Expatistan: Expat life made easy

If your job is about to send you far away and into the exciting but sometimes slightly frightening world of the expat then you really need to know what you’ll get for your dollars.

Expatistan’s collaborative approach to worldwide price comparisons is certainly a great place to get an overview of what to expect when you rock up in a strange city. It could also be of use in your salary negotiations.

The site is constantly looking for more people to add prices and signing up and doing so is free of charge. The list of prices is pretty comprehensive and covers all areas from food, housing and clothes to transport, personal care and entertainment. If your city isn’t listed then you can put it forward for consideration and if the guys at expatistan.com consider it has a fairly significant expat community then it can be included.

To get a cost of living Comparison is easy. You simply enter the city you’re heading to and the city you currently reside/work in. Hit enter and you’ll get a table showing plus or minus percentages for each of the six main categories with a total at the bottom. You can then click on an icon to the left and get the prices for each of the category items.

Each comparison comes with a note on just how many price entries and people make up the survey, when it was last updated and whether it’s a reliable figure or in need of more entries. It also shows how much you’ll need to make on a monthly basis compared to your current city.

Like most sites of this nature it will only improve with more and more entries but for a snapshot of the cost of essential items it’s a good place to start.

Conclusion
Even if the averages and percentage differences are a bit out of kilter for some cities the itemised category prices should provide useful information. After all they’ve been entered by people who’ve been there and paid the bills.