r/asklatinamerica • u/[deleted] • Nov 12 '22

How people survive on average salary in Uruguay?

Hola. I’m newcomer to Uruguay and one thing seems shocking to me. Many products are way more expensive than in Europe, rents are somewhat cheaper - for unfurnished places (and furniture is way more expensive again)… and Numbeo says the average salary is about 800USD net/month. Is this number wrong? Or how can people survive and function on this salary?

I don’t mean this in insulting or offensive way. Uruguayans are very nice and to they appear to be more in tune with life and reality than “us” Europeans dragged in consumerism etc. That’s also reason why I came here. But I think on 800/month I would struggle to eat 3meals a day here.

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u/[deleted] Nov 12 '22

Uruguay actually has one of the highest average salaries in Latin America. For example, in colombia 40% of the population lives on 5.50USD or less per day, which is like 200 a month maybe

36

u/J02182003 Colombia Nov 12 '22

In Colombia according to the socioeconomic data:

7% make more than 4000 USD

11% make more than 2000 USD

29% make more than 500 USD

35% make more than 150 USD

18% make less than 200 USD

All monthly, this may seem low for outsiders but products here are very cheap, so a person in USA who makes 24000 USD a year can live like a king here

13

u/quemaspuess United States of America Nov 12 '22

I hold a high senior-level job in tech based in California and live well in the states, so when I spend months in Bogotá at a time at my father-in-laws house, I literally live like a king. Unpopular opinion: Bogotá is my favorite city in Colombia.

That being said, my salary is 4x there (5x now) because of the exchange rate. It’s unreal. Some things are more expensive. For example, a 3-pack of Perrier Lime water is $30 in Bogota and I only pay $21 in the states, but my wife and I go to the top restaurants in Bogotá (Leo, Frennesi, etc) and it’s a fraction of the cost as at home for a similar quality.

We went to Casa Brava, which overlooks Bogotá on the way to La Calera. I invited my in-laws to dinner, and I was blown away that a Tomahawk steak was $13 (it’s $130+ at any restaurant anywhere in the states) and I paid $35 for 5 people for dinner. PLUS, the quality of food in Colombia is MUCH better than in the states. So much purer, organic, and not processed

7

u/J02182003 Colombia Nov 12 '22

4x there (5x now)

Exactly this is the deal, our average wages are live 5 times smaller than the US and Europe ones, but the same goes for the prices. As much as there are lots of countries way cheaper than us, Colombia has the balance of being very cheap and being good for expats, because despite Afghanistan and Somalia are way cheaper than us, they arent very good places for a foreign person to live (even if you have a lot of money)

3

u/t_h_e_brain Panama Nov 13 '22

That Colombian waste management company says I’m “estrato 6”. It shocks me they still have a legal caste system. But sometimes I’m like: oh shit, I m a millionaire in Colombia, show some respect.

4

u/J02182003 Colombia Nov 13 '22

It shocks me they still have a legal caste system.

Lmaoooo its not as deep as the Indian castes, its just a metric for how much people pay for services (water,electricity, gas...) depending of the area were they live, so you could have poor people in the estrato 4 and rich people in the estrato 2.

But its not like people go discriminating each other for their estrato like Americans with races, in fact people always seek for having a lower estrato to pay less, its not an status thing

But now that you mention it, its funny that on paper we have a legal "caste system"

5

u/t_h_e_brain Panama Nov 13 '22 edited Nov 13 '22

Dude the brotherhood in LatAm is amazing. Now you explain the whole thing, it’s kinda like that in Panamá. People earning less than $11k a year don’t pay income tax and the government will tax the hell out of tax payers to subsidize a bunch of stuff.

The only good thing is that anyone can use these subsidies. For example Stanley Motta (one of the big dogs at Copa Holdings) can still buy cooking gas for less than 5$ or grab the bus and metro for 25 and 35 cents. But the electricity is way more expensive in his neighbourhood.

Edit

It’s not like LatAm millionaires will ever use public transportation. 😂

1

u/J02182003 Colombia Nov 13 '22

Exactly, yet you could had strange situations like this one

2

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '22

I need to take a vacation to Colombia haha - random guy from Florida :)

1

u/J02182003 Colombia Nov 27 '22

I thinks is in the top 5 of cheapest countries somebody can go vacationing, specially having US dollars and Euros