Hello!

I'm seriously considering moving from England to Kunming in the next few months to take up my next teaching job. I'm just wondering from anybody with experience living there what are the living costs roughly per month? I've got 1,500 RMB p.m to find a one bed apartment/room in the Guan Du district...is this realistic? When I search online apartments seem a lot more than this but they are two bedroom and quite fancy looking.

Also - I'm used to low cost living, buy my own fruit and veg to cook, cycle everywhere and don't go out drinking much. What's the cost of living like in Kunming?

I literally have no idea, so any advice would be really appreciated and help me make my decisions

I look forward to hopefully meeting some of you! :)

I recommend to find a roommate and share a decent two bedroom apartment together.

We are two people, don't drink or do bars, and spend about 3000 a month for groceries, utilities and stuff.

The 1500 rent allowance offered by some places is based on what the schools own accommodation would cost. It won't get you a good apartment, but would get you something basic. Renting a room/sharing is the best bet. Guandu rents have gone up since they opened the subway train route into the city.

I would not advise sharing with a local, unless you have lived in China for a while. The differences in expectations for sharing a place can be huge. Hell they even had a murder in a college dorm last month, over somebodies music.

Unless of course you want to be a free English teacher. You do see families advertising and offering free rooms. There was one ad on here about a week ago, if you trawl through he classifieds.

There are some older quiet parts in Guangdu area, around the pedestrian walkway. Try local real estate agents around there. Some very cheap grubby neighborhoods near the subway nightmarket hotspot, but not recommended.

Or just live near of 2nd ring road and do a ten minute cycle in.

If you cook yourself and don't go out drinking much, you could spend as little as 1500 a month for just about everything else, mobile, internet, maintenance fee, utilities, food, toilet paper, etc. This doesn't include any traveling around Yunnan or China.

Hmmm yeah that so-called "free" room comes with an hour of teaching every day. So at 150Rmb an hour that works out at about 4500 Rmb a month in service. It would have to be a very beautiful maybe even a magic room for me.

Many places want 6 mos/1 yr rent in advance so be prepared.

Expect to pay at least 20,000 per year for a furnished apt.

The best way to learn Chinese would probably be to get a room in a family's house, if you can find such an arrangement, but that can require a lot of adjustment and is not something everybody would want to do.
Sharing with a Chinese person will certainly help you learn Chinese, but I wouldn't want to just show up and share with anybody until I got to know him/her a bit. I'd just get a room or something at first, until you figure things out on the ground.
I take it you've never been to China? Don't go around worrying about getting murdered.

@SeaGreen

People will be along shortly to say that you can eat like Bobby Sands and sleep like a hobo and spend 10元 a month to get by.

If I were to offer some sensible opinion it would be:

Your 1,500 a month should be fine for a flat, no need to share. If you're looking online the term you will need to look for is 单身公寓 (Dan Shen Gong Yu) - A singles appartment. This will look like a hotel room except with a fitted kitchen and a small balcony. Some will even clean your clothes if you leave them outside the door, most are new and clean.

In reality, if you're coming to teach I think how it usually works is that your school will have a place for you already or on your first day here they'll whisk you around the local area showing you what you can get for your allowance. It's best just to first leave it with them.

On top of your rent you'll have to pay leccy, water and management costs - also maybe a few yuan for your TV arial cost. As Air con isnt needed in Kunming you'll keep costs down.

As for food. In some cases eating out is a lot cheaper and less hassle than eating in. If you're going to cook youll have to factor in a toaster overn (100-500元) from the market, and some utensils. I'd say that you could look on the for sale ads here but people have a tendency for selling their spoon, used for 10 years, for 3 yuan less than they bought it for - just buy new.

Other 'arrival' costs you may have to factor in will be a new mattress, chances are the one in the apartment will be crap, along with a few nights in a hotel while you find a place. For hotels you'll find somewhere - Hanting, HomeInn etc - for around 200-300 a night (Your school will probably stump up for this). A mattress could be 500 up.

Food is cheap. If you fancy living like a farmer you can spend 10元 a meal and be fine, although this is'nt recommended. They don't have Whimpys here like in GB, but if you fancy the crap American alternative KFC or Burger King, you'd be looking at 40-50 a meal. There is a great choice of foreign restaurants in Kunming and none are particularly expensive. Chinese restaurants tender to the crowd rather than the individual customer but finding a few dishes for up to 100 should be no problem in an average city centre establishment, less in many cases.

