Hey all,
This is my first Job offer after graduating with B.Arch.
I heard it's pretty expansive to live in Singapore.
I was offered 3300/months in Sigapore currency that is 2,600 in US dollars.
Will I be able to survive with that amount of money?
Note: my student loan is about 800 dollars per month
Sing's cheaper than many other major world cities... and because it is the most hyper-organized place int he world, it's government conveniently provides this cost of living calculator:
It seems like a fair offer, although when I used the calculator (great calculator btw), minus my loans I am a bit short (have about 200Singapore dollars left for groceries and leisure) ~ Should I negotiate for a higher pay??
yes.. explain the bit about the loans to them. If you can't get it, you can also consider taking a roomate. Many Singaporean apartments are quite large for the money.
almost no one rents a whole apartment for 1 person, reasons being:
-space is almost nonexistent, you almost always have to share. this is a tiny island, my dear.
-you can't afford to with a fresh grad salary, unless you have a trust fund.
you can try always try negotiating a higher salary, but keep in mind this is not a pre 2007 boom time. reccession everywhere. and not to scare you or anything, but companies are more prudent with hiring. i even heard murmurs of a couple retrenchment that happened recently. another thing, i've seen a lot of intakes of fresh grads from brand name schools.
Yep~ they told me a higher starting salary is basically not possible, apparently I was offered more $$ than other junior positions in the office. (About 30% higher)
I am totally fine with sharing apartments, as long as they are clean. But this site I was looking at, most apartments do not allow cooking, that would be a headache, no?~ (http://singapore.roomsdb.net)
According to the documents they gave me, tax there is about 15%. And there is health insurance, which is about 80/month.
hey, i'm in Singapore now and i think that is quite a rather generous offer for B.Arch; in fact i know some M.arch graduates getting lesser than that.. but well, if you are confident of landing something elsewhere it's your call.
apartment wise i'm guessing you'll be able to find a room that allows cooking, try a different agent/website maybe? it's quite expensive now but with flat share you should be able to get something decent in the 500 sing dollars range.
If you are a US citizen/permanent resident, you might have to pay taxes in the US as well, regardless of where you work. There is a mandated minimum amount you have to make to be taxed, although you have to declare all the income you make out of the US as well.
By the way, when I lived there years ago, I did notice that a lot of roommate ads said no cooking (meaning the primary leaseholder doesn't want you in his kitchen). In practice, this is, of course, negotiable. ask.
I worked in Singapore a couple years back. By far your biggest expense will be rent, but food, transportation, and bills are fairly cheap compared to the US (note: cigarettes are alcohol are expensive though, so don't be too shocked if you are a smoker). You should be able to find a modest room in a shared flat with a kitchen for S$400-600, with prices varying based on proximity to the CBD.
Regarding taxes, I believe you need not have to pay US taxes if you are working there 11 months of the tax year (double check that though). So, if you started now, you'd have to pay taxes on these few months before 2012, but if you worked there the entire year then you should be off the hook. When I started, I was there 10 months, and got stuck with US taxes, but they will let you credit any taxes you paid in S'pore toward your US tax.
I am glad you are going to go for it. I think now's a great time to take a chance on new experiences while you are young in your career. You can always quit if you don't like it anyway, or try to find a job at another firm while you are there. Foreign companies with satellite office in S'pore will pay more than local firms usually. I could go on and on about life in Singapore, but I think it's better you discover those things for yourself :)
Just went through figuring out US taxes this year and successfully got my refund, so I must've done something right.
Jason is right that you need to be overseas at least 11 out of 12 months to qualify for the tax exemption. I think the income number now is actually more than the 95k, around 105k.
You actually won't have to pay taxes on what you make overseas this year. What you do is file for a six month extension so you can get to the 11 month mark and then file your taxes and use the physical presence test to discount your overseas income.
I'm working with a guy who recently moved back to Aus from Singapore and he loved it. Stayed there five years, got to see a lot of his work built, made good money; hours were long though.
