California Diary: Who says America is Expensive?

Contrary to popular belief I found America to be more cost-effective as compared to few cities in India (Mubai, Pune, Delhi, and Bangalore, to be specific). Take for example my hotel room. I had a studio apartment that had a rent of US$50 per night. The self-contained room had a small kitchenette with some utensils and amenities like electric stove, toaster, coffeemaker, microwave, fridge, TV, Lazy Chair.

 

Typically I would do my laundry once in 4 to 5 days. The laundry cost was US$ 4 per laundry ($2 for washer and $2 for dryer.) Compare this with Rs. 20 to Rs. 30 you pay per piece in India for laundry. Parking for my car was free. I would get coffee packets every day. Overall, it was an extremely clean, comfortable, and decent (non-smoking) room. The hotel has a swimming pool (which I never used.) Even the bath had a bathtub. I wonder why budget hotels in India do not arrange for washers on dryers on the same basis. The room was less than 200 sq feet. That should not be an issue I guess. Many hotels in US serve continental breakfast also. Their rents would be $60 plus.   

 

Gas (Petrol) was obviously cheaper than India. Cabs were very, very expensive. Renting your own car was the only option and if you had a GPS device you could easily do that (after getting a bit of hang of the traffic guidelines.)

 

Before going to US I went to buy Jean pan for myself and realized that the ones that I liked started at Rs. 1500/-. All of them would have needed a bit of alteration (though this was not an additional cost). On the very day of reaching USA I bought 4 Jean pants, the average price US$15 per piece. This was almost half the price I would have paid in India.

 

Many grocery items were much more affordable. If I bought ready-to-cook packets of food for lunch/dinner with standard combination of Cereals, juice, and milk for breakfast, my entire week's food cost would not be more than US$40 or US$50. Even if I went out for food, a standard meal in places like Subway would be around US$6 per meal. Going to places like Taco Bell would be a bit more reasonable. You could have good decent meal at under $5 per meal.

 

A set of 12 small beer cans would be less than $8 per set. It would be cheaper if you bought in bulk (sets of 36 cans was also available.) Similarly mineral water bottles were available in sets and water was even available in gallons.

Starbucks Coffee was fairly expensive at $3 per medium size cup. But then one does not need to have it everyday. In fact, I avoided having it later unless I had some company who would insist on it.

 

If you went to a fairly decent bar you could get a cocktail drink and draft beer at $7. Of course you could also go to the higher end of the spectrum where it could be in excess of $20 per drink. But almost nobody did that. If you went for dinner to fine dining restaurant you would end up paying $3 per drink like Coke or Iced Tea. These drinks would be "bottom-less" - meaning you could get any number of refills and you would be served as soon as you finish the earlier glass. Free refills were also available in places like Subway where you could fill up your drink any number of times till you are in the hotel (I do not remember having refilled it more than once, that too, half a glass only.) You would get very good quality California wine starting $15 onwards. You would have some if having dinner with special guests or business contacts. Most dinner dishes would come with a bowl of rice and portions would be huge. I found it difficult to eat all that I would get in my dish so typically we would share.

 

Even in good restaurants it was common practice to take home the remaining food portions. You would be served boxes or containers and you should not feel odd to fill it yourself or then they would do it for you.

In good restaurants and bars a tip (gratuity) of 15 to 20% would be assumed. Unless you get really bad service, this much tip is mandatory.

 

Malls would be packed with crowd on weekends. Not much of crowd on other days though, the business kept happening. A bowling game would cost about $10 on a weekday and double of that on a weekend. The catch was, you even have to rent the special bowling shoes for playing the game. These would easily be $5 per hour per person.

 

I found Nike's own showroom selling Nike shoes at almost 30% discount than market rate. Shoes were as expensive as they can get, but I even saw good pair of shoes for US50. I doubt if we would get the same pair of shoes in India for anything less than Rs. 4,000/-

Movie theaters were very expensive. Movie tickets could cut your wallet by $12 to $15 easily. Cabs were too expensive, tips to drivers are mandatory, and you would end up waiting for quite some time. I did not use the public transport at all. But my past experience of using it in Bay Area has not been good. There are too few buses and that too after a long gap. Anyone who values time should rent own car.

 

Renting cars at airports is expensive. But if you are a preferred customer, or if you do bookings on the Internet, you can get better "deals." They told me that my Indian driving license is good enough to drive in California as I was on a business visa. To be on safe side I even had international Driving Permit (IDP.) Though, these rules can change by states. If you are renting a car, getting insurance is mandatory. Depending on the time period and type the insurance amount also can vary a lot!