Possible to spend 2000 rmb per month on expenses?

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  • #12625
    Avatar photoBen
    Moderator

    I think having a balanced diet on a budget is difficult in any country. Just look at the US/UK where people on very low incomes resort to eating junk food.

    You can have a balanced diet just as easily in China as anywhere. Fruit, veg, eggs and meat are all available at similar or cheaper prices to the west. The real issue, as tigerkuma pointed out, is the quality of the goods. It seems that every month there is a new scandal about food being tainted with some poisonous chemical, or some unscrupulous farm or factory owners mislabelling them.

    @tigerkuma – I completely disagree with your friend on the bottled water. While boiling tap water will kill the bacteria. It won’t get rid of any chemicals inside it. You might have noticed from the smell occasionally when showering that China adds A LOT of chlorine to the water.

    #12627
    Avatar photoElias
    Participant

    nutrition poll: The everlasting question 炒饭 or 炒面 ?

    assuming portions and ingredients are roughly the same

    #12628
    Avatar photoCharlie
    Keymaster

    Ben raises a good point about the tap water. It doesn’t seem like drinking that under any circumstances is a good idea. Life in China!

    #12634
    Avatar photoRay
    Participant

    @ben

    Check out chinahopelive.net: “31 brands of bottled water fail safety tests in Beijing”. Dude, the brands are the same ones they sell here! Absolutely never had any trouble with boiled water. Boiling water, even until the boiling point not even the 3 minutes previoulsy recommended kills 99% of harmful substances. Dude, you buy tea on the street in varanasi, the source of the water is the Ganges, possibly the most contaminated stretch of water on the planet. its boiled amd there are no problems. In Australia, Choice magazine has done numerous exposes on the bottled water industry and consistently advises its readers to stick with tap or boiled water. Anyway, each to his own…This is a great forum!

    #12636
    Avatar photoElias
    Participant

    面汤 noodle water is my drink of choice !

    #12637
    Avatar photoRay
    Participant

    sorry, more grim news (soembody tell tigerkuma to fuck off!). its not as simple as eating fruits and vegies, eggs and meat. One serious drawback of Chinese fruits and vegies are the low levels of selenium, which has been linked to cancer prevention and general well-being. its nothing insidious or pollution -related (large areas of the US are also selenium deficient). Large parts of China just drew the short straw and are low in selenium. It can also be found in fish and tuna and meat that has been fed from selenium -enriched grains (needless to say, that’s not the case here in China). As I mentioned in an earlier post, i aint no expert, just had my coat pulled recently. A nutritionist buddy suggested if i take nothing else in China, i should at least take some fish oil supps (found a reliable source) to compensate for the lack of selenium here. For you lifters, its also been shown to be beneficial for muscle growth. And no, i don’t work in this field, and i will not try to sell you any.

    #12638
    Avatar photoBen
    Moderator

    @tigerkuma – Boiling for 3 minutes will not remove all the chlorine in the water, maybe if you did it for 20. Chlorine has been linked to bladder cancer. I, like you, used to drink boiled water until I started having problems with kidney stones. I’ve since switched to bottled water and haven’t had a problem since.

    I really don’t think you can apply what Choice magazine says about Aussie tap water to China.

    But like you said, each to his own. My preference right now is blue sword glacial mineral water.

    #12639
    Avatar photoBen
    Moderator

    @tigerkuma – You contradict yourself on the selenium problem,

    “its not as simple as eating fruits and vegies, eggs and meat”…

    “It can also be found in fish and tuna”

    Isn’t fish a meat? 😉

    #12640
    Avatar photoSascha
    Participant

    when i first got here i was paid 2000 rmb a month, after 6 months i had 8k saved up.

    that dont work anymore, but i bet i could live on 3000 a month and be fine, even healthy.

    #12642
    Avatar photoElias
    Participant

    ok ben and tigerkuma why dont you guys have an arm wrestling match already!

    growing up in new england i really miss fresh fish, mmm grilled salmon homegrown asparagus sam adams boston lager!

    so to shift the convo back to chinese nutrition, anyone have any recommendations on readily available healthy sichuan food for people on a budget?

    dou hua…. kong xin cai?

    again i ask 炒饭 or 炒面? not like any of its all that great, but if you were to select dishes on a typical sichuan menu, what would you pick and why?

    @ben I’m a big fan of blue sword products, i’m really friendly with the workers at the local hu hui supermarket (i boycott hongqi and wowo) i like the underdogs and they keep 528 “blue sword” beer in the fridge and blue sword water in the freezer for me.

