life in vietnam

Cost-of-Living in Vietnam: It's Really Cheap

Submitted by tomo on October 4, 2010 - 3:26am

UPDATE April 29, 2012! If you have a question about moving to Vietnam, working in Vietnam, or otherwise related to being a Vietnamese expat, please write your question on the forum instead.

UPDATE July 17, 2012! Follow-up article Finding affordable housing in Vietnam - How much should it cost? has been posted
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So there's been a lot of chatter in the Saigon twitter community lately about the average income of Ho Chi Minh City and whether $600/month can get you a decent middle-class lifestyle here.

This is what it costs to live in Saigon, Vietnam's (and all of French Indochina's) largest, busiest city and commercial center:

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About the author

Asian-American expat living in Vietnam over 3 years. I am involved in tech startups and do Drupal consulting. I choose to live in Saigon and Vietnam and I want to see the city and its people reach their true potential.

Where is Saigon?

It's not wrong to wonder where in the world Saigon is.

Saigon is the name of the city now officially known as Ho Chi Minh City. But most people who call Saigon home call their home Saigon and it's mostly tourists who I hear refer to it as Ho Chi Minh City (or Ho Chi Minh Ville for the French).

After the Vietnam/American War ended in 1975, many place names ceased to exist such as Saigon, South Vietnam, and plenty of street names.

Tu Do is now Dong Khoi, Thong Nhat is Le Duan. And Tan Son Nhut Airport is now Tan Son Nhat International Airport. Rue Paul Blanchy has been Hai Ba Trung since the 1950s.

Those who haven't seen Vietnam for decades will be confused not just by the geographical changes but the incredible amount of development and modernization that has since taken place.

Latest Technical Posts

I also post a lot of technical material unrelated to Vietnam that doesn't hit the home page. Starting from November 2015 I am only posting technical articles on my new sub-blog: TECH.saigonist.com

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  • My Startup Experiences : I've been involved in start ups for over a decade now. During that time I've worked for companies in varying stage of development. Not all of them were startups. But how can you tell if it is or not...
  • Code Retreat 2012 - Ho Chi Minh City : $(document).ready(function(){ $('.geshifilter').hover(function(){console.log(this);console.log($(this));$(this).css('position', 'relative').css('width', '800px').css('z-index', 1000);}, function...
  • Internet Censorship in Southeast Asian Countries (Myanmar, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam) : Vietnam has been labeled an "enemy of the Internet" by Reporters Without Borders. There have been a lot of cases of bloggers being targeted, harrassed, and arrested. But RSF (Reporters Sans...
  • Using 3G Internet in Cambodia : On my most recent trip to Cambodia I bought a Cambodian SIM card so that I could both make calls and use the Internet on my smartphone. At the Moc Bai/Bavet border are a number of Khmer people (who...
  • MailChimp vs poMMo, Mailman, Phplist - Self-Host or Outsource Your Mailing List? : Use your own mail server or outsource it? Let's say you have a rather large mailing list of a few thousand email addresses and, well, sending it out with GMail is no longer cutting it. What are your...
  • Internet in Vietnam - Good, Bad, Ugly : If you ask Vietnamese officials, you'll hear such hyperbole as "the Internet service development in Vietnam is in no way inferior to developed countries in the world" (Mai Liem Truc, former Deputy...
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