Let&#x27;s just run through this see what we can quickly glean.<p>The meals may be cheaper. What&#x27;s that constitute a meal, though? Here, I can get a footlong sub and side items for $8-10. A restaurant meal, with tip, is going to be $10-15 per seat if it&#x27;s an inexpensive one with one plate and a drink. What&#x27;s the $2-3 USD you claimed get you?<p>For taxes, I try to stay in states with no state tax. So, it&#x27;s just federal. We get various types of deducations that should be considered. I&#x27;m ignoring that to simplify to worst case. So, $75,000 is $5,156.25 + 25% of amount over $37,450. That&#x27;s $14543.75 of tax. That leaves $60,456.25 of disposable income in an area with cost of living of $15,600 which leaves me with $44,856.25.<p>Note: Wait, are you paying $1,300 for <i>your part</i> of rent or is that the whole rent? If we&#x27;re halving it for a roommate, I can drop a few hundred off mine to add a few thousand a year. That&#x27;s still around $50,000&#x2F;yr so not huge difference.<p>&quot;This doesn&#x27;t include singapore&#x27;s common &quot;13th month&quot; salary which is often an extra month of salary as bonus, usually to cover the cost of taxes as tax is not withheld here like it is in Australia &#x2F; NZ.&quot;<p>We do withholding here, too. Many withhold extra to cover for overtime as the IRS will come after our ass if we don&#x27;t have the difference. People like the check they get during tax season, though. So, similar in practice to the bonus but with some differences.<p>&quot;Also not a good idea if you&#x27;re American to move to Singapore to work, since you get double taxed. Even all forms here in Singapore ask if you&#x27;re American Tax Citizen.&quot;<p>That last part is due to all the tax avoidance and U.S. cracking down on it. We can&#x27;t even open a bank account in some places like Switzerland. Plus, if we renounce citizenship over taxes, they claim taxes on 10 years of our income in the new country as punishment. Taxes are not among America&#x27;s strong suit unless you&#x27;re rich enough to avoid them with loopholes designed for the rich. :)