33 Cities With Lowest Cost of Living in 2023

Published on May 4, 2023 at 7:43 am by Ramish Cheema in Business, Lists, News

In this piece, we will take a look at the 33 cities with the lowest cost of living in 2023. For more cities, head on over to 5 Cities With Lowest Cost of Living in 2023.

The cost of living has been the hottest topic globally for more than a year now. As 2023 starts to settle in, multiple macroeconomic shocks to the global economy are now starting to recede, but have dealt their impact to most people in wealthy and developing countries alike.

The pandemic necessitated global lockdowns that ferried populations indoors and shut down factories, hotels, and other business facilities. This naturally ended up reducing economic output, and to navigate some of the aftershocks, central banks reduced interest rates and started stimulus spending. This injected cash into the economies and staved off some shocks, but right as the inflationary effects (more cash = more spending = price hikes) were starting to be felt, the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. This upended the global commodities and energy markets and the result was historic inflation that shocked governments and the everyday consumer in nearly every country.

On the inflationary front, estimates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have some promising news. The Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook issued in April 2023 shows that inflation will fall this year. The IMF believes that while global inflation stood at 8.7% last year, it will come down to 7% by the end of this year. This drop will be fueled by a reduction in commodities prices, but the impact of high energy and other costs on ‘core’ inflation – i.e. all prices except the volatile food and energy costs, will remain stickier. It is also important to note that the Fund’s 7% estimate for 2023 is higher than the estimate for this year that it had provided in January. The previous estimate had expected inflation to sit at 6.6%, and the latest figures show that high prices will remain a pressing problem in the near future.

Inflation is not only a pressing concern for consumers but also for economists. A Reuters survey of 268 economists, the results of which were published in late April 2023, showed that more than three quarters of those polled worried that the inflation for this year could end up being higher than their estimates. Additionally, most of the economists polled believe that inflation is the biggest threat to the global economy this year, with risks to the financial system due to higher interest rates coming in second place.

In its attempt to reign in inflation, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been on an interest rate hiking spree since last year, which has had the added effect of contributing to inflation in other countries. As the Fed increases interest rates and other central banks fail to match its pace, funds flow into the U.S. to take advantage of the higher returns. This leads to the U.S. dollar gaining strength, and since global oil is priced in dollars, this contributed to rising gas prices in other countries and accusations of the U.S. ‘exporting its inflation‘ to the world.

Speaking of which, the Federal Reserve’s Monetary Policy Committee held its latest meeting in May 2023, where it decided to raise interest rates by another 25 basis points (0.25%). The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, addressed reporters after the meeting, and while he did not explicitly state that his organization had decided to pause hiking rates, he nevertheless did outline that from now on, the Fed will look at real time data from the U.S. economy to decide whether more interest rate hikes are warranted.

Providing a brief overview of the inflationary situation in the U.S., Mr. Powell stated:

Inflation remains well above our longer-run goal of 2 percent. Over the 12 months ending in March, total PCE prices rose 4.2 percent; excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core PCE prices rose 4.6 percent. Inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year. Nonetheless, inflation pressures continue to run high and the process of getting inflation back down to 2 percent has a long way to go. Despite elevated inflation, longer-term inflation expectations appear to remain well anchored, as reflected in a broad range of surveys of households, businesses, and forecasters, as well as measures from financial markets.

With these details in mind, let’s take a look at the cities with the lowest cost of living in the world in 2023.

Our Methodology

To compile our list of the cities with the lowest cost of living, we first used the cost of living indexes from Numbeo and Expatistan. Then, we chose the 100 cheapest cities to live in based on the Expatistan index and the 200 cheapest cities to live based on the Numbeo index. To create our own cost of living index, we took the cost of living scores from both of these datasets and averaged them out. There were a total of 42 cities common to both, and out of these, the top 33 are listed as part of our list of the cities with the lowest cost of living.

Cities With Lowest Cost of Living in 2023

33. Bucharest, Romania

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 57.6

Bucharest is the capital of, and the largest city in, Romania. It is a hub for the Romanian economy and accounts for a large portion of the country’s GDP.

