Russian travelers who moved to Vietnam conducted an unusual experiment to find out what is more profitable: to eat in a cafe or cook in a rented apartment. Their goal is to estimate the cost of food and accommodation. Over time, they shared their expenses on the Zen blog.
The couple lives in a studio overlooking the sea in the resort town of Nha Trang, which costs 28,000 rubles a month. However, when the utility bill arrived, they were upset: the price of electricity rose to 13.8 rubles per kilowatt in May, compared to the previous 10.4 rubles. Thus, the bill for the studio was 7,200 rubles, and the Internet cost them 690 rubles. Compared to Moscow, where they used to live and pay from 4,500 to 5,000 rubles for a one-room apartment, the cost of rent and utilities in Vietnam turned out to be higher. “Now, even in Vietnam, the authorities have officially announced that the country has reached a peak in electricity consumption and is convincingly asking to save it. Perhaps the price increase is related to this fact,” she suggested.
Another obligatory expense for long-term tourists is visaran — every month they spend 8,300 rubles and a little more on e-visas. In addition, their monthly expenses included spending on household needs, buying clothes, feeding a cat, etc. This month, the total amount for this item was 20,910 rubles.
In terms of eating out, the pair ate in middle-class establishments under the terms of the experiment. Eateries and restaurants with high prices, they ruled out immediately. As a result, in a month they spent 61,500 rubles on food, given that most often they ate not three, but only two times a day. Sometimes they ordered food delivery, which cost a little more, but it was convenient for them, because it was not always possible to leave the apartment for a long time due to work. Their diet was varied, but not particularly healthy, they concluded. “So, this format of nutrition for me lost on all fronts,” the authors reported in their channel. In total, in a month they laid out 126,600 rubles from their pockets.
At the same time, their previous experiment, according to which they cooked exclusively at home from the end of March to the end of April in the same place, in Nha Trang, showed that the cost of self-sufficiency cooking was only 28'600 rubles. This is 2.15 times less than when they ate in local cafes. At the same time, the costs of housing and communal services when cooking on an electric stove, washing dishes and turning on the air conditioner then amounted to 6,350 rubles. For comparison: for the month preceding the experiment, they paid 4,200 rubles when they combined meals in a cafe and at home.
Thus, the experiment of domestic travelers in Vietnam showed that cooking at home is an option that allows you to significantly save family budget.
For those who care about a healthy lifestyle, we recommend reading: “Doctors named 9 “healthy” habits that can do more harm than good.”