Uh, it’s really easy to spend 2k per month not including rent. That’s like 70 kuai per day. Inflation is pretty real in Chengdu (and all of China) and prices have been noticeably going up in the last few years. Especially food.
The price of hotpot really depends on where you go, but across the street from my house if we go to hotpot with like 4-6 people the bill will usually be 400+ yuan. You can go to cheaper places which might be like 25-50 yuan per person but hotpot isn’t the cheapest meal you can get.