    #12645
    Avatar photoJerryS
    Participant

    Noted: bring a year supply of Omega 3-6-9!

    I always was an advocate of Omega’s. Sux its essentially 30usd per 3 months. It can be highly inflated over in China.

    Wonder if its a possibility to open a supplement shop there.

    Thanx for the bottle water info! Stuff like these are very key and important!

    #12649
    Avatar photoCharlie
    Keymaster

    There’s one supplement shop run by a foreigner in Shenzhen that someone pointed out in another thread: Fueled.cn.com. I don’t think there are many others like this – I bought some supplements on Taobao a while ago and the vendor had to have the items shipped from the US after I made the order and paid.

    #12651
    Avatar photoRay
    Participant

    @ Ben:

    you got me dude. Fish is a meat. My whole argument just crumbled. But let me ask YOU: what’s a tomato? Ponder the ramifications of that one, my friend…..

    #12652
    Avatar photoBen
    Moderator

    @tigerkuma: Just joking. I didn’t know about the selenium issue in fruit & veg here. I love sashimi, so I guess I have a great excuse to eat more of it now 🙂

    I’d have to say that a tomato is a confused fruit!

    #12666
    Avatar photoBrendan
    Moderator

    Nice to see a forum bitch fight has been averted!!

    You can still cover your nutritional bases well on a rounded diet here. Selenium can be sourced from good cuts of meat and fish, as well as nuts and other legumes. The question of nutritional integrity of all foods will always be a factor here, eggs included, so making some effort to find reliable sources of everything will pay dividends.

    As for water, many newer apartment complexes have in built water filters at the main. Being that we’re talking about China, you have to naturally question the efficiency of such a device. I live in a newly completed complex myself, and regularly drink the water from the tap, but never without first passing it through a charcoal filter. This goes a long way to removing any unwanted elements in the water, including chlorine, though you have to make sure you’re replacing the filter regularly on par with usage.

    On oils… I would be hesitant to buy fish oils here for obvious reasons, let alone the irrational pricing. I’ve stated this previously, but Rice Bran Oil will go a long long way to filling you requirement if you take it by the spoonful 2-3+ times a day. This, and a diet inclusive of fish and nuts will easily suffice. Another great source is coconut oil, which I personally take from cartons of coconut milk. I refrigerate the milk, which causes the oil to rise and solidify. I then take the block of oil out of the carton and store it in a container in the refrigerator, ready for use as a cooking oil (high smoke point), or as a supplement taken by the spoonful.

    I would love to find an organic produce co-op in Chengdu. I recall an article in go-chengdoo some time ago on this.

    #12677
    Avatar photoCress
    Member

    Drinking at CC club will save you loads of money. They actually pay westerners 4000rmb/month to drink there for free.

    #12678
    Avatar photoCress
    Member

    Also. you can almost buy everything on Taobao. I found Verners on Taobao and the actual shop is in Chengdu.

    #12679
    Avatar photoCress
    Member

    For food. If you hate cooking you can go to those “groupbuy” websites.

    Popular in China now, save lots of money when you eat in the restaurants.

    #12686
    Avatar photoBrendan
    Moderator

    @ hqqcress: Someone wants to pay me to drink in their club?! Please tell me more! PM me if you like.

    I’ve also had a few eats using the online coupons, and some of the meals have been awesome. I had a meal for two at Wanda Plaza last week for 80RMB, and for the money it was awesome. It even came with an espresso!

    #12691
    Avatar photoCharlie
    Keymaster

    @hqqcress, what are some trustworthy groupbuy sites in China? I’ve heard of this but haven’t tried it myself.

    @hzwerks, you’ll either drink for free in clubs here or will pay out the nose, there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. Most clubs like CC pay people to hang out in their club. Generally it’s Chinese girls – called “Bees” in Chinese, who are paid to sit around and look available – and sometimes foreigners who lend the place “caucasian points”. It’s ridiculous but as a novelty it’s fun for a while.

    One thing to keep in mind though is that most of the top clubs are serving fake alcohol. Expensive bottles like Black Label and Cognac etc are fake. Customers are happy to overpay for fake alcohol though because they’re either very stupid or don’t care. It’s funny, rich dudes will drive a Lamborghini to the club and park it in front and then go inside and pay thousands of yuan to drink fake name-brand alcohol. And they do it every weekend and business continues to thrive.

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