32. Guadalajara, Mexico

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 57.2

Guadalajara is one of the most populous cities in Mexico, with more than a million people living in its boundaries.

31. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 57.1

Rio de Janeiro is the second largest city in Brazil in terms of population. It also has one of the largest economies in the country.

30. Florianópolis, Brazil

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 56.15

Florianópolis is one of the most developed cities in Brazil in terms of human development.

29. Quito, Ecuador

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 56

Quito is the capital city of Ecuador, which also makes it a political hub in the country. It is also home to the country’s largest oil company, Petroecuador.

28. Istanbul, Turkey

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 53.8

Istanbul is one of the largest cities in the world and a global metropolis with a population of more than ten million people.

27. Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 55.3

Santiago de Querétaro is a growing economic hub in Mexico that houses a large number of multinational companies.

26. São José dos Campos, Brazil

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 55.25

São José dos Campos is one of the largest cities in Brazil in terms of population. It is a hub for aerospace research in the country.

25. Curitiba, Brazil

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 55.15

Curitiba is one of the largest cities in Brazil in terms of population, with close to two million people living in it.

24. Cape Town, South Africa

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 54.6

Cape Town is the capital city of South Africa and the second largest city in the country. It is an economic hub in the country, fueled by the information technology industry.

23. Porto Alegre, Brazil

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 54.55

Porto Alegre is one of Brazil’s largest cities counting more than a million people as its population.

22. Johannesburg, South Africa

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 54.25

Johannesburg is a South African megacity that is also responsible for a large portion of the country’s economic output.

21. Santiago de Guayaquil

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 54.1

Santiago de Guayaquil is an Ecuadorian port city responsible for handling most of the country’s international trade.

20. Suva, Fiji

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 54.1

Suva is the capital of Fiji and an important port city in the country.

19. Pretoria, South Africa

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 53.35

Pretoria is the capital of South Africa and houses the highest number of universities in the country.

18. Manila, Philippines

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 52.45

Manila is the capital of the Philippines and one of the most densely populated regions in the world.

17. Lima, Peru

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 52.4

Lima is a financial and economic hub in Latin America and the capital of Peru.

16. Chengdu, China

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 51.45

Chengdu houses more than twenty million people and is a logistics hub in its area.

15. Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 50.85

Kuala Lumpur is the largest city in Malaysia in terms of area and one of the fastest growing in Asia.

14. Jakarta, Indonesia

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 50.55

Jakarta is the capital and the largest city in Indonesia. It is also an economic hub in the country.

13. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 49.1

Ho Chi Minh City is one of the largest cities in the world with a population of almost ten million people.

12. Nairobi, Kenya

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 47.8

Nairobi is the capital of Kenya and a financial hub in the country.

11. Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 47.2

Plovdiv is a Bulgarian city which is one of the smaller ones on our list with a population of just over three hundred thousand people.

10. La Paz, Bolivia

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 47.05

La Paz is a hub for the manufacturing industry in Bolivia and the seat of government in its country.

9. Iași, Romania

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 45.30

Iași is a cultural and historical hub in Romania.

8. Burgas, Bulgaria

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 45.20

Burgas houses little over two hundred thousand people and is an industrial hub in Bulgaria.

7. Bandung, Indonesia

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 42.7

Bandung houses more than two million people and is known for its concentration of creative small businesses.

6. Bogotá, Colombia

Insider Monkey’s Cost of Living Score: 40.25

Bogotá is the capital of Colombia and a tourism center in the region.

Click to continue reading and see 5 Cities With Lowest Cost of Living in 2023.

AI, Tariffs, Nuclear Power: One Undervalued Stock Connects ALL the Dots (Before It Explodes!)

Published on June 23, 2025 at by Inan Dogan, PhD

Artificial intelligence is the greatest investment opportunity of our lifetime. The time to invest in groundbreaking AI is now, and this stock is a steal!

