Can you live and HAVE fun in Philippines on 1k a month?

[Banano]

Larry Elterman in his interview with SH claims that 1k is enough for 1 person to live and have fun in PH,Cebu City.
he talks abt apartments that are $150 per month, I dont know where he finds that but my research shows that accomodation is more expensive than it is in Thailand, private rooms on airbnb.com start from $20 a night, talked to few girls on DIA and they said i need some $300 and above for unfurnished appartment+bills(electricity,water, internet,phone),

Western food is expensive and filipino food is crap from what i have heard,

I dont know how you can live comfortably with 1000 bucks, have gfs and fun

How 30 bucks a day can make you live comfortably,KFC meal is abt 8 bucks, when steak is 15-20 bucks and decent blow job is abt the same, if you have gf well you have to spend money on her (drinks, food and shit that comes with it)
unless you chose to eat plain rice for breakfast lunch and dinner and have glass of milk, brush teeth once a week,shave monthly etc


Is he just talkin nonsense, his calculations are way off imho

you cld survive on that money but that would be miserable and no fun,
not comfortable as he preaches

[davewe]

Larry Elterman in his interview with SH claims that 1k is enough for 1 person to live and have fun in PH,Cebu City.
he talks abt apartments that are $150 per month, I dont know where he finds that but my research shows that accomodation is more expensive than it is in Thailand, private rooms on airbnb.com start from $20 a night, talked to few girls on DIA and they said i need some $300 and above for unfurnished appartment+bills(electricity,water, internet,phone),

Western food is expensive and filipino food is crap from what i have heard,

I dont know how you can live comfortably with 1000 bucks, have gfs and fun

How 30 bucks a day can make you live comfortably,KFC meal is abt 8 bucks, when steak is 15-20 bucks and decent blow job is abt the same, if you have gf well you have to spend money on her (drinks, food and shit that comes with it)
unless you chose to eat plain rice for breakfast lunch and dinner and have glass of milk, brush teeth once a week,shave monthly etc


Is he just talkin nonsense, his calculations are way off imho

you cld survive on that money but that would be miserable and no fun,
not comfortable as he preaches

Like any other country it depends on where and what kind of lifestyle you want. In Manila there's not much chance and probably the same in Cebu City. I mean do you want a room, a decent apartment or a house. In many cities, apartments and houses can be had quite cheaply. OTOH if you need Aircon, electricity is expensive. What other amenities do you require? Are you gonna go to restaurants and clubs regularly? If you are serious about finances to relocate there, I would check out the Living in Cebu forum. Lots of discussions of prices and what kind of life you can lead for how much. And obviously a life outside a city is gonna be much cheaper than in Cebu.

[royaldude]

hey OP you clearly have never lived there stating that filipino food is bad having never tried it.

the best pork in the world is in the phil. beef is different than us as it is grass feed but its also far healthier. chicken and eggs are good there also cheap. seafood is different as fish is warm water fish which isnt as tasty as cold water fish. then again shrimp, crabs are good there.

housing is cheap so look around you can find nice property for under 300 hundred. ac will add to your expense but then you can move to baguio city for temperate climate. ive lived there and unless you are out right paying for sex or have a very expensive drinking/drug habbit is not hard to get by on under 1000 dollars a month. now if your a sap and give your gf/wife family 3-400 a month that will drain your budget. also a lot of guys knock up these women then end up sending their kids to 10000k a year private schools. shit a live in maid can be had in phil for 60 bucks a month.

move there, talk to other expats there and you will find 1000 is not hard to live off of assuming you avoid manila.
www.liveincebuforums.com for more info

[Mr S]

In general Filipino food is the worst in Asia. There are exceptions but that is the general rule. There are other posts that talk about it so I won't get into it here.

You can live a decent life in PI with 1000 bucks if you know where to live and don't spend your money on boozing/girls/foreign stye restaurants every other day. Even in Manila/Cebu you could do that if you know what you are doing and don't spend all your money on stupid stuff.

If you want to live a nice bachelor life, decent nightlife and babes without the higher costs check out Bacolod City in Negros Occidental. It's one of my favorite cities that the mainstream tourists/foreigners don't know much about. It has a little bit of everything without the craziness and costs of a large city like Manila or Cebu. I would move there knowing what I know now about PI.

I know a foreigner there who rents rooms out of his house, everything included for a set fee. PM if you or anyone else is interested. It's a great deal and he is a really cool guy to hang out with and learn the ropes of how to deal with Philippines and Filipinos in general. He owns a bar on the entertainment district of Bacolod, "Golden Fields"; this is where an easy lay is to be had fellas, from good and bad girls alike, take your pick...