I'm considering giving it a shot in a few years depending on visa conditions here in Aus. The market in southeast Asia in general is booming right now and there's a lot of good work going on (a lot of terrible work as well though).
You'll also be in a great place to explore the rest of SE Asia.
Thanks so much for all the help guys! Yes, yes, I am taking care all of my paper works now.
btw, I have been looking at singaporeexpats.com,craigslist, and roomsDB.net for apartments, but most room share in the rang of 500 - 700 do not have pictures. What's the best/safest way to go about looking for apartments there while in the U.S.??
i'd say your best bet is to find an accomodation when you arrive in sg.. it's a lot harder to find one when you're miles away. most places are gone fast and even if you find something you like, there's no guarantee the owner will hold it for you unless you pay a deposit up front.
yeah, best bet is to wait until you get there. it's really difficult otherwise. with so much foreign talent (that's you) flooding into singapore, it's not uncommon for employers to put up new employees in a hotel for a couple weeks to help them out while they find a place. it's worth inquiring about. at the very least, they can ask around the office, and you could probably crash with a co-worker until you find something. it shouldn't take you too long.
also, morgan is right about the easyroomate website. it's far more popular than craigslist over there.
this will be difficult for you with a modest income, unless you have some savings to play with, but another option is to rent out an entire flat with like 3 bedrooms. It'd likely be upwards of S$1500-2000/mo at the low end (guessing), BUT you can rent out those other rooms for say S$800/mo, and then you're rent is a lot cheaper. This way you can get a nicer place and pay less. It's kind of shrewd move, and stressful to set up initially, but can be well worth it if you can manage it. I rented an amazing private flat in Bugis (great location) that was outrageously more expensive than I could afford on my own (really obscene actually), but quickly found some people to fill the other bedrooms and paid only S$400 in rent! It was amazing. sigh...miss those days.
I have asked the office to see if they offer any relocation compensations or reimbursements, and they say they don't. I guess I will try to ask again and see if it's possible that I crash with a co-worker for a couple of days before getting an apartment ~
morgan2sims: I graduated from Pratt Institute (New York)
oh, great school. i'm currently in the proccess of applying there for my master's.
just a heads up, the rental rate for 3 rooms flat nowadays is 2.7k-3k. i know this because a couple of weeks ago my friend and i were also looking for a new place to rent.
if you can learn the bus system quickly and not rely on the mrt system, you can probably find a cheaper place that is not necessarily near any mrt station. if you prefer to get anywhere by mrt, then i recommend finding the place based on its walking distance to the station.
here how you can figure it out: after looking at sg.roommate, write down the street names or zip codes of the rooms that interest you, then go to www.streetdirectory.com to find out if the flats have any mrt station nearby.
Yeah, I thought I quoted pretty low in my previous post. My 3 bedroom flat in Bugis was actually S$3600/mo. I rented out the master for S$1700 and the other room for S$1500. Actually, I felt a bit slimy doing that, but they didn't seem to mind paying it, so no harm I suppose.
jliu3: Sorry that they can't put you up. If it's not possible to stay with someone, maybe you can find a cheap hostel or ask if they can recommend some affordable temporary place to stay near your office. Is it rude of me to ask where you will be working at? There's a slim chance I may know of the firm or people working there. No prob if you don't want to share that tho--none of my business, but could perhaps give you better inside info if I know the company.
morgan2sims: I am also applying to Pratt's M. Arch program. Somehow, we are all connected. Good luck to you. Perhaps we may cross paths someday.
this map is also a great resource to use. I notice many locals use the streetdirectory site, but I found this one to be more user friendly for me and without all the ads.
jason: are you also submitting soft copy of your portfolio at pratt.slideroom? if so, i'd like to ask you about the format. are you basically uploading your letter sized (8.5x11) portfolio pages, or condensing one project into a single page (competition board style)? i am at loss what format they require. if the former, is there a maximum number of pages they allow to be uploaded? thanks..
Am doing my bachelor's in Architecture from Faculty Of Architecture, GBTU, Lucknow . I have my internship program in the course in this coming year and I am looking forward to working with firms in Singapore in particular. Unfortunately am not aware of how I can go about landing an internship there with a firm.
