Aquarium

Fragments from the ethereally beautiful SEA Aquarium in Singapore:

Relocating to Singapore (Guest post by Banupriya)

                                               At Bin Tan Island, Indonesia, a 1 hour ferry ride from Singapore


I’ve been wanting to write this blogpost since we moved to Singapore and finally got the inclination (with a little pushing from Vijay!).

When Vijay got his scholarship at NUS, Singapore and we wanted to move as a family...that's when it all started. We started calculating our living expenses including Vibhat's school fees. Meanwhile we enquired with friends living in Singapore. They gave us a figure which scared us. Some were telling us that it would difficult to live here with only our stipend. It was really scary and I backed out and started encouraging Vijay to go by himself. Vibhat and I would join later after a year if he got a job. But he was very clear that we move to Singapore with him. Now what? We started doing our budget planning on how to live with Vijay's stipend and our savings here in the bank. Meanwhile I would try to get a job there after reaching and if I got one, the salary would help.

  Finally the big day came and Voila! I landed up with my 6 year old kid in Singapore with a lot of doubts. and not very convinced with Vijay's financial planning. Initially I was very careful in spending and kept converting every dollar spent into rupees :-). It was painful after living a comfortable life in India, to live here without so many things. But later on I got used to it and starting buying necessary things. We had our budget for every month. We stayed within that but did enjoy eating out too in Food courts and  Hawkers Centres which were pretty okay and were within our budget. So we also enjoyed tasting local delicacies.

With 4000 $ per month we are able to manage. Here is the breakup:

House rent - 1500,

Vibhat’s school fees and bus facility - 1300, 

Living expenses - 700

Travelling inside Singapore (use Public transport) & Phone recharges for me n Vijay - 200

Doc's visit and miscellaneous things -  300

We are able to live within $4000 and also enjoy sightseeing around Singapore. 

The idea behind writing this post is to encourage other students of NUS not to get scared to bring their family along and to take the big step comfortably, of course after doing the required financial planning.