Is this a good salary for a single person?

[qwwq]

Hi, new to the forum, just wanted to get some opinions from people who currently live in (or recently left) Hong Kong.

I received a job offer with relocation to Hong Kong. They salary offered was 60,000 HKD per month. I'm wondering if that's a good amount of money? I'm single and have no dependants. Ideally, I'd like to rent a studio/1-bed flat on the HK Island in a newish development and order food/dine out on a daily basis (low to mid range restaurants). I would also like to save every month (15,000 - 20,000 HKD).

Do you think this is doable on the salary I was offered? Should I try to negotiate more? Thanks in advance for any tips.

[Cancellara]

Definitely possible. New apartments on the island are renting at levels not seen in the last 3-5 years at least. At the current moment it’s not difficult to get a unit which is 7y old or less at $12-18k, depending on several variables, although it won’t be huge, probably 200-250sq ft. Bigger (~350sf) apartments can be done on the same kind of amount if it isn’t “newish”.

The breakdown that Calstanford mentioned earlier should cover the rest of the calculations. Welcome!

[Morrison]

I will never understand why people don’t want to save more and stay a salary man their whole life.

btw, your MPF contributions will probably be worthless soon

[cathy789]

That's a very healthy income and I know many families with kids on less than that.

[traineeinvestor]

Very doable. Finding a newish 1 brm on HK Island for around 20K (or less) shouldn't be hard.

If you want a bit more space for the same budget, you could look for older units that have been recently rennovated.

"HK Island" is still quite a wide area - when you get here, suggest renting a serviced apartment for a month or two while you have a look around and find an area that works for you (assuming you're not already familiar with HK).

[GentleGeorge]

"HK Island" is still quite a wide area - when you get here, suggest renting a serviced apartment for a month or two while you have a look around and find an area that works for you (assuming you're not already familiar with HK).

Just to point out to op and set their mind at ease, both services apartments and hotels are cheap in HK relative to rent and can currently be done for less than the cost of renting (not grand Hyatt obviously but decent three/four star hotels across the city areas), certainly worth spending a few weeks in different areas to get the feel of the vibe there.

I wish we had done this!

[hullexile]

Hi, new to the forum, just wanted to get some opinions from people who currently live in (or recently left) Hong Kong.

I received a job offer with relocation to Hong Kong. They salary offered was 60,000 HKD per month. I'm wondering if that's a good amount of money? I'm single and have no dependants. Ideally, I'd like to rent a studio/1-bed flat on the HK Island in a newish development and order food/dine out on a daily basis (low to mid range restaurants). I would also like to save every month (15,000 - 20,000 HKD).

Do you think this is doable on the salary I was offered? Should I try to negotiate more? Thanks in advance for any tips.

When you say low to mid range restaurants every day are you meaning mostly western or local? What do you like to eat?

[chuckster007]

They salary offered was 60,000 HKD per month. I'm wondering if that's a good amount of money? I'm single

No way is that enough to party and live like a rock star in HK if your single, you'll blow 10K in one night out on drink and girls

You're better off asking for 100K minimum

The price of coke just went up as the PoPo busted 100 kgs of it

[hullexile]

No way is that enough to party and live like a rock star in HK if your single, you'll blow 10K in one night out on drink and girls

You're better off asking for 100K minimum

The price of coke just went up as the PoPo busted 100 kgs of it

For 10k I would hope I am not the one doing the blowing

[RobRoy]

Assuming you are young-ish, with this kind of salary you end up in the in-between group in my view. Its a bit weird in HK, but the middle-class which I think your salary ranks as, is strangely small, especially among expats.

There are a lot of younger expats in the city who work as teachers, previously more common in restaurants/hotels etc. They come here often for the experience of living in Asia/HK. Their salaries are in the 15-30k range and they are basically scraping by, but usually have a lot of fun in the city on a budget.

The second group that comes here are often in banking/law and they often make more than 60k. Or if they do make around 60k, they usually dont stay at that salary level for long. Salaries are rather in the 90+k range depending on age.

So you can hang out with both crowds, with one you are the rich kid and it the second you are the poor one.