Preface: You will have to determine whether the “idiot” I referenced in the title is me or my potential readership. It’s a close call 🙂

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If you’re a Philippines blogger or vlogger one thing that is expected of you is to post a Cost of Living piece. I know guys who do it annually or even more often. Why? Because they know that all of you want to read it and it drives up their readership/viewership.

So, that’s why I’m doing it 🙂

Of course, unlike a YouTube vlogger, there is no income for my doing this; only the satisfaction in knowing that several hundred (sometimes several thousand) of you wasted five minutes of your important life on my dribble. Life is good!

I have seen or read dozens of such Cost of Philippines Living posts. Let me summarize my opinion for you: they are all unadulterated nonsense. So, I’ve just saved you time and as they say time is money. So, by all means send me some.

OK, back on point. Why are such postings normally BS? Imagine I were to ask an American, “How much does it cost to live in the United States?” He might answer, “How the hell do I know? Do you mean live in a small town in the South or the San Francisco Bay Area?” “Do you need to own a car and what kind?” “How’s your company’s medical insurance.” “How many girlfriends do you have and how many does your wife know about?”

Sorry, I got side tracked.

In short you can live in the U.S. for $15,000/year or less and yet others claim in all seriousness that they cannot live for under $150,000/year; and they are not kidding.

The same is true in the Philippines. Do you live in a condo in Makati or a nipa hut so deep in the provinces that carabaos are beginning to look very very good to you?

Do you drive a motorbike or car or are you happy with trikes and jeepneys? Do you drink San Miguel or Red Horse? OK, there’s no financial different between those two.

Do you have one girl or five? While logically 5 should mean a higher budget, one can sometimes be more expensive. In my case the one I have would kill the other 4, so for me 1 is cheaper.

I can hear you all murmuring now: how much, how much, how much. So let me give you a few Dumaguete details and later on tell you why I think the question of “how much it costs” is irrelevant.

Rent: In Dumaguete it’s easy to rent an apartment or house for between 10k – 15k pesos, sometimes even less. Alright, for the lazy unwilling to Google the exchange rate, that’s about $200-300/month. You can certainly spend lots more, but you don’t have to.

Food: If you like to cook and eat simply, it’s easy to eat for between $100-200/month. If, like Janet and I, you like restaurants, it is actually not that much more expensive; perhaps add $100 to the budget. Janet and I rarely spend over 500P ($10) for dinner for two and often spend closer to 300P. Therefore sometimes it’s easier to eat out rather than cook.

Exception 1: If you require your favorite Western brands, and/or a weekly Australian steak, your budget will go up considerably. I hear British and German friends talk about obtaining their fave homeland foods and how much it costs. I roll my eyes. As an American there are three McDonalds and a really good sub shop in Duma, so I’m all set for American haute cuisine!

Exception 2: Do you have those 5 girlfriends I mentioned above? Then you’re not only feeding the girls, which isn’t that bad (they’re all tiny and eat like birds) but you’re feeding their friends and anyone in the restaurant who claims to be a friend. Expect your food budget to go up considerably.

Utilities: In the U.S. my electric and gas bill combined for about $200/month. Here I spend between 2500-3000P ($50-60) for electricity and that includes running an aircon most of the day. Our fiber Internet is about 2000P ($40). Janet and I pay about 600P ($12) for phone service. Garbage pickup is free in Valencia. Our Valencia water bill (and I am not making this up) has never been over 50P ($1) and sometimes there’s been no bill for the month at all. Of course Valencia water is only on about 2/3 of the time, but I still giggle whenever I get the bill. They actually pay someone to hand deliver the bill and pay cashiers to take your payment. It’s clearly a big money maker.
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Vices: If you smoke, cigarettes are dirt cheap. If you like beer, local San Miguel and Red Horse cost about 40P.  In short you can become a chain smoker and raging alcoholic without breaking your budget. I gotta get on it!

If you have a more sophisticated drinking habit, you can get nearly anything here. Johnny Walker Black Label is (I kid you not) available in any 7-11. Apparently there are many expats throughout the Philippines who go into 7-11s and get a pack of smokes, a bag of M&Ms, and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black!

Transportation: Trikes and Jeepneys are ridiculously cheap here in Duma and go most everywhere. OTOH gas is more expensive than in the US, so since I have a car, that is an expense. But my insurance bill is about half of what I paid in the U.S.

Most expats here have motorbikes, not cars. A lot of guys have told me they don’t have insurance because when you’re 75 and fall off a bike the last thing you’re thinking of is, ‘Yeah, but at least I’m well insured.’

Medical: Your view on medical expenses in the Philippines will vary dependent upon whether you are from the United Staes or nearly any other civilized Western country. If you’re from the U.S., Philippines medical expenses will seem dirt cheap. A doctor or dentist appointment will be $10 or less. Hospitalization will seem quite reasonable. But, if you’re from one of those Civilized countries where medical care is free, you may find the cost in the Philippines to be expensive. After all nothing can beat free.

Last week I had a doctor’s appointment. The visit was 500P (under $10) but the procedure she was going to do cost. The doctor apologized profusely about the cost. I wasn’t sure why. Turns out she studied in Canada, where the procedure would have been free. I explained that in the U.S. it would not have been free – far from it – and by all means let’s do it. I was not unhappy with the total price.

So depending on your budget and whether you have any kind of medical insurance (including PhilHealth) you may at some point find yourself hit with some serious  medical bills.

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So let’s get back to why I think all the other estimates on costs in the Philippines are so nonsensical. Because, folks, it’s the wrong question. Most of us are retired and on some sort of fixed income. So the question isn’t “How much does it cost to live in the Philippines?” The question ought to be, “How much do I have and what kind of life will that support in the Philippines.”

Let’s say your Social Security check is $1000/month. That’s what you have and that’s all you have. There’s no point in wondering how much condos cost in Makati. So, can you live here on $1k/month? In Dumaguete you can. Now you won’t be living high on the hog and you can only afford one girl (OK, maybe two if you’re frugal) but you can do it. If you have an income of $2k/month you can live very well.

If you have followed this blog you know that there is no way I will ever tell you how much Janet and I make or how much we have. What are we – idiots? But while it’s not a lot, we have enough to deny ourselves nothing, have some extra for travel, and Janet gets to eat lechon at least occasionally.

There’s another fault that I see guys make when calculating a budget. They only take into account their standard monthly bills: rent, utilities, food, gas, medical, etc.

I’m not just talking about major medical emergencies, which can be budget killers. I’m talking about normal shit that happens all the time, but when you worked you had enough extra to cover it: your phone dies, your car breaks down, you need new tires for your bike, you have to pay to extend your visa, you need to hire someone to clean your pool (ok, bad example).

If you’ve budgeted well you’ve added a pad to cover those life extras. If not, then pretty soon they eat into your monthly bills and that’s when you hear guys complain about how it’s really expensive in the Philippines. It’s not if you apply just a little bit of caution.