Buenos Aires on 30 pesos a day
You probably won’t see the above headline in the NYT travel section anytime soon. At least not while the supposed travel “articles” focus on little more than bickering about whether the foie gras is better at the 4 Seasons or the Intercontinental. But you’ll find it here, especially now that this past week has seen a few important developments arise regarding my current state of affairs in Buenos Aires:
1) I checked my bank account, and it’s confirmed: I have almost nothing, even by Argentine standards. I knew it all along, but either out of fear (or blessed ignorance) I avoided looking at the balance the past week or two. Which brings me perfectly into the next point:
2) I’ve started teaching english, and this time seriously. I’m now committed to just over 10 hours a week. While I’ve been solicited to teach alot more, for me this is a good start. “10 hours” just reflects the actual time spent teaching - between commuting and preparation, these 10 hours can easily turn into 20. I’ll go into more detail about my English teaching gigs below, but because I want to continue freelance writing (which I’ve been trudging away at for the past 5 weeks), and I have plans to start up a mini-business with a friend of mine (I can’t go into details yet because we’re still waiting for the patent lawyers to get back to us), this 20 hour commitment is ideal.Also, one of my friends mentioned while he loved my sharp political commentary on US foreign policy and the current state of anti-americanism in Latin America, I should, in the wise words of Bill O’Reilly (warning: link contains racy material not seen since the Monica Lewinsky files) “shut up,” and get on with the interesting stuff.
Put all of this together, and you get to the title of this post: living in Buenos Aires on $30 pesos a day. Right now I’m planning on heading back to the States in early or mid-August, which means I have between 3 1/2 and 4 months left in this crazy city. As such, I need to budget even more than I’ve been doing if I want to have enough money for the bus (not even the taxi) ride to the airport. While English teaching should provide a decent stream of income - by local standards - it still won’t come even close to covering half of my monthly costs.
Of course you may be shaking you head now and wondering, “Is this guy an idiot? Why doesn’t he just pick up a full schedule of teaching to make more dough?” To which I’ll respond, because I don’t want to. So there. In all seriousness I’m really enjoying working as a writer; even though I haven’t caught my big break yet, as I imagine hundreds if not thousands of other starry-eyed, naive hopefuls like myself living down here are waiting for, it’s just something I like doing. It’s very likely when I return home, being as broke as I am,I’ll be all but forced to take a job that I don’t particularly enjoy out of financial necessity. For example, in February 2005, with college winding down I had a series of interviews, one of which included a company that would have me selling lugnuts in Cleveland. No offense to Cleveland, but I didn’t exactly picture my life heading in that direction. And so, I came here. At any rate when I return there’s a very real possibility I’ll have to take a job of that sort - while perhaps not as awful, just as mind-numbing - so I figure I might as well do what I want to be doing now because I may not have the opportunity in the future.
OK, so enough prosyletizing for one entry. Here are the nuts and bolts.
- The institute I’m teaching for has 1 1/2 classes (as opposed to the more normal 1 hour blocks, I believe), which is crucial, obviously, not just because it guarantees more time, but because it concentrates working time, saving me latent time and making long treks across the city more worth it.
- For example if I teach one class in Nunez - which is a neighborhood from 20 to 25 minutes away from me - I can obviously greater justify trekking out there if I’m getting paid for 1 1/2 hours as opposed to just one. I’d have to do this same trip 3 times to accrue 3 hours of teaching time on the 1-hour plan, but only twice on the 1 1/2 hour plan. Consider that three 1-hour blocks results in 6 hours of “total time,” teaching and commute included. So 19 pesos an hour turns into 9.5 pesos an hour. Now consider the “real” hourly wage on the 1 1/2 hour plan. 3 hours teaching time plus 2 hours commuting (1 hour for each class) translates into 11.5 pesos an hour, and I only have to do the same trip twice. Of course a difference of 2.5 pesos (just under $1 USD) is a pittance, but it adds up down here after awhile, and as you know, I need to take what I can get.
Which brings me to the main point of this all: living cheaply.
I figure if I teach 10.5 hours a week - as my current schedule allows - once everything gets going smoothly I can pull about 170 pesos a week (at an average rate of 16.5 pesos a working hour - right now my institute pimps me out for between 15-19 pesos an hour). If I aim to spend an average of 30 pesos a day, or 210 pesos a week, that means I’ll only have to dip into my funds for 40 pesos a week - about $13 USD.
