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SHOESTRING LIVING- IS IT WORTH IT?
I have been thinking about the cost of living and how there will need to be a balance between living well and being careful. As stated earlier we are moving to the Philippines with an expectation of a better life style with creature comforts at least equivalent to back home. I realise that it would be very easy to spend all or most of your disposable income while living in the Philippines and have nothing to show for it. Trying to exactly match the standard of living of back home would actually be more expensive than back home. There will be a need to intelligent substitutions that do not compromise our standard of living.
I will post more about budgeting over the next week. In meantime here is another excellent article reproduced from the StreetWise Philippine Dreams Newsletter about surviving on minimal incomes. While my budget will be considerable more than what is discussed below I still find it very informative.
SHOESTRING LIVING- IS IT WORTH IT?
There is living on a shoestring budget, and then there is the “frayed” shoestring and the “broken” shoestring. Most Filipino families live on the latter, but is it something foreigners can copy and is it worth doing so?
What exactly is a “shoestring” budget? I would say that, living in a city such as Cebu, Davao or even Manila, a decent budget would be US$1000 a month. A shoestring budget would be less than that, say US$750 while a frayed shoestring would be US$500. A broken shoestring, (you know the type where the lace has rubbed so hard it snaps and you have to adjust the rest of the lace and end up with really short bits? ) is anything less than US$500 per month. I’m talking at least a foreigner and a Filipina living on this, not just a foreigner by himself. Why would you live here on bugger all money and no honey-ko?
I know many who could not survive on even a grand a month, but perhaps they have never had to. For them the ability to buy western luxury items such as decent ham or steaks from The Tinder Box is to be taken for granted or else go home. I can understand that mentality, why suffer if you don’t need to? The truth of the matter is that sometimes circumstances find you having to do more with less than you ever planned on having to do it with!
Those who live the high life, or spend a lot of their free time supporting the local expat girlie go-go bar may find US$1000 a month hardly covers their bar fines. Half your luck mate but this article is aimed at the bloke who has a wife or girlfriend, doesn’t have the funds to hang out in bars and wants to get a few clues about getting by on as little as possible.
The great news is that you can get by, and often live well, for very little here. How can Filipino’s earn a few thousand pesos a month and still raise large families on a single income? Many earn less than P10,000 a month, that’s about US$200, approximately although actually less than that at current rates.
Lets look first at the gorilla, the grand, the US$1000 a month. I earnt that for several months working at Bigfoot as a writer of online English Dialogue and drivel. It allowed us to live well enough in Cebu but didn’t leave much left over for saving. Especially as it coincided with major repairs to the car and other unusual expenses. We moved down from the province where we had been living well for a monkey (half a gorilla or US$500 a month) to the big smoke where twice as much didn’t make much difference! Lesson number one would probably be, if you are on a shoestring budget, to avoid the city and all its’ temptations!
Our rent went from P2000 a month to P6000 a month, an increase of three times the money for maybe twice the house. If we had rented in Cebu City itself, then we could expect to pay twice that for a similar size dwelling. OF course the extra rent would be offset by the savings in travelling expenses getting to and from work in the city every day. If you aren’t having to work for a living, then the tip is to live out of the city where the rents are a lot less than downtown.
Living where there is bugger all to do also means you spend bugger all doing it! In Bogo a big night out was riding down to the pubic wharf and sitting there in the moonlight for an hour or so. Maybe getting some BBQ on the way home! Thrilling! In Cebu we can go out every night of the week and eat out, go dancing etc but the cost would drive us up the wall if we always attended western standard venues.
Entertaining yourself Filipino style is a lot cheaper, of course, although you might get sick of KTV (Karaoke TV bars). Mind you, it costs very little to have a few friends around, drink a few San Miguel’s or Beer Na Beers or my tipple of choice, Tanduay and coke! Chew the fat, let the asawas chismis amongst themselves and just soak in the Philippines. Which brings us to Lesson number two, try to live like a Filipino!
A lot of the expense we foreigner’s shoulder is for food. We are so used to our style of food that we do actually suffer when we can’t get it. Changing a diet, especially the diet of a lifetime for a middle aged person, is not an easy thing. You will crave certain tastes and foods. Your body will know instinctively what it needs and it will tell you! It will probably not be buwad and rice! You can live for a month on P30 worth of Buwad (dried fish) and a few peso worth of rice. Many of us crave vegetables after being incountry a few weeks as we begin to realise the Filipino isn’t big on adding vegetables to the shopping list. You might be lucky and get some camotes thrown in the pot from time to time!
The above article is from Issue 2 of the Philippine Dreams Newsletters available free to members. Find out how to become a member and download the latest StreetWise Philippine Dreams Newsletter for FREE at STREETWISE PHILIPPINES
Posted: Saturday 25th June 2005, 8:54 PM
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