Worlds Most Expensive City

Whilst checking into Facebook this morning before getting the iPad ready for some breakfast time reading (yep, still trying to get into Divergent), I saw that Singapore had been named the worlds most expensive city. Any news page that said this was circling all my friends 'shares':

"Singapore has topped 131 cities globally to become the world's most expensive city to live in 2014, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)." From the BBC

131? That's a lot. Apparently the survey was made up of 'cost of living' along with some other things. I always feel like we're really normal seeing as we aren't super rich expats in a penthouse apartment, however we are afforded many luxuries compared to others.  I complain about things like the cost of groceries when there are so many other people way worse off.

I remember trying to find out how expensive things were before we came here, groceries can be expensive when buying western from expat shops (like market place or even cold storage), housing is costly, as is a car. 

However I've found our phone line and tv package to be good value, as well as eating out in hawkers. I love grabbing hawker food while out in a mall, near HBDs or even in tourist traps. Hawker food is the best, yeah of course I want a burger or pizza occasionally, but Mark and I can stuff ourselves for $20 (or eat like regular people for $10 at a local place).  I love how good value transport is and although I'm from Scotland and we get A LOT for nothing, there are so many great parks to see for free.

I'm not saying that things aren't bad for locals, I know what I read and what I've heard. However expats coming here have nothing to worry about regarding the EIUs findings.