I pay U$ 700 in rent+expenses and it's not uncommon in a "good" neighbourhood (I was paying close to U$ 1000 before, including very high apartment expenses, in one of the better neighbourhoods called Punta Carretas, think Palermo, before I had to downsize).
If you own your own home, living becomes much cheaper, but I don't :( and they're incredibly expensive right now (the housing bubble never burst here, though it has slowed down).
Food is more expensive here as well, but not as much as housing.
I pay U$ 700 for food and going out for 2 people (We do eat takeaway and go out a lot, so it's definitely not normal. But I get paid U$ 300 in meal vouchers which suck).
So I have U$ 400 for the rest (including gas, insurance, medicine, any extra expenses...), so I basically can't save (I could if I cut down on the eating and going out part).
"Real" salaries are higher I think, so it makes up for a bit of the difference between Uruguay and Argentina.
But still, I'll never be able to afford a house unless the housing bubble bursts or I start working abroad.
I'm including social security and healthcare in the "taxes" part (that's why I said take home pay could be 60%), I get deducted 17.5% of my nominal salary for social security, 20% for taxes, and 5% for healthcare. To make it worse, I actually get paid a part of the remainder in "meal vouchers" called Tickets Alimentación.
Rent in Argentina is crazy low in proportion to property pricing. As rent grows 20% year over year on contract, and inflation is higher, rent is lagging behind. I remember my absolute dollar value rent going down from 400U$S to 350U$S, in a 1 br 82m2-next to subway-first occupant appt.
Inflation really does a number on the economy.
And Im glad meal vouchers dissapeared in argentina, we had all sorts of them 8 years ago.
Regarding property prices in Uruguay, don't you have a reliable mortgage industry? Ours is ridiculously small, and inflation makes it risky and unreliable for both lenders and borrowers.
The cost of living in SF is crazy, 40k in Argentina , in terms of nominal value, after taxes are probably around 32k/y, 2600 net dollars per month. Rent of a 1 bedroom place in a decent neightborgood=> 400 U$S a month. Grocieries, living costs, going out,etc,say..250 U$S? Lets make you a party animal and big spender at 400 U$S a month for that.
So after takes and expenses, 40k a year in argentina yields you 1800U$S a month.
In san francisco, a 1br for yourself is 2k a month at least. Work often provides food, but if it doesnt, at 10 dollars a meal avg you get 10 x 30 x 2 = 600U$S in food alone. Restaurants, shows, going out, drinks, add 200 U$S a month, if you go out weekly.
That ends up being about 2800 U$S per month only on rent+food. To be able to nominally save 1800U$S a month, you have to make 4600U$S pre-tax, which at 28% taxes, ends up being about 70k annual income.
The point of this exercise is to measure the impact of cost of living on salary: it definitely makes a dent(you need 30k a year more in San Francisco for the cost of living difference). However, its very easy to make 100k+ in the bay area working for a startup (and more if you work for facebook or google), which means you will always make way more money working in a startup in the us,than any income bracket in uruguay.
(assumption: cost of living in Uruguay ~= Argentina)