Of course this is egregiously neglecting a huge monthly cost: rent. But to be totally honest at this point I just look at it as a fixed cost that I’ll have no way of realistically paying off, so in the meantime if I should just focus on minimizing all other controllable (i.e. lifestyle) costs.
So - living on 30 pesos a day (less than $10 USD) - is it feasible? Maybe, but it won’t be easy. I pretty much never eat out. A family friend came into town a month ago and invited me to meet up for dinner, and I assented, but I didn’t know it was in Puerto Madero, the most expensive part of the city. Only in town for a week - and meeting up with another friend living here who actually has a real job and makes good money - she wanted to throw it down, because honestly for a foreigner visiting here the prices are still great. So a few glasses of champagne and a sushi dinner that was less filling than 3 peso pizza (yes, they sell that here), I wound up dropping 60 pesos on the meal. Sure, by U.S. or European standards, 20 bucks at a premiere restaurant in the nicest part of the city is a gift - but I beat myself up for a week after it. In my situation, you just can’t do “lavish” stuff like that. So to augment this, cost-cutting measures include, but are not limited to:
- I cook almost every night or order delivery - usually pizza and empanadas, the dirt-cheap but filling South American staple. Occasionally I’ll splurge and order the roast-beef platter (with potato salad and honey mustard, dios mio) or the bagel and lox from a restaurant close to me when I’m work myself up into a stupor dreaming of long-missed food from home
- If I go to clubs, almost always I go where I know somebody who knows someone who works there so I can get in for free. Alot of times I just go to house parties, where a 5 or 6 pesos bottle of wine is the only cover, and besides its always great meeting more people, locals and foreigners included.
- When I go out, I obviously drink the majority of the night’s intoxicants at home first, usually in the form of my favorite cut-rate liquor, a bottle of local Argentine whiskey that goes for 12 pesos (4 bucks)
- I take the bus (80 centavos; 27 cents) and the subway (70 centavos) almost everywhere
- When I need to use the internet for awhile I’ll go to a place that has wi-fi and buy a coffee for two or 3 pesos and sit for a few hours. For example right now I’m at a gas station - oddly enough, which is completely packed at the moment. Though, considering the “non-smoking” secion consists of 3 tables and we are at a gas station, it makes me a little nervous.
- I don’t buy anything. Everyone raves about the bargains to be found in this city, but for the most part I wouldn’t know. When my family came down two months ago was really the last time I bought anything that lasts more than a few hours (i.e. food, drinks, internet), and I didn’t pay for most of it anyway, courtesy of my loving family who felt I may shame them all walking around in 2 years’ past fashion.
- My one weakness is candy - there’s so much good candy and baked goods in this city that I just can’t resist. This, I’m afraid, will probably be what pushes my budget to the limits.
In reality, at least from my experience, the budget can never be met. But at least I can try to come to close to it, and have it serve as a symbolic goal of sorts. For examply today I’ve only spent 12 pesos, and it’s already 8 pm. So if I make myself a stiff drink of my own private stock and order empanadas or pizza, I should come close to meeting the 30 peso goal, assuming I go to this party and don’t get persuaded to hang out at the bar.
At any rate…now that I’m a workin’ man, I’m finally beginning to comprehend that strange look of euphoria that most people have come Friday…the day’s taken on new significance to me - it’s no longer just like any other. It is the weekend and that whiskey’s calling my name, so if you want to find out more about the current lifestyle feel free to drop me a line - as long as you pay for it.
Chin Chin,
Adam
Tags: Argentina, Buenos Aires, teaching English
April 22nd, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Hey Adam,
It’s Erica - I don’t know if you remember, but I emailed you last summer to get the link to your blog.
I actually just tried to leave you a message, but I don’t think it worked, so here it goes again …
I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog; thanks again for sending me the link. It’s sounds like you’re having an amazing experience in Argentina, and I bet your Spanish is really good by now too.
It’s funny you mention teaching English, because I actually wanted to do that for a year after graduation (I’m graduating this semester) but it just didn’t seem very feasable; there are all those teacher training courses you can take - you took one, right? - but they don’t guarantee a job … so i sort of gave up on that idea. i was just curious … how did you go about finding this teaching job? did you need to have teaching qualifications? and what about the freelance writing job?
if you have a minute and can write back, that would be great.
enjoy the rest of your time in argentina! do you have any idea what you might want to do when you’re back in the US?
