I want to move to BA, Argentina - How much money do I need?

For an American who is used to living a decent lifestyle in New York City, how much money in USD do you suggest I start out with and what sort of income should I be generating to continue my comfortable lifestyle?

I bet you can live with U$S 2,000
You don't need Recoleta

Well, to generally live in BA, it is not the day to day expenses that are expensive (everything from clothing to maid services are extremely affordable). The most costly thing is real estate. Some of the best areas (Recoleta ect.) are very expensive and can be thousands of USD per month. Although you are from NY so crazy real estate is probably not a foriegn idea to you. Apart from housing, given that clothing is taken care of; eating out can cost anywhere from 15 pesos (cafe) to 45 pesos (nice resaurant) per meal. The train is under 1 peso. Trains are even less. It is impossible to generate an estimate of necesary funds (as that varies per person) but should you be conscious, I believe that is not difficult to maintain a very nice lifestyle for much less that it is in New York. Check out downtown in the (previously mentioned) Recoleta to find what it sounds like you are looking for. Hope this helps, BA is a wonderful city. Best wishes.

You need to remember a few things:

1) You can not rent an apartment without someone from Argentina who owns property guarantying it. there are short term availabilities and there may have been possibilities for unrented apartments without guranties during the crisis, but the economy has recovered substantially and this has become an issue again.

2) A comfortable lifestyle on an Argentina salary is VERY difficult. Argentinas earn less than 1/3rd what an American would in the same job. They work hard and long hours and most live in the suburbs in modest conditions. Walking around Palermo, Retiro or Recoleta will not give you a good impression of how most Argentines live. A substantial amount of people in those neighborhoods are legacy residents as opposed to people who earned their way there.

That said, taxes are a bit lower there than NY and prices, too, but I would say that a comfortable lifestyle in New York would equate to 15,000 pesos a month before tax, or about US$5,000. You won't be able to travel very much or save anything on that, though.

that is a very high salary in argentina and you would need to have a job before you get there, forget about looking for one like that as a foreigner when you arrive.

it would cost you from 490 to 1000 i know because I'm from there and my relatives always come to visit me and say about how much the trip was

Well I can tell you from my own experience. I spent a month in BA as a tourist, I lived in Recoleta in a furnished apartment for tourists (which is expensive relative to usual apartments), I was going out, traveling, having fun, eating in the best restaurants, and all this cost me around 2000 us$ (6000 pesos). I am sure that if you have 2500 or 3000 us$ per month, you could live very well (of course if you have a family with you things would change)

If you are from New York City. Please go into quarantine for 6 months to change your attitude. Then you should be ok after the attitude adjustment. If you are from NYC you will have enouth money for BA