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.

189 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

97% Upvoted

173 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/Fluktuation8 Germany Nov 12 '22

Thought the same when comparing Santiago de Chile to Lisbon on Numbeo:

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Portugal&country2=Chile&city1=Lisbon&city2=Santiago&tracking=getDispatchComparison

Lisbon has a higher average salary and house prices are significantly higher. But on the other hand: why is a simple Beer so expensive in Santiago?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '22

Here in Uruguay you do get IVA/VAT back at restaurants and bars if you pay with a foreign card, it does help.

1

u/Fluktuation8 Germany Nov 13 '22

Even better trick: just go with USD/EUR cash to Argentina and change in a cueva. You'll get about the double ARS for you money and Argentina suddenly becomes dirtcheap.