Relocating to Singapore, is 8000SGD per month reasonable?

[deadbeat777]

I have recently been offered a salary of 8000 SGD per month at Singapore by my current employer. To give you some background, I'm a 27 year old IT professional with a Bachelor's engineering degree in IT. I have 5.5 years of experience working for a large MNC as a Network consultant in India.

My wife, who is also in the same field will be looking for a job in SG once we move there. I'm a little concerned about the salary offered because SG is considerably more expensive than India and we are not sure if we would be able to maintain the same sort of lifestyle that we currently enjoy. We tend to eat out a lot because none of us is particularly good at cooking. We have no other debts or loans at the moment and our main expenditure in India is rent, eating out, house helps, pet food and vet bills, shopping and entertainment (equivalent of 300-500 SGD per month in India), car fuel and weekend getaways.

Ofcourse, once my wife starts working, we know that we will be far more comfortable but our intention is to save her entire salary and invest it.

Will 8000SGD be sufficient to have a comfortable life for two (plus a pet)? We don't intend to buy a car and would be happy to use public transport. We also aren't very picky about eating at expensive places all the time. We do however, love our shopping and going out.

Your views are highly appreciated!

Hey 8k is a good salary for someone with your experience in singapore.

Most couples have both people working here though, so it would def be advisable. But for a couple it should be alright. Rent is around 2k sgd here so you may want to factor that too. Public transport is easily 300 per mth for a working adult too.

I assume that your company did not cover your accomodation.

Renting a HDB is around 2k to 2.5k per month.
Transportation range from 60 to 120 sgd per month.
Expenses for both range from 1k to 3k.

I would say 8k is a comfortable amount.

Hi,
which company do you work for? lucky you that you managed to actually land an employment pass. my employer has been trying for months to obtain ep for me for singapore. now they tell me that they have run out of ep for tcs as they are having too many indians already. also my wife works for another top IT company and is not able to get an ep for herself. yet I have friends in wipro who are able to get EP.
what exactly is the latest policy for ep in Singapore? have some companies already run out of there kotas?
tnx, veerest

8000 is more than enough.

average singaporean graduate at 27 is making only 3500 if you are lucky, and 3000 if you are unlucky.

lets just make it 4000, so they pay you 4000 add-on premium compared to locals.

If you are an expat, you should not settle anything less than $12,000. $8,000 is just the median pay for local professionals

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you are an expat, you should not settle anything less than $12,000. $8,000 is just the median pay for local professionals

Here comes the ********.

[deadbeat777]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hey 8k is a good salary for someone with your experience in singapore.

Most couples have both people working here though, so it would def be advisable. But for a couple it should be alright. Rent is around 2k sgd here so you may want to factor that too. Public transport is easily 300 per mth for a working adult too.

Thank you for your input! We would be looking for furnished homes as we are not sure how long we would be stationed at Singapore. I'm assuming we would have to look for houses somewhere in the 2.5-2.8k range. Any recommendations as to which areas we should try looking at? My office is located at One Raffles Quay. We would prefer not to commute more than 30 min one-way for work.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I assume that your company did not cover your accomodation.

Renting a HDB is around 2k to 2.5k per month.
Transportation range from 60 to 120 sgd per month.
Expenses for both range from 1k to 3k.

I would say 8k is a comfortable amount.

Yes, accommodation is not being provided by the company. They are however, covering the phone and internet bills as well as transportation expenses upto 100 SGD.

Looking at the expenses, we would be very satisfied if we could have around 2-2.5k leftover after all expenses.

Originally Posted by veeresh

Hi,
which company do you work for? lucky you that you managed to actually land an employment pass. my employer has been trying for months to obtain ep for me for singapore. now they tell me that they have run out of ep for tcs as they are having too many indians already. also my wife works for another top IT company and is not able to get an ep for herself. yet I have friends in wipro who are able to get EP.
what exactly is the latest policy for ep in Singapore? have some companies already run out of there kotas?
tnx, veerest

Hi Veeresh, I can't really state the name of my employer but it ranks amongst the likes of Microsoft, Google, Amazon etc. I don't have an EP yet, but my employer is confident that they can land me one based on their previous dealings.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

8000 is more than enough.

average singaporean graduate at 27 is making only 3500 if you are lucky, and 3000 if you are unlucky.

lets just make it 4000, so they pay you 4000 add-on premium compared to locals.

I do have a friend who has similar experience as mine in IT and has been working at SG since some time now. He also said that the salary being offered is generous and he currently makes less than half of what has been offered. To me it seems unfair and I can't figure out why that would be the case.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you are an expat, you should not settle anything less than $12,000. $8,000 is just the median pay for local professionals

I have a hard time believing that. In any case, my employer has promised a salary revision upon completion of a year. I'm not sure why you would quote that amount because I have friends with similar experience working in US and Aus and none of them make anything close to that even though they are stationed in cities like NYC and Sydney.

Originally Posted by deadbeat777

I have a hard time believing that. In any case, my employer has promised a salary revision upon completion of a year. I'm not sure why you would quote that amount because I have friends with similar experience working in US and Aus and none of them make anything close to that even though they are stationed in cities like NYC and Sydney.

Yes, 8k is fine, especially with the promise of a salary revision after 1 year.

Prospects and standard of living will be good, welcome on board!

[Gouremitch]

Depends on your basket of goods. But in general, the necessities (food, public transport, HAIRCUTS) are a lot cheaper than other cities.

The expensive reputation stems from property prices, alcohol, and cars (because of the insanely expensive certificate you need before you can even get the car). Fine dining is more expensive as well. If you stay away from those expenditures and manage to find an affordable place away from central, the costs are fine.