I often see questions posted on forums about expat life like, "How much does it cost to live comfortably in the Philippines?" (Or whatever country, but here I'm concerned about the Philippines.) It's impossible to give a concrete answer to such a question, because, what is "comfortable"? One person might think that he is living a life of luxury because he gets to eat almost every day. Another person might think he is desperately poor because he can only afford one private jet. (Like, what's he supposed to do, travel in the same plane EVERY DAY?)
That said, I can give you some rough numbers. And probably more useful, I can tell you what I actually spend in various categories. I've read other people's recounting of their budgets and I'm in the same ballpark, so I think this information is worth something.
Oh, let's quickly discard the idea I've seen floated around, "In the Philippines you can live like a king for $1000 a month!" No, you can't. You can live on $1000 a month. But if you're a middle class person from the US or Europe or Australia, you probably would not like that life much at all. The average Filipino makes just $400 per month, so it is possible to survive on that. But that means living like the locals. It means having rice for every meal, with maybe a bit of fish. It means living in a dormitory and sharing a bathroom with your neighbors. Etc.
If you're frugal, you could probably live something resembling a middle-class Western life for $2,000 per month. $3,000 is probably more realistic. If you're frugal, maybe $1,500.
So, here's a summary of my typical expenses for the last few months. I'm going to round everything off because your numbers will be different from mine due to a host of factors, so calculating to the penny would just be pointless. I'll give numbers in pesos and US dollars. Just to keep the numbers round I'll assume P50 to $1. The actual exchange rate is up to more like P58 to $1, but for my ballpark numbers I usually use 50 because I can multiply and divide by 50 in my head. Multiplying and dividing by 58.69 in my head -- today's exchange rate as I write this -- well, I'm just not that good at arithmetic.
| Item | Pesos | Dollars | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | 23,000 | 460 | |
| Neiborhood fee | 600 | 12 | |
| Electricity | 5,000 | 100 | I run AC almost 24/7. You can save a lot if you don't use the AC. |
| Tap water | 250 | 5 | |
| Drinking water | 600 | 12 | You generally shouldn't drink tap water here. It's for washing, not drinking. |
| Internet | 1,500 | 30 | |
| Groceries | 20,000 | 400 | |
| Dining out | 15,000 | 300 | |
| Grab (taxis) | 8,000 | 160 | |
| Maid | 8,000 | 160 | |
| Medical insurance | 10,000 | 200 | I have FIlipino medical insurance. |
| Church & charity | 18,000 | 360 | We practice tithing. That's up to you. |
| Wife's family | 15,000 | 300 | If you marry a Filipina, expect to give money to her family. |
| Total | 126,000 | 2,520 | Rounding off to the nearest P1000, because it's meaningless to add "exactly P250" to "about P20,000 plus or minus a few thousand". |
You will likely have other miscellaneous expenses, depending on your lifestyle. Note I did not include anything for entertainment or travel, as those could vary widely.
Some notes:
We're renting a 3 BR, 2 CR townhouse in a gated community. I think we got a good deal on the rent but not a "jump up and down and scream" great deal. You could certainly spend less if you don't need that much room. Our neighborhood doesn't have much in the way of amenities -- we have a basketball court and a small playground for children. If you want a place with a swimming pool, a gym, etc, expect to pay more. Personally I don't care, so I wasn't willing to pay more for things we were unlikely to use.
In addition to the rent we have to pay P600 to the people who own the development. This mostly covers security and garbage collection twice a week.
Your electric bill depends a LOT on how much you run the air conditioning. The Philippines is hot. I have AC running almost 24/7. People who are more frugal will just run it on the hottest days, or only run it at night so its cool to sleep. It was particularly hot here last month so my electric bill went up to P6000. But one thing I do to help keep the electric bill down is this: In the Philippines, most homes don't have central air. We have one big unit for our downstairs, and then upstairs we have a smaller unit in each of the 3 bedrooms. So during the day we run the downstairs unit, and at night we shut it off and just run the unit in our bedroom. (There's rarely anyone in the other two bedrooms so we don't turn those on.) So we're not cooling the entire apartment all day.
The city claims that the tap water is drinkable, but most people who can afford it buy bottled water to drink. Tap water is just for washing. Bottled water isn't expensive, so I see no need to find out if the tap water hurts us.
We pay P1500 for Internet at 200 Mbps with unlimited bandwidth. This is plenty fast for us. Service has proven to be very reliable. We've had a few times it's been down for maybe an hour. Once it was down for a day.
The amount I give for "groceries" above includes everyting we buy at the grocery store. Not just food but also cleaning products, toothpaste, shampoo, etc. You can spend less if you buy from street vendors. My wife doesn't like to because she prefers the cleanliness of a grocery store. We occasionally buy from street vendors to get food that is fresher -- you can get it straight from the farmer or the fisherman.
We eat out about twice a week, and lately have been taking to getting food delivered maybe once a week. When we eat out we usually go to someplace at a mall, which tends to be more expensive than stand-alone restaurants. Probably foolish but it's convenient. We rarely go to expensive, fancy restaurants.
If we had to cut expenses, food would be the easiest place to cut -- we spend more on food than necessary.
We don't own a car so we take public transportation everywhere. There's a service here called "Grab" that's like Uber in the US. I like it because they tell you the fare up front, and I can pay electronically so I don't have to worry about having the right change. There are also busses but I have never taken one and frankly I have no idea how you find out where they go. Another option is tricycles. This is basically a motorcycle with a sidecar for passengers. The fare around here is P15 for a native and P70 for a foreigner. (They don't quite say it that way but in practice.) I always just hand the guy a P100 to cover the fare plus a tip. My wife grew up poor and is generally very frugal, but she will splurge on a Grab over a tricycle. She prefers the comfort, especially the air conditioning. Personally, for short trips I prefer a trike because you can get one immediately -- just stand on the side of the road and flag one down, I've never had to wait more than maybe a minute for one to show up. And at the malls, there are lines of trikes waiting.
© 2024 by Jay Johansen