How well can you live in India on $2 per day? | Hacker News Reader

How well can you live in India on $2 per day?

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The article didn't actually say very much at all about how well (or not well) you could live in India on $2 per day. I somehow feel even less enlightened than before.

My thoughts exactly. It would have been interesting to hear the details of how someone in India would spend the $2 during the course of a day (or $14 during a week);

For a rural setting or tier-2 city in India I wouldn't be surprised - ppl get paid less than that. Even in an urban setting it is definitely feasible to lead a respectable life - no need to beg/ borrow.

$2 a day or $60 a month for a working individual is comfort life, for a family one needs more.

Rent: Urban - $20 + $5-8 (other expenses). In a rural setting $20 would be fairly comfortable housing.

Food: (rice/wheat bread(roti) + vegetables/dal) - this is considerably 'good' food, 1 person would need ~6 kilo of rice + 2-3 kilo of dal + misc items, cheaper options: $6-7 + cooking gas etc $2

Urban setting would mean travel and other expenses of $10-$15.

So effective a urban individual would hardly have $5 as saving. In a rural setting one can save upto $20.

People buy clothes or other items occasionally. Twice in a year is considered fairly lucky. And you can buy clothing for as less as $1-$2 these days.

So if I took $5000 to India, how long would that last me (assuming it weren't stolen or lost)?

It depends on where you spend your time. If you stay in a big city like Mumbai, Bangalore etc. it would probably last a few months (anywhere between 3-6 months). If you go to a smaller city or towns, you can easily live a year on that money.

I have been looking at the bandwidth availability in Bangalore and was wondering how easy it is to get 1-2 mbps up/down minimum around 12th Main, Indiranagar, HAL 2nd Stage. I have been thinking of spending a couple of months there, and it would be a lot easier if my video conferencing tools worked ok, and they need 1-2 mbps.

You can try airtel/tata-indicom broadband - they would install in 2 days time. Will cost you around $20 for unlimited upload/download plan. night unlimited plans would suit you well if your video conferences are going to be IST night. Speed: though the service providers mention these as 2Mbps they really would not be more than 40KBps on avg and be prepared to be annoyed with disruptions once in a while and their annoying customer support.

"if I took $5000 to India, how long would that last me (assuming it weren't stolen or lost)?"

In Bangalore it would last you about 2-4 months depending on how exactly you live. (I assume you want a decent pad, internet connectivity, cellphone, eat out occasionally and so on) In cheaper places you could get by for 6 - 8 months. If you want to just "subsist" (eat well + roof over your head and you don't care where you live in India) you could go a year or even two.

(PS a lot of people live on less, but then a lot of people own their own hoouses or are really poor and malnourished etc)

I concur with plinkplonk. Spending $1000 a month I would say would be more or less a plush life even in Bangalore. Unless you eat out at places where the bill comes to $20 a person.

Additionally you also need to factor out that you would be a foreigner and at times locals hike their prices and you might not get fair deals.

You would get best available non-commercial broadband with unlimited download limit for < $20

I think it is how comfortable are you going lean. When we ran out of funds in our start-up I taught my co-founder to go lean - he was pleased at the end of the saga how he could actually live healthy & happy with very minimal cash. $300 is very good for start-up founders ensuring a calm place to stay & occasional business meetings too.

In Pune/Hyderabad/Bangalore, 1.Rent (a descent house in good neighbourhood) : $2400/per year 2. If you cook your food and avoid restaurants, food expenses will be around $720/per person 3. Electricity bills: $240/per annum 4. Unlimited broadband(3G - usb): $240/per annum 5. Petrol (Gas)- Assuming you travel 13-km per day : $360/per annum

Total expenses: $3960/per annum

As the matter of fact, entry level salary for software engineer in an ordinary company is $5000 per annum. Moreover, if you share your apartment, you can still reduce your expenses, and in fact save lot of money.

"Total expenses: $3960/per annum"

This is simply not true in Bangalore (I don't know about Hyderbad/ pune). (I've been living "decently" in Bangalore for the last 15 years). But hey if you can manage it, good for you.

"entry level salary for software engineer in an ordinary company is $5000 per annum."

people being hired out of college campuses (in other words n their first job) $10,000 - $12500 these days - and that too for the generic body shopping companies.

Government jobs (often with free housing and other perks) get you 5000 $/annum as a starting rate. Software jobs pay considerably more. If you are getting 5000$/ year for programming, you are significantly underpaid.

For anyone planning to come to Bangalore with 5k$, be warned, you will be scraping by. So, unless you plan to live very (VERY) cheap , iow "roughing it" , plan on about 10,000 $/ year for Bangalore. Bangalore is arguably the most expensive place to live in India (Some parts of Bombay are costlier).

I have had many expat friends stay in Bangalore for long periods. I just chatted with a couple of them as I was writing this post and they agree that 10k is enough for a decent (not great) year in Bangalore fr a year.

My advice, talk to someone who's relocated here from the USA and stayed a year or more and let them fill you in (vs getting dubious advice from a forum, even HN).

Even in an urban setting it is definitely feasible to lead a respectable life - no need to beg/ borrow.

Jyothi, exactly what is your idea of leading a respectable life? If one can subsist without having to beg, that is considered leading a respectable life?

By the way, have you had a chance to walk around construction sites in Bangalore and talk to the workers? I can't claim that I'm an expert in those matters; but here are some observations:

These workers earn more than $2 a day. But they don't have a proper roof over their heads. IMO, they live under horrible conditions. Go to any large construction site and find where the workers live.

By respectable in Indian circumstances I mean decent hygienic lodging with clean walls, floor and a roof that doesn't leak, healthy enough food that you buy or cook and not left overs. Paying bills in time and wearing clean clothes. (In an urban setting rent can get costlier, so as someone noted below I am assuming one would share a house of arnd $75-$100 rent with 2-4 ppl)

Construction workers by nature/the way they lead their lives are very different. May be instead you should talk to your house maid and find out :). To note these people run families with just around $150-200 earning a month. And we are of course talking about $60 per person.

Do you know teachers in private schools in India start with $60 as their monthly pay and on avg earn $150 I guess.

Yeah, the title was simply meant to be eye-catching.

Instead of answering the question directly, I will tell you how much you nee per month to live here in India as a start up founder.

In most of the major cities you can find decent accomodation for below $60 per month. Food will cost around $150 (You will get very good food with this amount). Electricity + unlimited broadband will cost you 24$ per month.

So you can live in any major city for around $250 per month.

If you are ready to share accomodation, internet etc and cut the costs here and there, you may be able to save more.

You can survive comfortably but not entertain yourself. Movie tickets, for example, cost at least $1 in most cities. So does eating out at a decent restaurant (by local standards).

ah!

I'm a bit surprised that the Indian govt's above-poverty level is set at somewhere around $1 (~Rs.48). Its too low to live with basic needs.

Out of curiosity I just dug up the official docs on the Labor ministry website of India, and found this http://labour.nic.in/wagecell/welcome.html

That page contains a PDF file with a table somewhere in the middle that mentions minimum wages for different kinds of work. It's highest for people employed in the field of Agriculture. Their minimum wages is specified as Rs.107 (~$2.3). Most fields of work have close to $1(Rs.66) as mentioned in the article.

But daily wage construction workers around me get paid around Rs.250 a day (~$6)

it depends on the place where you live, you can rent a house here (with three rooms) with only $180 a month, but in sousse (another town, same country) it's more than $2500. it's the same in any place on the world.

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