Expats Re-adjusting to the Western World

steve38

steve38

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Inspired by bushman505, koolinkunming, and others.....how was your experience? So many times we encourage others to expand their horizons, go abroad, and enjoy their journey of different cultures and self-discovery....but we forget to tell them about the second culture shock they will have attempting to assimilate back to their own country.

I've been abroad for 6 years now and recently looked at an online menu of a Mexican resto I used to love in Houston. Apparently, I'm gonna need financing to order an appetizer as the prices have doubled. Sticker shock is probably the worst part of it all....it's a slippery slope with cost of living and just wanted to hear from you all who made the jump back to the first world :)
 
The cost of living is usually relative to the local economy and wages isn't it?
 
I sometimes wonder what kind of reverse-reverse-culture shock I would experience if I went back to the states. It took me some time getting used to living here after awhile.
 
You cant compete with third world prices on food, Even in first world asian countries like Japan the cost of living in many places is a whole lot cheaper than your large cities in USA. Try living in a place like Japan where they have first world infrastructure but cheaper cost of living. This expat on youtube had stated you can find a very livable one bedroom apartment in a place like Tokyo for 900 dollars american, dont think you can get that in New York.
 
If you're self-employed and your income is static, cost of living makes a huge difference. My whole budget is $800 here, and best I can figure is a factor of 5 for a comparable lifestyle in the US. Wondering about the social aspect also....it's expensive and time consuming to get my family back to US....it would suck to get there and realize you shouldn't have.
 
A candy bar was 5 cents in 1925. Stayed that was until 1969. Was still only 50 cents when I was a kid growing up in the 90s. Now it's $1.29. Inflation relative to wages in the US is INSANE. My dad's told me all about how the cost of living was so low when he was young. Even I've experienced a big difference in my lifetime. My parents were divorced growing up and my mom made less money than my dad. She was able to pay $625/month for a large 3-bedroom apartment in a suburb of Boston. When the housing bubble happened in the early 2000s, rent got jacked up to $1500 and she moved out. Landlord was able to get that too. Rent's probably over $2,000 for the same apartment now that was $625 less than 20 years ago. So yeah, expect plenty of sticker shock coming back to the US...

http://www.candywrapperarchive.com/candy-collector/candy-prices-over-the-years/
 
it wasn't really "overseas", as I moved in Europe from one country to another, but the differences between Spain and the German speaking world are significant.

I'm loving being back home. everything is really easy now, all the everyday stuff. and not having to worry about so many things leaves me lots of time and energy to focus on career/hobbies/social life. so I am doing great. I will probably move somewhere else for a while though.

bean88 said:
The cost of living is usually relative to the local economy and wages isn't it?
Click to expand...
yeah. that's why I am trying to get a fully online job, so that I can go live in Eastern Europe with a Western European salary for a while. contrary to what they'll tell you in the WR, not everything about the EU is so bad. it's pretty easy to move to a new country without much paperwork.
 
Jackie Blue said:
A candy bar was 5 cents in 1925. Stayed that was until 1969. Was still only 50 cents when I was a kid growing up in the 90s. Now it's $1.29. Inflation relative to wages in the US is INSANE. My dad's told me all about how the cost of living was so low when he was young. Even I've experienced a big difference in my lifetime. My parents were divorced growing up and my mom made less money than my dad. She was able to pay $625/month for a large 3-bedroom apartment in a suburb of Boston. When the housing bubble happened in the early 2000s, rent got jacked up to $1500 and she moved out. Landlord was able to get that too. Rent's probably over $2,000 for the same apartment now that was $625 less than 20 years ago. So yeah, expect plenty of sticker shock coming back to the US...

http://www.candywrapperarchive.com/candy-collector/candy-prices-over-the-years/
Click to expand...

If this was accurate then people today would be poorer in real terms, which is very clearly not the case. Housing is more expensive, but even then it's not as straight forward. Often a fashionable hipster area now was back then either a garbage dump or considered middle-of-nowhere, so it's not a 1-for-1 comparison. All these old guys with their "back in the good ol' days" are usually full of it.
 
Jackie Blue said:
A candy bar was 5 cents in 1925. Stayed that was until 1969. Was still only 50 cents when I was a kid growing up in the 90s. Now it's $1.29. Inflation relative to wages in the US is INSANE. My dad's told me all about how the cost of living was so low when he was young. Even I've experienced a big difference in my lifetime. My parents were divorced growing up and my mom made less money than my dad. She was able to pay $625/month for a large 3-bedroom apartment in a suburb of Boston. When the housing bubble happened in the early 2000s, rent got jacked up to $1500 and she moved out. Landlord was able to get that too. Rent's probably over $2,000 for the same apartment now that was $625 less than 20 years ago. So yeah, expect plenty of sticker shock coming back to the US...

http://www.candywrapperarchive.com/candy-collector/candy-prices-over-the-years/
Click to expand...