I want to request you if possible, if you happen to be aware of any such opportunities or else if u could guide me in any manner to go about this, I would be very grateful.
and plus would be incase i'd come to know what they pay there to interns
yes, i will submit a soft copy (they also allow hard-copy submissions if you'd prefer to print). i have a print version for some schools which is standard double-sided booklet format, and a separate format for digital submissions like Pratt that are set up as single page spreads. this is not to say that i fit an entire project on a single page, but i have things arranged so that the person need not have to be looking at two pages as in a book in order for it to make sense. unfortunately i do not know if they have restrictions on dimensions or number of pages. usually schools will be sure to mention so if they do, so i would imagine that pratt is a bit flexible. keep in mind that they will probably be looking at it on a standard computer screen, so it'd probably make sense to format your pages to a similar proportion for them to review more easily and not too large so that your text and images are indecipherable when the page is fit-to-screen.
so, you may not need to re-format your work if you don't mind them viewing a single page at a time. another approach, which i am doing just at Berkeley, is making my sheet size 8.5"x22"--in other words, combining two pages into one. i am doing this mainly because they have a 12 page limit (they suggested i do it that way when i called since i have about 24 standard sized pages). this is convenient for me because it doesn't require much re-formatting from my print version, so that could be another option for you if Pratt allows such a size. i suggest you email this guy... russell tyler (rtyler@pratt.edu) with any specific questions. he is the graduate admissions counselor and was surprisingly prompt in his response when i emailed him before regarding another issue, or give them a call, though they never seemed to answer the phone when i had tried.
sorry, i wrote a lot but probably didn't answer you question. :/
thanks, that was a very helpful response. it made perfect sense.
yes, now i'm thinking of doing a 8.5x22/ combining 2 pages into a single uploaded image. i will email rtyler to check with him whether they're generally OK with that..
one other thing, i was thinking of also uploading the cover & back page, index page, resume page, etc. on slideroom, much like how i would format my printed portfolio. do you think that's a good idea? or do people normally just upload content pages without any preamble.
yeah, let me know what they say. i had reservations about using that size because it seemed too long, but actually looked ok (at least in acrobat) when i made a test pdf of some pages. even 10pt font was still legible, although looked a bit small on my 15in. monitor.
regarding your other questions, i think that is really up to you. if you think it enhances your portfolio and helps tie everything together, go for it. if it's just filler, then it's probably not necessary. i am also new to the soft copy thing, and while i love not having to deal with the print shop, binding, and mailing, it is a bit confusing to know what protocol to follow. truth be told, i have not even looked at the slider room website yet even though 3 of my schools are using it (i'd better do do that soon). it seems like many schools are also new to it, and transitioning away from the traditional print format, so there is not much in the way of specific guidelines.
me personally, i think i will include a front and back cover, and upload my resume separately. like i say though, do what works best for you. i don't think there's any correct way to go about it, and often times it's the ones that do something different or out of place from everyone else that makes them stand out and get accepted (very un-singaporean concept). seems like we hijacked this thread, so feel free to email me if you find out any more info, have other questions, or just want someone to sympathize with ...jasonp881@yahoo.com
Singapore salary
Hey all, This is my first Job offer after graduating with B.Arch. I heard it's pretty expansive to live in Singapore. I was offered 3300/months in Sigapore currency that is 2,600 in US dollars. Will I be able to survive with that amount of money? Note: my student loan is about 800 dollars per month
although it is rather expensive, it all depends on your lifestyle.
i'd say the amount should be sufficient to cover everything, your student loan monthly payment included.
you should also note the tax isn't as high as in the states, which is always a plus:
http://iras.gov.sg/irashome/default.aspx
Sing's cheaper than many other major world cities... and because it is the most hyper-organized place int he world, it's government conveniently provides this cost of living calculator:
http://www.contactsingapore.sg/interactives/cost_of_living_calculator/
It seems like a fair offer, although when I used the calculator (great calculator btw), minus my loans I am a bit short (have about 200Singapore dollars left for groceries and leisure) ~ Should I negotiate for a higher pay??
yes.. explain the bit about the loans to them. If you can't get it, you can also consider taking a roomate. Many Singaporean apartments are quite large for the money.
almost no one rents a whole apartment for 1 person, reasons being:
-space is almost nonexistent, you almost always have to share. this is a tiny island, my dear.
