Cost of living in Shanghai (2010)

My cost of liv­ing in Shanghai is now the low­est it’s been since I moved to this city two years ago. This is af­ter quit­ting smok­ing and drink­ing, and mov­ing into a 70m² apart­ment in down­town with two chicks. Here’s a break­down of my ex­pense, with 1 U.S. Dollar be­ing 6.83 Renminbi.

Rent: 1000 RMB/​mo ($146/​mo)
Utilities: ~300 RMB/​mo (~$44/​mo)
Ayi: 100 RMB/​mo ($15/​mo)
These are af­ter split­ting three ways. Normally I don’t like liv­ing with oth­ers but this re­ally saves a lot of money. And both girls have good hy­giene so I don’t mind. When I see piss on the rim of the toi­let, I know it’s my own. I also like how the rooms smell nice. Not sure how we spend so much on util­i­ties though.

Dinner: ~1100 RMB/​mo (~$161/​mo)
That’s an av­er­age of about 37 RMB per night for din­ner, usu­ally for two. No sur­prise, Chinese food in China is cheap. And in down­town Shanghai there are web­sites (in Chinese) where you can or­der from a huge list of lo­cal restau­rants. No need for Sherpa’s, un­less you’re a white guy with­out a Chinese girlfriend.

Lunch and snacks: ~500 RMB/​mo (~$73/​mo)
I’m a loner and usu­ally have a sim­ple lunch by my­self. This ranges from 8 RMB for eight dumpling-​​like things to 30 RMB for a Subway’s sand­wich of the day, foot-​​long. Once in a while I’ll have a sand­wich from Pier 39, which is lit­er­ally next door to where I work (for now), but nowa­days I con­sider spend­ing 45 RMB on a meal for one extravagant.

Commute: ~260 RMB/​mo ($38/​mo)
That’s for tak­ing the metro every­day, and oc­ca­sion­ally tak­ing taxi. I’d ac­tu­ally get to work faster if I ride my bike or even walk the whole way but that’s too much leg ex­er­cise. I need to work on my belly, not my legs.

Well that’s about it for what I con­sider my “liv­ing ex­pense.” Adding clothes and mo­bile phone ser­vice, and ex­clud­ing mis­cel­la­neous spend­ing like web host­ing bills and flight tick­ets, the total’s about 3000 RMB or $439 each month. This works for me, and I imag­ine it would work for any­one who’s not mar­ried, isn’t a snob about food and shel­ter, and prac­tices the Chinese art of Zhái. A great thing about Shanghai is you can be fru­gal and live a very com­fort­able life at the same time.

A cou­ple links you might find useful:

• Shanghai cost of liv­ing — My post from October 2008, back when I lived in the boon­docks, thought 100 RMB open bar was a good deal, and pre­tended to be so­cial. Nowadays I have bet­ter things to do than see my friends.
• Living Cost in Shanghai (2007) — Wangjianshuo’s post, which says for the amount I’m pay­ing for rent my place “must be a pretty old one, with smell, and dirt.” I’m sure he meant “must have char­ac­ter, aroma, and soil of the people.”