AI is eating the world—and the machines behind it are ravenous.

Each ChatGPT query, each model update, each robotic breakthrough consumes massive amounts of energy. In fact, AI is already pushing global power grids to the brink.

Wall Street is pouring hundreds of billions into artificial intelligence—training smarter chatbots, automating industries, and building the digital future. But there’s one urgent question few are asking:

Where will all of that energy come from?

AI is the most electricity-hungry technology ever invented. Each data center powering large language models like ChatGPT consumes as much energy as a small city. And it’s about to get worse.

Even Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, issued a stark warning:

“The future of AI depends on an energy breakthrough.”

Elon Musk was even more blunt:

“AI will run out of electricity by next year.”

As the world chases faster, smarter machines, a hidden crisis is emerging behind the scenes. Power grids are strained. Electricity prices are rising. Utilities are scrambling to expand capacity.

And that’s where the real opportunity lies…

One little-known company—almost entirely overlooked by most AI investors—could be the ultimate backdoor play. It’s not a chipmaker. It’s not a cloud platform. But it might be the most important AI stock in the US owns critical energy infrastructure assets positioned to feed the coming AI energy spike.

As demand from AI data centers explodes, this company is gearing up to profit from the most valuable commodity in the digital age: electricity.

The “Toll Booth” Operator of the AI Energy Boom

It owns critical nuclear energy infrastructure assets, positioning it at the heart of America’s next-generation power strategy.
It’s one of the only global companies capable of executing large-scale, complex EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) projects across oil, gas, renewable fuels, and industrial infrastructure.
It plays a pivotal role in U.S. LNG exportation—a sector about to explode under President Trump’s renewed “America First” energy doctrine.

Trump has made it clear: Europe and U.S. allies must buy American LNG.

And our company sits in the toll booth—collecting fees on every drop exported.

But that’s not all…

As Trump’s proposed tariffs push American manufacturers to bring their operations back home, this company will be first in line to rebuild, retrofit, and reengineer those facilities.

AI. Energy. Tariffs. Onshoring. This One Company Ties It All Together.

While the world is distracted by flashy AI tickers, a few smart investors are quietly scooping up shares of the one company powering it all from behind the scenes.

AI needs energy. Energy needs infrastructure.

And infrastructure needs a builder with experience, scale, and execution.

This company has its finger in every pie—and Wall Street is just starting to notice.

Wall Street is noticing this company also because it is quietly riding all of these tailwinds—without the sky-high valuation.

While most energy and utility firms are buried under mountains of debt and coughing up hefty interest payments just to appease bondholders…

This company is completely debt-free.

In fact, it’s sitting on a war chest of cash—equal to nearly one-third of its entire market cap.

It also owns a huge equity stake in another red-hot AI play, giving investors indirect exposure to multiple AI growth engines without paying a premium.

And here’s what the smart money has started whispering…

The Hedge Fund Secret That’s Starting to Leak Out

This stock is so off-the-radar, so absurdly undervalued, that some of the most secretive hedge fund managers in the world have begun pitching it at closed-door investment summits.

They’re sharing it quietly, away from the cameras, to rooms full of ultra-wealthy clients.

Why? Because excluding cash and investments, this company is trading at less than 7 times earnings.

And that’s for a business tied to:

The AI infrastructure supercycle
The onshoring boom driven by Trump-era tariffs
A surge in U.S. LNG exports
And a unique footprint in nuclear energy—the future of clean, reliable power

You simply won’t find another AI and energy stock this cheap… with this much upside.

This isn’t a hype stock. It’s not riding on hope.

It’s delivering real cash flows, owns critical infrastructure, and holds stakes in other major growth stories.

This is your chance to get in before the rockets take off!

Disruption is the New Name of the Game: Let’s face it, complacency breeds stagnation.

AI is the ultimate disruptor, and it’s shaking the foundations of traditional industries.

The companies that embrace AI will thrive, while the dinosaurs clinging to outdated methods will be left in the dust.

