I thought I would share our expenses for the month of September to give you an idea of the cost of living in the Philippines. We don’t pay rent, but our property requires a lot of maintenance and a full-time maintenance person, with an occasional construction staff, because we have to manage our own water from wells, plumbing, sewage, and electricity. Plus living by the ocean and lots of rain means we’re always fixing things!

We have four people in our family, three full-time staff, and the spouse of one staff that all live-in. We don’t allow staff to leave our property unless they take an antigen test and quarantine upon return, so no one ever leaves. Our staff consists of 1 maintenance, 1 cleaner, and 1 animal caregiver. We provide all meals for our staff, so we are a household of 8.

expense

21% – Animal Rescue
17.7% – Food
13.2% – Salaries
8.1% – Library
5.8% – Utilities
5% – Entertainment (aka wine)
4.3% – Dining
4% – Chicken feed
3.8% – Legal Fees
3.3% – Gifts
2.6% – Education
2% – Shipping
1.8% – Phone

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We spent ₱260,730 minus ₱16,000 I received in donations towards animal rescue in September, for a monthly total expenditure of $4811 USD. Our three biggest expenses were animal rescue, food, and staff salaries. If we didn’t do animal rescue or have a children’s library, our expenses would have been $3433. We also had a lot of rescues this month so vet bills, medicine and food bills were higher than average. Since we don’t leave home, we don’t have any miscellaneous expenses.

You can live on a small budget here during pandemic times, as you can find really nice houses and hotel rooms for rent for around $300/month. It’s an amazing time to visit with the islands completely empty, but alas the Philippines is not yet open to tourism.

expense4

Anything surprising about our cost of living? I’m happy to answer questions about the cost of living abroad!