen along with your wife, Cost of living differs from person to person.