Erica
April 23rd, 2006 at 3:43 am
My heart goes out to you. I did a guesstimate budget for the next time I return. Hopefully I will stay for 3-12 months. And I couldn’t make it less than 1200 pesos, which was not being extravagant. Most people I know in BA only bring in 800 - 1000 pesos a month! I don’t know how they manage.
April 24th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Erica - I think Argentina is definitely an option if you want to teach English, learn Spanish, and live in an interesting, exciting place. The thing is - in the best of circumstances you´ll barely make ends meet, and in the worst, you´ll be dipping substantially into your savings. Don´t delude yourself - like I and a whole lot of other people I know did - into thinking that you can easily support yourself in Argentina teaching english.
If that´s not possible, than you may want to consider going to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or íf you´re feeling more intrepid - Morocco or Saudi Arabia. All of these countries pay teachers very well and cover most expenses, but the jobs are very serious and obviously there are other cultural factors that don´t apply in Argentina, Brazil, or many other Latin American countries - i.e. don´t count on clubbing till 6 am and then having a BBQ at the beach in Riyadh.
About my current teaching gigs - when I first arrived in Argentina I took a TEFL course, which means I´m a certified teacher. The company through which I became certified helped me alot in finding these jobs - in fact right now I have way more offers than I can accept (as I mentioned in my post I only want to teach around 10 hours a week) - but I imagine if you have a certificate from anywhere (the States even) it shouldn´t be hard finding work on your own. Though I do think having the actual certificate is important, but I´m no expert on the subject. At least at the institute I´m currently working at - which seems quite professional as center of learning, and not just concerned with the bottom line - they stressed the importance of my certificate.
The impression I´m getting is that institutes and companies are getting kind of sick of the backpackers coming through BsAs who feel entitled to earning what is a good wage, by local standards, solely based upon virtue of their birth in an English-speaking country. Yeh, these people may have a college degree, but reading Maxim on a regular basis doesn´t make you an expert in grammar. At any rate, alot of these people decide they want to go somewhere else or flake out for whatever reason, which winds up pissing off the company and hurting the english institute´s business. So yeh, I think if you have a certificate you´re definitely a valuable commodity and should have no trouble finding work.
Also - I reiterate again I´m no expert - but I think the institute I´m working for, because they have stricter hiring standards, can command a better pay rate for themselves and for their teachers. One of my classes pays 19 pesos an hour, which isn´t bad considering the other places I interviewed offered a pretty standard 15 pesos an hour (my other classes range from 15-17). Of course if you can find private students on your own, you´re sitting pretty - rates for them go from 20 - 30 an hour, depending on how good of a negotiator you are. Though this 19 peso class is a bit out of downtown, so perhaps that´s why they offer more.
Anyway I hope this helps. If you have any more questions post them up here (as opposed to e-mailing me) because I know this is a very popular theme these days and alot of people are interested.
- Adam
April 24th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Adam,
Thanks so much for your response, I really appreciate it. If I have any more questions about teaching ESL abroad, I’ll definitely post them here.
Erica
April 24th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Hi Adam,
What is the cost of the TEFL course in BA?
I think it is about 1600 - 1800 cdn in Vancouver.
April 24th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
As far as I know, right now there are 2 major programs in the city, EBC and TEFLocal. While both offer the standard, 4 week, 120-hours of class time program, TEFLocal also offers more abbreviated programs, but to be honest I don´t know if it´d be worth it to do something like this - most places that are serious about hiring people with legitimate credentials want teachers who´ve gone through the standard 4 week course, which to be honest is pretty rigorous.
TEFLocal - http://www.teflocal.com/page5.html
Shows its 4-week course as costing $999 USD
EBC -
http://www.ebc-tefl-course.com/
Shows its 4-week course as costing $1280 USD, but it says they offer various discounts which could have it cost $1160 USD
April 24th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
The concept of teaching English in a foreign country is often viewed in the minds of people who haven’t done so in a highly idealistic manner. While I personally think most TEFL courses are a waste of time and money, I do believe that they can give an individual a glimpse into what the life of an English teacher might entail. That being said, I think the best route for people that don’t have adequate savings to live here for several months and want to go out into the world regardless should follow Adam’s advice and teach in a country thats currently facing a better economic situation. Look into the JET program, or any of the Japanese eikaiwas recruiting from overseas. While the latter may be a shit job, at least you will have some sense of income set up before you get into the country. A solid amount of teaching experience looks better to a potential employer than any TEFL IMHO anyway. Once you’ve served some time there you can stay in the area (and work in amazing places like Bali and Thailand) or come to S. America with the nice chunk of change you saved up…. if you didn’t blow most of it drinking the night away.