Actually, one of the foreigners is interested in selling his two bars if anyone is interested. One is mainly a regular bar, the other is karaoke.

http://www.philippinesboard.com/forum/v ... colod.html

[ladislav]

As far as food goes, you may want to cook at home or train someone to cook for you. One can easily use Filipino ingredients to make Latin food and I did that once and all Filipinos loved it. The very insipid local rice became Spanish rice with chicken soup base and chicken brine/lard. Then I took cassavas ( yucca root) which Filipinos use to make sweet snack and cooked them like boiled potatoes and then added olive oil and chicken lard and it was delicious. You also need to go and get french bread- the only non sweet bread in the country. Filipinos do not eat mustard and do not understand the difference between sweet banana catch up- horrid stuff- and regular tomato one.

So, you may want to eat out at a local Western place, but not so fast, The main problem with Filipino Western food are those sickeningly sweet additions to dishes that are not supposed to be sweet- potato salads with something like condensed sweet milk for sauce, tuna and chicken sandwiches with sweetened bread with the same vomit- evoking dressing and once I tried a lasagna and it was dressed with something like miracle whip. And it costs a lot and causes constant frictions between you and the restaurant staff. The actual Filipino food is far more palatable than the pseudo Western food. The same can be said about Japanese restaurant chains- they just go ahead and develop their own "Japanese-themed" Filipino foods which taste awful to me but bring on smiles of approval and satisfaction in locals.

And then you have shawarma with sweet sweet bread, and salty meat. Horrid stuff.

And then you see all these people around you chomping the stuff up and smiling and nodding while your face is turning green with disgust.

The only time you can eat foreign foods that taste like what they are supposed to is when you have a manager of that nationality running the place. A Korean boss at a Korean restaurant, an Italian boss at an Italian restaurant. Otherwise, they will just turn everything sweet.

So, the best is to go to large department store's supermarket section, browse for ingredients and then cook or have your maid cook for you. Because lack of good food will get to you after a while.

And also, fruit such as plums, peaches, nectarines, cherries, raspberries are either not available or sold at exorbitant prices at very posh large supermarkets in Manila and Cebu. $3 dollars for a peach? If you can find it. Grapes and apples are available but very expensive. Pears do not taste like pears. However, watermelons, strawberries, bananas and pineapples are cheap and taste pretty good. Oranges are cheap, too.

[Winston]

To the OP:

That is not true at all. I lived in the PH on $400 a month. I didn't have the nicest accommodations, but I barfined girls twice a month.

A full meal at KFC is about 150p, or $4, not $8.

The problem is, it's hard to find healthy food. And if you go to a supermarket with first world products, such as SM Hypermart, the prices are about the same as in the US, if not more.

As long as you don't let Filipinos take advantage of you or give them any loans, you can live well on $500 or $600 a month.

I've added up the expenses in other threads. Electric bills are expensive too, and so is having to extend your visa every few months. But you can definitely live well for less than $1000, as long as you don't make stupid mistakes and let people scam you.

[Winston]

hey OP you clearly have never lived there stating that filipino food is bad having never tried it.

the best pork in the world is in the phil. beef is different than us as it is grass feed but its also far healthier. chicken and eggs are good there also cheap. seafood is different as fish is warm water fish which isnt as tasty as cold water fish. then again shrimp, crabs are good there.

housing is cheap so look around you can find nice property for under 300 hundred. ac will add to your expense but then you can move to baguio city for temperate climate. ive lived there and unless you are out right paying for sex or have a very expensive drinking/drug habbit is not hard to get by on under 1000 dollars a month. now if your a sap and give your gf/wife family 3-400 a month that will drain your budget. also a lot of guys knock up these women then end up sending their kids to 10000k a year private schools. shit a live in maid can be had in phil for 60 bucks a month.

move there, talk to other expats there and you will find 1000 is not hard to live off of assuming you avoid manila.
www.liveincebuforums.com for more info

That is ONE MILLION PERCENT FALSE, and you are the ONLY one who says that Filipino pork is the best in the world. Not a single foreigner says that. The fact that Filipino food is the worst in Asia is a unanimous opinion and commonly acknowledged.

In fact, NOTHING in the Philippines is the best in the world. NOTHING. You can't even name one thing that's "the best".

[OutWest]

hey OP you clearly have never lived there stating that filipino food is bad having never tried it.

the best pork in the world is in the phil. beef is different than us as it is grass feed but its also far healthier. chicken and eggs are good there also cheap. seafood is different as fish is warm water fish which isnt as tasty as cold water fish. then again shrimp, crabs are good there.

housing is cheap so look around you can find nice property for under 300 hundred. ac will add to your expense but then you can move to baguio city for temperate climate. ive lived there and unless you are out right paying for sex or have a very expensive drinking/drug habbit is not hard to get by on under 1000 dollars a month. now if your a sap and give your gf/wife family 3-400 a month that will drain your budget. also a lot of guys knock up these women then end up sending their kids to 10000k a year private schools. shit a live in maid can be had in phil for 60 bucks a month.

move there, talk to other expats there and you will find 1000 is not hard to live off of assuming you avoid manila.
www.liveincebuforums.com for more info

That is ONE MILLION PERCENT FALSE, and you are the ONLY one who says that Filipino pork is the best in the world. Not a single foreigner says that. The fact that Filipino food is the worst in Asia is a unanimous opinion and commonly acknowledged.