-you can't afford to with a fresh grad salary, unless you have a trust fund.
you can try always try negotiating a higher salary, but keep in mind this is not a pre 2007 boom time. reccession everywhere. and not to scare you or anything, but companies are more prudent with hiring. i even heard murmurs of a couple retrenchment that happened recently. another thing, i've seen a lot of intakes of fresh grads from brand name schools.
so there are some competition.
Yep~ they told me a higher starting salary is basically not possible, apparently I was offered more $$ than other junior positions in the office. (About 30% higher)
I am totally fine with sharing apartments, as long as they are clean. But this site I was looking at, most apartments do not allow cooking, that would be a headache, no?~ (http://singapore.roomsdb.net)
According to the documents they gave me, tax there is about 15%. And there is health insurance, which is about 80/month.
I don't know~ should I accept the offer??
hey, i'm in Singapore now and i think that is quite a rather generous offer for B.Arch; in fact i know some M.arch graduates getting lesser than that.. but well, if you are confident of landing something elsewhere it's your call.
apartment wise i'm guessing you'll be able to find a room that allows cooking, try a different agent/website maybe? it's quite expensive now but with flat share you should be able to get something decent in the 500 sing dollars range.
I recommend taking it.. and get a room-mate. Check around Nanyang and NUS.
If you are a US citizen/permanent resident, you might have to pay taxes in the US as well, regardless of where you work. There is a mandated minimum amount you have to make to be taxed, although you have to declare all the income you make out of the US as well.
Yes, I think I will get a shared apartment and it doesn't seem like U.S. tax will take too much out of my pay.
thanks for all the help guys.
I think I will take the offer :)
By the way, when I lived there years ago, I did notice that a lot of roommate ads said no cooking (meaning the primary leaseholder doesn't want you in his kitchen). In practice, this is, of course, negotiable. ask.
I worked in Singapore a couple years back. By far your biggest expense will be rent, but food, transportation, and bills are fairly cheap compared to the US (note: cigarettes are alcohol are expensive though, so don't be too shocked if you are a smoker). You should be able to find a modest room in a shared flat with a kitchen for S$400-600, with prices varying based on proximity to the CBD.
Regarding taxes, I believe you need not have to pay US taxes if you are working there 11 months of the tax year (double check that though). So, if you started now, you'd have to pay taxes on these few months before 2012, but if you worked there the entire year then you should be off the hook. When I started, I was there 10 months, and got stuck with US taxes, but they will let you credit any taxes you paid in S'pore toward your US tax.
I am glad you are going to go for it. I think now's a great time to take a chance on new experiences while you are young in your career. You can always quit if you don't like it anyway, or try to find a job at another firm while you are there. Foreign companies with satellite office in S'pore will pay more than local firms usually. I could go on and on about life in Singapore, but I think it's better you discover those things for yourself :)
Just went through figuring out US taxes this year and successfully got my refund, so I must've done something right.
Jason is right that you need to be overseas at least 11 out of 12 months to qualify for the tax exemption. I think the income number now is actually more than the 95k, around 105k.
You actually won't have to pay taxes on what you make overseas this year. What you do is file for a six month extension so you can get to the 11 month mark and then file your taxes and use the physical presence test to discount your overseas income.
I'm working with a guy who recently moved back to Aus from Singapore and he loved it. Stayed there five years, got to see a lot of his work built, made good money; hours were long though.
I'm considering giving it a shot in a few years depending on visa conditions here in Aus. The market in southeast Asia in general is booming right now and there's a lot of good work going on (a lot of terrible work as well though).
You'll also be in a great place to explore the rest of SE Asia.
