With inflation and rising costs, you need to ensure you are able to provide a strong case for increased cost-of-living expenses from your overseas employer, says Hannah Beecham
There’s a funny saying you may have heard: “bad news not only travels fast but also far and wide.” I’m afraid that’s proving true for expats this year. The latest figures for cost-of-living in key expatriate locations suggest that those of you living in Europe, South America and Asia-Pacific will be worse off by the end of 2011.
Experts Xpatulator.com explain that higher food and oil prices are the main reasons behind these rises. The one location seemingly offering relief on the daily expenditure forecast front is the United States. Here, expats should find their cost-of-living becomes less expensive over the course of the year, particularly with respect to indigenous goods and services.
So, where are expats having to dig the deepest to cover their daily expenditure? Locations appearing in the top 10 list include Caracas, Hong Kong, Geneva, Sao Paulo, Oslo and Moscow.
The cost of living for all expats is very much affected by both global and local factors. To begin with there’s the availability and price of goods and services that are representative of an expatriate lifestyle. Plus, expats have to factor in local inflation, which plays a key part in how well-off you feel on a week-by-week basis. Then there’s the currency exchange rate between the home and host country, which could well have an impact on your wallet depending on the currency you get paid in, spend in and save in.
Expats would be well advised to take on board what such rising costs will mean to their family budgeting. Close monitoring of what’s happening to prices in your neck of the woods means you’ll be better prepared to make a case for recompense from your employer. Seek out reliable sources of cost-of-living indices to build up your own picture of how your finances will be affected over 2011. The calculations of these indices take into consideration the cost of groceries, healthcare, household accommodation and transportation.
If such records don’t exist, or are difficult to obtain, it would pay to start making a note of your own weekly and monthly expenditure on a typical basket of goods, as well as the larger items of expenditure such as rent. A well-reasoned and executed survey of costs will serve as a solid basis for any request in increased allowances.
Hannah Beecham is Managing Editor of the first comprehensive online financial channel for British expats, www.expatmoneychannel.com