In fact, NOTHING in the Philippines is the best in the world. NOTHING. You can't even name one thing that's "the best".

I cannot imagine wanting to eat out anywhere in the world. I would certainly not locate in the Philippines for the quality of restaurants though...that said, why all the helplessness? Real food comes from markets and we have those aplenty in the Philippines.
You would actually be living in the Philippines and eating all your food out? Pathetic....sounds so helpless. Even a modest apartment will have a kitchen, learn how to use it. A cook/housekeeper is very cheap. Get a homely one that knows how to cook. I eat like a king in the Philippines. How is that you say? We have this thing called a KITCHEN. There is fresh food of all sorts in the markets. We cook up some of the best anywhere. We cook up everything from old fashioned US Midwestern farm cooking to chicken adobo, and a first rate tinola. We also cook a very good variety of Mexican food as well that my wife has become very fond of.


It is not rocket science and it sound so silly to hear grown men be so whiny and helpless....we have great food because we MAKE IT...what a concept! LOL

Outwest

We do grow some of the world's best mangoes...in fact I have had ours tested for sugar content...we are at the very upper end for sugar content. LOL
But overall you will not see much "over-achievement" in the Philippines...

[xiongmao]

I'm sure you can. In nearby(ish) Guangzhou in China you can get an apartment for less than $300 a month, and that's in a booming, prosperous city.

McDonalds was around $2.50 for their lunchtime special.

You can live anywhere cheaply if you never buy iCrap.

[Taco]

You can easily live on $1000 a month in PI if you don't live in a big city and you cook your own food, or get your Filipina to cook it for you. I would avoid eating at any restaurants except the ones owned by expats and McDonalds is safe too. Also, China has the worst food in Asia not the Philippines, trying eating stinky tofu sometime if you don't believe me. Philippines has the best mangoes, pineapple and pork I've ever eaten.

One of the biggest expenses is air conditioning, if you live back in the mountains its a lot cooler(8C to 10C degrees less), less crowded and less crime than the cities and the women are more traditional too. There's lots of small towns and cities in the Visayas where you can get away from it all.

[Banano]

http://www.kfc.com.ph/chicken#1

21 piece of chicken is $30 in PH, about the same in Australia so I imagine the rest of the meals are about the same price, I normaly need 3-5 pieces+large chippies to satisfy hunger.

I believe mangoes and pinapples are one of the best in Philipines, Germany have good pork but I dont eat pork, I am lamb and beef man, chicken is fine.

So Filipino restaurants suck? food quality, hygiene or price?


I found a good deal at this 'hotel', $12 per night ,good for 2 people,wifi,cable tv,aircon,bathroom
La Maria Pension Hotel in Mandaue city(cebu) is the name of hotel, if good I ll try to cut the deal with manager, I ll offer him 200 bucks for 1 month, he should be happy with that.
Do hotels/guesthouses in PH allow girls to sleep over for free like they do in Thailand?

[Taco]

http://www.kfc.com.ph/chicken#1

21 piece of chicken is $30 in PH, about the same in Australia so I imagine the rest of the meals are about the same price, I normaly need 3-5 pieces+large chippies to satisfy hunger.

I believe mangoes and pinapples are one of the best in Philipines, Germany have good pork but I dont eat pork, I am lamb and beef man, chicken is fine.

So Filipino restaurants suck? food quality, hygiene or price?


I found a good deal at this 'hotel', $12 per night ,good for 2 people,wifi,cable tv,aircon,bathroom
La Maria Pension Hotel in Mandaue city(cebu) is the name of hotel, if good I ll try to cut the deal with manager, I ll offer him 200 bucks for 1 month, he should be happy with that.
Do hotels/guesthouses in PH allow girls to sleep over for free like they do in Thailand?

I ate at KFC once in Cebu, I'll never do it again, it was horrible. However, Mcdonalds tasted good.

[WorldTraveler]

Well you certainly cannot have any kind of Western Health Insurance, which can easily run you up to $500 a month. So if you have nothing wrong with you or don't think you will this won't be an issue.

[xiongmao]

I found Chinese food pretty awesome, especially the spicy Sichuan stuff. Chinese food is pretty safe as it's cooked at high temperatures. For what it's worth I've never had food problems like I used to get in Southern Europe in the 80's.

Health insurance is cheap, but you need to buy Western health insurance, not American health insurance.

A loophole is studying at a Chinese university, then your health insurance is something like $6 a month. I guess this can cover emergencies - if I get something bad then I'll go back to Europe and use our free healthcare