Thanks so much for all the help guys! Yes, yes, I am taking care all of my paper works now.
btw, I have been looking at singaporeexpats.com,craigslist, and roomsDB.net for apartments, but most room share in the rang of 500 - 700 do not have pictures. What's the best/safest way to go about looking for apartments there while in the U.S.??
you may wanna try sg.easyroommate.com
what school did you get your b.arch from?
i'd say your best bet is to find an accomodation when you arrive in sg.. it's a lot harder to find one when you're miles away. most places are gone fast and even if you find something you like, there's no guarantee the owner will hold it for you unless you pay a deposit up front.
yeah, best bet is to wait until you get there. it's really difficult otherwise. with so much foreign talent (that's you) flooding into singapore, it's not uncommon for employers to put up new employees in a hotel for a couple weeks to help them out while they find a place. it's worth inquiring about. at the very least, they can ask around the office, and you could probably crash with a co-worker until you find something. it shouldn't take you too long.
also, morgan is right about the easyroomate website. it's far more popular than craigslist over there.
this will be difficult for you with a modest income, unless you have some savings to play with, but another option is to rent out an entire flat with like 3 bedrooms. It'd likely be upwards of S$1500-2000/mo at the low end (guessing), BUT you can rent out those other rooms for say S$800/mo, and then you're rent is a lot cheaper. This way you can get a nicer place and pay less. It's kind of shrewd move, and stressful to set up initially, but can be well worth it if you can manage it. I rented an amazing private flat in Bugis (great location) that was outrageously more expensive than I could afford on my own (really obscene actually), but quickly found some people to fill the other bedrooms and paid only S$400 in rent! It was amazing. sigh...miss those days.
Oh Great website! Thanks thanks.
I have asked the office to see if they offer any relocation compensations or reimbursements, and they say they don't. I guess I will try to ask again and see if it's possible that I crash with a co-worker for a couple of days before getting an apartment ~
morgan2sims: I graduated from Pratt Institute (New York)
oh, great school. i'm currently in the proccess of applying there for my master's.
just a heads up, the rental rate for 3 rooms flat nowadays is 2.7k-3k. i know this because a couple of weeks ago my friend and i were also looking for a new place to rent.
if you can learn the bus system quickly and not rely on the mrt system, you can probably find a cheaper place that is not necessarily near any mrt station. if you prefer to get anywhere by mrt, then i recommend finding the place based on its walking distance to the station.
here how you can figure it out: after looking at sg.roommate, write down the street names or zip codes of the rooms that interest you, then go to www.streetdirectory.com to find out if the flats have any mrt station nearby.
hope that helps.
btw, mrt is the subway system
Yeah, I thought I quoted pretty low in my previous post. My 3 bedroom flat in Bugis was actually S$3600/mo. I rented out the master for S$1700 and the other room for S$1500. Actually, I felt a bit slimy doing that, but they didn't seem to mind paying it, so no harm I suppose.
jliu3: Sorry that they can't put you up. If it's not possible to stay with someone, maybe you can find a cheap hostel or ask if they can recommend some affordable temporary place to stay near your office. Is it rude of me to ask where you will be working at? There's a slim chance I may know of the firm or people working there. No prob if you don't want to share that tho--none of my business, but could perhaps give you better inside info if I know the company.
morgan2sims: I am also applying to Pratt's M. Arch program. Somehow, we are all connected. Good luck to you. Perhaps we may cross paths someday.
this map is also a great resource to use. I notice many locals use the streetdirectory site, but I found this one to be more user friendly for me and without all the ads.
http://www.onemap.sg/index.html
when i first arrived and people in the office saw me using google maps for directions, they looked at me like i was a crazy person :P
@jason wow, that is freaky.
thanks, i need all the luck i can get and good luck to you too.
wow~ Thanks! and good luck to you both!
my email is 1234567890.liu@gmail.com, feel free to contact for any questions.
cheers.