Adam: nightlife is the same in most of Asia as it is here…at least in Japan and Thailand…parties don’t stop until well after sunrise. Its nice being in countries that doesn’t have to close pubs at 2am.
April 25th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
While this is all important, I think there´s a more serious issue here: 8 comments and nobody says one thing about the Bill O´Reilly link? I have to say I´m a bit surprised. There is important stuff people - good ´ol Bill´s forever changed the way we´ll think of ¨falaffel.¨ This is up there with the notorious Cigar Incident from Monicagate (though something tells me Pres. Clinton wasn´t using Cubans)….
May 9th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
My budget right now is 30 pesos a day.
I’m not including insurance, rent, or gym, though.
I’ve been buying a bit of clothes lately because my stuff is worn out, so it gets thrown off a bit — but it really isn’t too hard to do.
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Hi Adam!!
Great job on your blog!! I’m getting ready to come to B.A. in mid-Sepetember and I hope to get some work teaching English..
Hopefullly I’ll survive, I’ll be living in a hostel for while.. Maybe we can get together in B.A…
Thanks for all this info, see you there maybe, Sabine.
April 8th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
[…] Buenos Aires on 30 Pesos a Day […]
June 9th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Hello Adam and everyone. I somehow amazingly managed to stumble upon this blog. For that I am so grateful! I have my heart set on heading down to BA to teach English. (Well really I’m just set on heading to BA and need to be able to support myself, what else is new?) I have looked into a seemingly endless amount of options and so far taking a TEFL course and teaching english seems like the best.
Since all of you are just the wealth of information I’ve been searching and searching for, I am hoping you can help me out with some of my questions I’ve been dying to ask someone who actually has some experience with all of this. That and you obviously have the knack for writing that makes me think you won’t mind…
Like I said, I have my heart on BA, is it just the best time? Or would you also suggest somewhere close by (Santiago?) And is travel really even an option. Ideally I’d like to do some while I’m there. How easy is it actually to accomplish?
I was planning on doing a 2wk TEFL program. 4 weeks is really better, you say? And are most comparable or do you definitely suggest the one you did? I’ve also talked to this program and been told that trying to get hired outside of August and March is difficult. What if I came down in January?
And, just imagining… if you could save up ideally, how much would you have brought in savings to want for a little less? I maybe wouldn’t mind going a little later if I could save up some more now, but I’m now staring with a lot. Or I also don’t think I would mind working more. Would that sustain me a lot better? Could I get a job in BA bartending or retail or anything? Does that actually work and happen?
Sorry if all of that is overwhelming! I’m just so excited to read all of your writing and get such great information (perfect info and fun to actually read!). No one I know is doing or has done anything like this…
Thank you SO very much for any of your help!
Jessica C (from Atlanta)
June 9th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
So I was just happy to read this blog and only after did I read into more of your website. I’m fascinated!!! Now I feel like maybe I should add more after reading your about me. The things that are most important! I am 21 years old and just recently graduated. Travel is my passion. Living a new culture is well, what I live for! I’ve travelled internationally several times, and got hooked.
All of these stints, though, were study abroads or back packing for 6 weeks to a few months. Never did I fully get to experience a new culture and live the life as much like a local as possible. Add to that the fact that I’ve taken Spanish for over 8 years. I want to become fluent so badly but cant do it without taking this next step! I’ve been to Spain and adored it but I am ready to taste South America!
I know you talk of Argentina’s appeal lying in its low prices. Well for me this is simply what makes it an option. This isn’t just a trip I’m fortunate to take, it’s an experience I’m dying to have and am saving every penny to take. I always like to follow my instinct, and Buenos Aires is all that I can think of. Santiago seems appealing for sure, but so many things attract me to BA from afar and I want to see all of that close up- and enjoy every minute! optimistic enough for you? That saying, I’d like to think I can save up enough to live somewhat more freely (how much!)? Or I’d like to think I can do something to make enough money without slaving away. I have absolutely no plans after this but don’t really care about seeing beyond this right now.
Thanks for letting me ask you these things and sharing your writing. I’m loving it!