I've heard this "millennial have such a bad wage/expense ratio compaired with the past".
Know what I didn't have in the 80's, a fucking iPad/iPhone/iMac. Didn't have an Xbox, didn't have cell phone, didn't have a cell phone plan, didn't have a tv in every room, didn't fly to a vacation every year. Punks on minimum wage expect they should be entitled to all this shit. Prices have gone up, and wages have risen slightly less, but if you get rid of all that other shit it's not as bad as people make out
 
NAKMUAY18 said:
I've heard this "millennial have such a bad wage/expense ratio compaired with the past".
Know what I didn't have in the 80's, a fucking iPad/iPhone/iMac. Didn't have an Xbox, didn't have cell phone, didn't have a cell phone plan, didn't have a tv in every room, didn't fly to a vacation every year. Punks on minimum wage expect they should be entitled to all this shit. Prices have gone up, and wages have risen slightly less, but if you get rid of all that other shit it's not as bad as people make out
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I hear you, but I think that's sort of a myopic view. Those technological breakthroughs are unrelated to inflation and wages, except perhaps in the most indirect ways. We could have kept inflation and wages in check to a much better extent, and the technology still would have been there. Anyway, in the 80s we still had a color TV and cable and a Nintendo and a CD player and a VCR and all of the equivalent consumer goods. Of course the technology keeps getting better with every generation, what I had was better than what my dad had, and my kid will have the same. I think it's much more important to focus on the standard of living for the average person.
 
My father was stationed in Japan so I traveled back and forth to the mainland every summer. As an adult the company I worked for sent me to Yokohama. I experienced Japan as a kid and as an adult and loved it. @HelloJapan
 
ironwolf wasnt able to readjust so he moved to alaska
 
Cint said:
My father was stationed in Japan so I traveled back and forth to the mainland every summer. As an adult the company I worked for sent me to Yokohama. I experienced Japan as a kid and as an adult and loved it. @HelloJapan
Click to expand...
Did you open a kiosk selling rebel flags?
 
pacifikan said:
ironwolf wasnt able to readjust so he moved to alaska
Click to expand...

ahhh leklok, you can't possibly post anything without insulting somebody can you. Seems like you've adjust well to your shitty life, let's not forget that you are a racist immigrant who paints white peoples houses. You're life sucked so bad that you converted to Islam and now all you do is troll the Mayberry lounge and tell lies about how great you are and how everybody else sucks. It must be hard to be such a lowlife.

But look on the bright side, there a new year coming and you can start fresh, make a good New Years resolution. Maybe consider posting things on sherdog other than dumb insults that nobody cares about. Maybe quit Islam or get a real job. It's a new year, you can make the change.

I know it must have been hard growing up without a father and having a bunch of half brothers around you but you're an adult, you should act like one occasionally.
 
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My situation was different but moving back was still strange. I got to live in Cambodia and China for 6 years on an American salary, with the low cost of living and the housing provided by my employer, I was saving like 5,000 usd a month while not even thinking about a budget.

One thing that also is nice is that I own my house free and clear down in my home state and have been renting it and just putting that money in the bank for 6 years now

Western prices are crazy compared to Asia and there's a lot of sticker shock, especially here in Alaska which has one of the highest costs of living in the USA. Luckily I've got a great job lined up and have a few months to chill before it starts.

When I first got back it seemed like I was just burning through money, going to the grocery store and easily spending a hundred dollars compared to the 35-40 I'd spend in china, bottles of water are fucking 2 dollars??? They are about 30 cents in china.

The other thing that's strange is how quiet and slow th usa seems compared to big Asian cities, it almost feels boring, it's hard to explain. Less people (and even less in Alaska), slower drivers, etc, etc.

I'm happy to be back but it does take some getting used to.
 
It's hard. I haven't lived abroad, but I travel for my work all the time. I see
bushman505 said:
ahhh leklok, you can't possibly post anything without insulting somebody can you. Seems like you've adjust well to your shitty life, let's not forget that you are a racist immigrant who paints white peoples houses. You're life sucked so bad that you converted to Islam and now all you do is troll the Mayberry lounge and tell lies about how great you are and how everybody else sucks. It must be hard to be such a lowlife.

But look on the bright side, there a new year coming and you can start fresh, make a good New Years resolution. Maybe consider posting things on sherdog other than dumb insults that nobody cares about. Maybe quit Islam or get a real job. It's a new year, you can make the change.

I know it must have been hard growing up without a father and having a bunch of half brothers around you but you're an adult, you should act like one occasionally.
Click to expand...
<{Heymansnicker}>
 
Rjay said:
If this was accurate then people today would be poorer in real terms, which is very clearly not the case. Housing is more expensive, but even then it's not as straight forward. Often a fashionable hipster area now was back then either a garbage dump or considered middle-of-nowhere, so it's not a 1-for-1 comparison. All these old guys with their "back in the good ol' days" are usually full of it.
Click to expand...
If what was accurate? The old guys may be full of it in a lot of ways, but it's true that the average man with a high school education used to be able to support a wife and two kids and live a middle class lifestyle. Now both parents have to work and they're living paycheck-to-paycheck more. You've got college graduates working at Starbucks. The cost of living was lower even in comparison.
 
bushman505 said:
ahhh leklok, you can't possibly post anything without insulting somebody can you. Seems like you've adjust well to your shitty life, let's not forget that you are a racist immigrant who paints white peoples houses. You're life sucked so bad that you converted to Islam and now all you do is troll the Mayberry lounge and tell lies about how great you are and how everybody else sucks. It must be hard to be such a lowlife.

But look on the bright side, there a new year coming and you can start fresh, make a good New Years resolution. Maybe consider posting things on sherdog other than dumb insults that nobody cares about. Maybe quit Islam or get a real job. It's a new year, you can make the change.

I know it must have been hard growing up without a father and having a bunch of half brothers around you but you're an adult, you should act like one occasionally.
Click to expand...
No Idea what ur on about mate?
 
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