"Singapore. Disneyland with the death penalty." - William Gibson
jason: are you also submitting soft copy of your portfolio at pratt.slideroom? if so, i'd like to ask you about the format. are you basically uploading your letter sized (8.5x11) portfolio pages, or condensing one project into a single page (competition board style)? i am at loss what format they require. if the former, is there a maximum number of pages they allow to be uploaded? thanks..
Nov 23, 11 1:41 am
Hey
:)
Am doing my bachelor's in Architecture from Faculty Of Architecture, GBTU, Lucknow . I have my internship program in the course in this coming year and I am looking forward to working with firms in Singapore in particular. Unfortunately am not aware of how I can go about landing an internship there with a firm.
I want to request you if possible, if you happen to be aware of any such opportunities or else if u could guide me in any manner to go about this, I would be very grateful.
and plus would be incase i'd come to know what they pay there to interns
Many thanks
Yogendra S. Yadav
@morgan
yes, i will submit a soft copy (they also allow hard-copy submissions if you'd prefer to print). i have a print version for some schools which is standard double-sided booklet format, and a separate format for digital submissions like Pratt that are set up as single page spreads. this is not to say that i fit an entire project on a single page, but i have things arranged so that the person need not have to be looking at two pages as in a book in order for it to make sense. unfortunately i do not know if they have restrictions on dimensions or number of pages. usually schools will be sure to mention so if they do, so i would imagine that pratt is a bit flexible. keep in mind that they will probably be looking at it on a standard computer screen, so it'd probably make sense to format your pages to a similar proportion for them to review more easily and not too large so that your text and images are indecipherable when the page is fit-to-screen.
so, you may not need to re-format your work if you don't mind them viewing a single page at a time. another approach, which i am doing just at Berkeley, is making my sheet size 8.5"x22"--in other words, combining two pages into one. i am doing this mainly because they have a 12 page limit (they suggested i do it that way when i called since i have about 24 standard sized pages). this is convenient for me because it doesn't require much re-formatting from my print version, so that could be another option for you if Pratt allows such a size. i suggest you email this guy... russell tyler (rtyler@pratt.edu) with any specific questions. he is the graduate admissions counselor and was surprisingly prompt in his response when i emailed him before regarding another issue, or give them a call, though they never seemed to answer the phone when i had tried.
sorry, i wrote a lot but probably didn't answer you question. :/
@ jason
thanks, that was a very helpful response. it made perfect sense.
yes, now i'm thinking of doing a 8.5x22/ combining 2 pages into a single uploaded image. i will email rtyler to check with him whether they're generally OK with that..
one other thing, i was thinking of also uploading the cover & back page, index page, resume page, etc. on slideroom, much like how i would format my printed portfolio. do you think that's a good idea? or do people normally just upload content pages without any preamble.
i'm really new at this soft copy portfolio thing.
happy thanksgiving, and all the best to ya
@morgan
yeah, let me know what they say. i had reservations about using that size because it seemed too long, but actually looked ok (at least in acrobat) when i made a test pdf of some pages. even 10pt font was still legible, although looked a bit small on my 15in. monitor.
regarding your other questions, i think that is really up to you. if you think it enhances your portfolio and helps tie everything together, go for it. if it's just filler, then it's probably not necessary. i am also new to the soft copy thing, and while i love not having to deal with the print shop, binding, and mailing, it is a bit confusing to know what protocol to follow. truth be told, i have not even looked at the slider room website yet even though 3 of my schools are using it (i'd better do do that soon). it seems like many schools are also new to it, and transitioning away from the traditional print format, so there is not much in the way of specific guidelines.
me personally, i think i will include a front and back cover, and upload my resume separately. like i say though, do what works best for you. i don't think there's any correct way to go about it, and often times it's the ones that do something different or out of place from everyone else that makes them stand out and get accepted (very un-singaporean concept). seems like we hijacked this thread, so feel free to email me if you find out any more info, have other questions, or just want someone to sympathize with ...jasonp881@yahoo.com
cheers
Can anyone please tell me roughly what is the salary range for a master degree student with 3 years working experience? Thank you.
nice thread, thanks for sharing this,,
exchange rate
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