I can see you are a newbie to China, you must be eating out in expensive Western restaurants and buying from western supermarkets. Payment problems is something you should have left behind you in the U S of A. Try and get used to Chinese food, it's cheap,nutritious and tasty. You should be able to support a wife with impunity and she should be nice and plump, owing to all the extra money you should have from living and working in China. Even if you are on the lower scale of foreign experts pay at 7000 RMB, you should not be sitting threadbare and hungry in your apartment counting off the days until pay day. I would suggest that if you do do a second year in China you do not pay your own apartment rent, that is for the newbie. All found is well found. Jesus loves you.

What on earth? I never eat in western restaurants, unless you consider muslim beef noodles and egg fried rice? Western food, well muslim beef noodles is western china food, so i suppose part of what you say is true,lol. Newbie? 7 years in, reasonably fluent in mandarin, and I do buy western stuff, but off taobao. Not from USania, but the old country itself, you should know where, dear chap?