As an investor, you want to be on the side of the winners, and AI is the winning ticket.

The Talent Pool is Overflowing: The world’s brightest minds are flocking to AI.

From computer scientists to mathematicians, the next generation of innovators is pouring its energy into this field.

This influx of talent guarantees a constant stream of groundbreaking ideas and rapid advancements.

By investing in AI, you’re essentially backing the future.

The future is powered by artificial intelligence, and the time to invest is NOW.

Don’t be a spectator in this technological revolution.

Dive into the AI gold rush and watch your portfolio soar alongside the brightest minds of our generation.

This isn’t just about making money – it’s about being part of the future.

So, buckle up and get ready for the ride of your investment life!

Act Now and Unlock a Potential 100+% Return within 12 to 24 months.

We’re now offering month-to-month subscriptions with no commitments.

For a ridiculously low price of just $9.99 per month, you can unlock our in-depth investment research and exclusive insights – that’s less than a single fast food meal!

Here’s why this is a deal you can’t afford to pass up:

Access to our Detailed Report on our AI, Tariffs, and Nuclear Energy Stock with 100+% potential upside within 12 to 24 months
BONUS REPORT on our #1 AI-Robotics Stock with 10000% upside potential: Our in-depth report dives deep into our #1 AI/robotics stock’s groundbreaking technology and massive growth potential.
One New Issue of Our Premium Readership Newsletter: You will also receive one new issue per month and at least one new stock pick per month from our monthly newsletter’s portfolio over the next 12 months. These stocks are handpicked by our research director, Dr. Inan Dogan.
One free upcoming issue of our 70+ page Quarterly Newsletter: A value of $149
Bonus Content: Premium access to members-only fund manager video interviews
Ad-Free Browsing: Enjoy a month of investment research free from distracting banner and pop-up ads, allowing you to focus on uncovering the next big opportunity.
Lifetime Price Guarantee: Your renewal rate will always remain the same as long as your subscription is active.
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee: If you’re not absolutely satisfied with our service, we’ll provide a full refund within 30 days, no questions asked.

Space is Limited! Only 1000 spots are available for this exclusive offer. Don’t let this chance slip away – subscribe to our Premium Readership Newsletter today and unlock the potential for a life-changing investment.

Here’s what to do next:

1. Head over to our website and subscribe to our Premium Readership Newsletter for just $9.99.

2. Enjoy a month of ad-free browsing, exclusive access to our in-depth report on the Trump tariff and nuclear energy company as well as the revolutionary AI-robotics company, and the upcoming issues of our Premium Readership Newsletter.

3. Sit back, relax, and know that you’re backed by our ironclad 30-day money-back guarantee.

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity! Subscribe now and take control of your AI investment future!

Subscribe Now!

No worries about auto-renewals! Our 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee applies whether you’re joining us for the first time or renewing your subscription a month later!

Insider Monkey Ads

A New Dawn is Coming to U.S. Stocks

Published on June 13, 2025 at by Insider Monkey Staff

I work for one of the largest independent financial publishers in the world – representing over 1 million people in 148 countries.

We’re independently funding today’s broadcast to address something on the mind of every investor in America right now…

Should I put my money in Artificial Intelligence?

Here to answer that for us… and give away his No. 1 free AI recommendation… is 50-year Wall Street titan, Marc Chaikin.

Marc’s been a trader, stockbroker, and analyst. He was the head of the options department at a major brokerage firm and is a sought-after expert for CNBC, Fox Business, Barron’s, and Yahoo! Finance…

But what Marc’s most known for is his award-winning stock-rating system. Which determines whether a stock could shoot sky-high in the next three to six months… or come crashing down.

That’s why Marc’s work appears in every Bloomberg and Reuters terminal on the planet…

And is still used by hundreds of banks, hedge funds, and brokerages to track the billions of dollars flowing in and out of stocks each day.

He’s used this system to survive nine bear markets… create three new indices for the Nasdaq… and even predict the brutal bear market of 2022, 90 days in advance.

Click to continue reading…