<above pic: A typical beach in Sydney>
I always thought that Sydney is the costliest city in the world when I was living there for a good three years - fried rice cost $10, coffee $3.50 and a short train ride to the city set you back $4.00 one way. If you like to watch a movie during the weekend with your family, prepared at least $50 as each ticket costs around $15 depending on which precinct you are in.
I remembered learning how to cook thrice a week to save cost and could prepare a delicious dinner with three Asian dishes. If we eat out everyday we be broke in no time as nothing costs below $10 even if its bought in a little cafe.
Home-cooked food is also more nutritious as you can add more vegetables and less salt - you control what you eat literally. Marketing in big supermarkets like Coles is also affordable as a huge piece of beef costs only $5 and fresh apples cost as little as $3 for a sack.
I realised that pizza bought outside was cheap - Domino was promoting their large-size pizza at only $5 with solid toppings and the family ate pizzas once a week.
Cars of course were cheap compared to Singapore - a new Hyundai costs as little as $10,000 including no COE and accommodation rental varies depending on where you rent the apartment.
Daily necessities are also affordable and a normal long sleeve shirt costs only $15 compared to the twenty dollars here. Shoes will set you back by $20 compared to the average $30 here now.
A 3-bedroom city apartment costs up to $3000 a month in rent whereas one in a far-away surban costs only $1000. Over in Singapore, a bedroom rent can already set you back by $700 in Punggol or Woodlands.
They say its cheaper to drive in Sydney than taking public transport and I believed them. The opposite of course is more true here in Singapore with sky-high COE of an average of $70000 - only the higher middle income people can drive now and you can see many foreign talents zipping away in their cars.
I worked as a casual worker and earned $15 an hour and managed to survive there for a while.
According to Global Explorer 2011, as many as 45% of the foreign talents we have here earned more than $250,000 annually and almost one-third of them worked in the lucrative banking industry. One can imagine the high percentage of expats earning at least $100,000 a year - 60% or even up to 75%?
Could Singapore now have become a paradise for well-heeled expats but a living hell for the average Singaporeans?
When I came back to Singapore three years ago, everything seems cheap to me after living in expensive Sydney for a long while. You could literally eat out daily and have a beer in between meals.
However, I detected that foodcourt price kept rising over the years abeit incrementally so you don't really feel it until you start to see that what you earn is being eaten away by slight increases all around - MRT fare, kopi and our public utilities.
The biggest problem I feel here is the stagnanted wages of our local executives as compared to the deep pockets of our expats. This is puzzling as you can see different wage packages for the same positions offered within the company. The expats probably receive more because of the relocation cost involved and he has to pay sky-high rent here. I hope companies are not deliberately paying our locals lower because our labour laws are very weak here.
I was having dinner in quite a posh area recently and realised that I am the only local there - the whole restaurant was filled with expats! So is Singapore now a breeding ground for well-paid expats to work and live in whereas local Singaporeans only try their very best just to survive?
Besides political considerations, our people will also look at the living standard and their survivability before they cast their votes. Even opposition guru Mr Low Thia Khiang confessed that they won Punggol East because people are pissed off by the rising cost of living here.
Naturally, our people will pin their blame on the government if they can't afford to live here without feeling stressed or deprived.
The next election will prove to be very interesting...
Gilbert Goh