This doesn’t make sense – I make way less here than I do working in America and I spend every Yuan of my pay (always in cash) but when I return to the US my checking account is always higher than when I left. I have been here almost 4 months – I have been able to pay off all my credit cards – and I still have a larger bank balance than before I left. Conclusion – it is soooo expensive to live in America. My uneducated, non-financial background, guess is that it is 4 times more expensive to live in America. So move to China and live well! (IF you are willing to put up with their traffic, noise, crowded buses, inability to communicate your needs, questionable health care, blocked web sites (like Facebook), lack of comfortable furniture and mattresses, inability to buy clothes that fit if you are larger than size 10 and missing the American self –centered news). We will see how much I deplete my accounts and increase my card balances during the month of July when I am at home – buying clothes that fit and filling the gas tank of my CRV.
Side Note: Steve and his Chinese girl-friend showed me where a great tailor was. All you do is take in your favorite clothes and they can duplicate them – Reverse engineering at its best. Anyway I took in two jackets and picked out some materials, which they reversed engineered into 3 new jackets. Their cute, they fit and they were relatively cheap (not clearance outlet prices – but reasonable). I paid about 25 dollars for each jacket and I plan on using her again.