Getting around should be easy for you. My employer gave me a transport card when I arrived, perhaps yours will too. With this you'll be able to take the underground. For now this runs North to South but will head through Guandu. The carriages smell of vegetable fart and there are no windows to open but a journey will be cheap, although tedious, at around 5rmb. If you're in dire straights buses tend to cost either 1元 or 2元. You could, in theory, cross the city from east to west in a taxi for 40-50元, however traffic jams and taxi drivers quoting ridiculous off meter prices will mean this isn't a certainty. Taxis offer receipts that allow you to claim back expenses from your employer, if you have that in your contract, meaning that this could be the best solution for getting around.

You could consider buying an electric scooter at 1500ish second hand to 3000ish new. Your employer may even provide one of these for you when you arrive. If you have a drivers licence or are planning on getting a Chinese and don't mind looking a prick, at the moment you can rent a little electric Noddy car for 300 a month. Anything else just isn't value if it has to come out of your private fund. My employer rented a mid range VW but it was costing 4000 a month!

Some things are going to be more expensive here than they would be in Europe. Chocolate, cheese, milk, petrol, cigars, lamb, trainers, car rental and haircuts are more here than I found them to be back home. Apart from that everything else will be much cheaper than GB.

All in all, I don't pay rent, electricity or most of my transport but 5000-6000 slips though my fingers easily each month on food, ciggies, parking, nick nacks, the odd taxi and phone bills.

Giving you an exact amount would be neigh on impossible but hopefully I've given you an idea. You'll spend a lot less than you would back home and hopefully retain the same standards of living.

I think Napoleon's advice is good, although I'd differ slightly concerning taxis (maybe it's where I live or maybe it's me, but I virtually never have problems with cabbies trying to over charge me - I often use them late after the buses stop, otherwise rarely) and buses (I find them no hassle). As for the underground, there are many places it does not go, including my area. Hard to imagine why you'd need a car - electric scooter, maybe.
5000-6000 a month is not unreasonable, but neither is 4000, depending on yr idea of lifestyle - Y4000/mo. is not poverty.
As for eating out, you certainly don't have to spend Y100 for a good meal - 3 friends & I ate our fill of a very good meal (4 dishes & a soup) on Saturday night for Y109 total, plus Y18 for 4 tall cold beers (local beers, not particularly good) brought in from the shop next door (note: menu was in Chinese only, as is usually the case). Plenty of more expensive upscale restaurants too. Any 'western' restaurant here is more expensive than where we ate on Saturday (which was really very good, although a bit noisy), but 'western' places, especially if foreign owned (several are pretty good), now tend to have good imported beer (considerably more expensive). Napoleon is right about Chinese restaurants tendering to groups, but you can eat a simple nothing-special meal on your own in many little places for Y20 or even less. Student canteens, if you're going to be at a university, are very cheap, and passable.
I disagree about the cost of haircuts and chocolate and milk (unless the latter has gone way cheap in GB lately).

Don't expect your employer to provide or do anything for you. My school was okay for me in terms of refunding visa costs and whatnot, but they generally only give what you ask for. You have to keep asking again and again for some things. If possible, get all promises in writing from the person hiring you - you don't want any nasty surprises or to feel in any way cheated.

Apartments buildings are built to a low standard here, but they are a lot cheaper than the UK. A small modern(ish) furnished apartment costs at least £160 a month. You may be able to find a cheaper one in an older building, but the old buildings were built to house families, so they don't have many 1 bedroom places. The old (1980s/90s) buildings themselves are ugly but better constructed than the new ones, but are also typically filthy from years of grease and dirt and low hygiene standards that Chinese people generally have (sorry to say). A shared room can be as little as £60 a month, but you may have to put up with messy housemates or if you are a messy housemate yourself, you may get into domestic rows!

Haircuts cost much less than the UK, about £3 a cut. Reasonable meals for one (usually some rice and some meat with some vegetables) can be bought for as little as £1 and usually less than £2, especially if they are pre-cooked. This is Chinese 'fast food', healthier than a KFC or McDonalds and often come with free soup if you eat in.

Electricity, gas, and water rates are MUCH cheaper than the UK. Milk, bread, coffee, and tea, are all more expensive here (restaurants will usually give you some kind of extremely weak 'tea' for free - but it will not give you much of a caffeine fix). If you are a tea drinker, I suggest you bring a box of teabags from home, all the tea options here will likely disappoint you. It's also a good idea to bring some supermarket paracetemol/aspirin/ibruprofen, as its so cheap in the UK. You can get it here but it may be mixed with other things, more expensive, and there may not be any English to tell you the ingredients. You won't wanna be trying to buy it when you are feeling rough.