Starting my planning

[Viking]

10 hours ago, Greglm said:

There's a difference in living and having a life.

 

That's very true, but what counts as having a life is very different from person to person.

One guy needs to rent a Cessna aircraft and go on sight seeing every weekend and another guy is happy sitting at the beach reading a good book. These two guys obviously needs different budgets to be happy.

I think it is necessary to know more about what the OP want out of his life before anyone can comment if 60k will be enough.

 

[hk blues]

4 minutes ago, Viking said:

That's very true, but what counts as having a life is very different from person to person.

One guy needs to rent a Cessna aircraft and go on sight seeing every weekend and another guy is happy sitting at the beach reading a good book. These two guys obviously needs different budgets to be happy.

I think it is necessary to know more about what the OP want out of his life before anyone can comment if 60k will be enough.

 

Indeed.

In Hong Kong I was a party animal living as a single guy (unfortunately, I wasn't always actually single but that's another story ) and was earning a good salary and spending it too.  Here, my income is about 1/7th and my expenses are similarly down - my rent alone in Hong Kong would cover 3 months expenses here. We live a simple  (compared to Hong Kong if not our neighbours)  but very comfortable life and have everything we need and some.  Nothing better than sitting watching Netflix with a beer and a slice of pizza with the family.  

Others will agree with me and others will dispute it's possible.  For balance, I have a healthy lump sum in the UK as an emergency fund - without that I'd not risk being here mainly due to unexpected emergency costs.  

[BrettGC]

18 minutes ago, hk blues said:

Others will agree with me and others will dispute it's possible.  For balance, I have a healthy lump sum in the UK as an emergency fund - without that I'd not risk being here mainly due to unexpected emergency costs.  

Yep, an emergency fund that you never touch is a must.  Life happens.

[stevewool]

9 hours ago, BrettGC said:

I retired at 52 and moved here, been here exactly a year and 2 days and loving life.  I recieve 2 military pensions (20 years service and disability) that are indexed twice a year and so far they've been ahead of the Philippine inflation rate, well official rates anyway. I still have my superannuation that I can't touch until I'm 60 up my sleeve.  I probably won't go back to Australia for 2 years prior to qualify for the aged pension, but who knows.  Yes, as @Jollygoodfellow stated, you have to live in Australia for the 2 years prior to qualifying for the age pension at 67.  

I couldn't live comfortably on my military pensions in Australia, here I'm happy as a pig in poo.  I worked up until about a month before moving here.    

As an example, I'll give a rough budget when we were living in Dumaguete.  It's significantly lower now that we're living in our own home in what many consider a remote area where prices are lower for most fresh foods etc.  1 hours from the nearest semi-decent shopping, 2-3 hours from Cebu City including ferry, 3 hours from Dumaguete.  

Rent:  13.5k for a 2 bed, 2 bath, AC in the bedroom, secure undercover parking, apartment less than 10 years old. 

Electricity:  3 - 3.5k, we only used the AC at night. It's probably more now with the recent price hikes but it varies regionally.  I moved from a tropical area in Australia, so the heat and humidity is not something that affects me as much as others. 

Water:  1k a month - "town water", not the bottled stuff you need to buy in addition for drinking (included in groceries). 

Internet:  1.2K - 100mbs fibre to the home (better than most connections in Australia)

TV - 700PHP/month for Sky cable

Groceries - 10 - 15k depending on how much I wanted western goods.  I'm happy eating a modified Filipino diet a lot of the time, just need to add some spices etc. 

Phone - 500Php a month for each of us (I'm married)

Immigration - Approx 1.8k on a tourist visa; that's with 6 month extentions and annual ACR card fee - is it annual?  

Car - 2k, Rego, insurance, fuel, cleaning

Misc - Approx 800php Netflix, Amazon Prime, maintaining my Aussie phone number for 2FA (yes, I'm getting onto that)

Total about 40k PHP a month.  As I said, I'm married so it's potentially cheaper for you depending on your prefered lifestyle. 

Whatever was left over went to savings and entertainment.  Yes, I believe it's important to keep saving.  

An emergency fund of XXk AUD never gets touched, ever.  

Health insurance - I'm still looking into that. 

I allowed 15k AUD to set up with. 

 

It's different for everyone, there is no right or wrong answer.  I know guys that live happily on 50K Php a month, others couldn't survive on less that 100k.  My biggest concern for you is as others have stated, proofing that 60k a month against inflation.  Granted, interest rates are going up right now but not at the same rate as inflation and that won't be forever.   

Those sort of prices sound fantastic and it’s got me thinking again about could I live out there, thanks Brett 

[hk blues]

1 hour ago, stevewool said:

Those sort of prices sound fantastic and it’s got me thinking again about could I live out there, thanks Brett 

And I can vouch that Brett's numbers are realistic based on my own budget.  

[stevewool]

17 minutes ago, hk blues said:

And I can vouch that Brett's numbers are realistic based on my own budget.  

It’s so damp here and we have another few months of cold weather , plus the cost of the utilities are just crazy and the threats of more increases coming soon , I was looking hard at Spain to move too, but since we have left the EU the price has increased for us Brits , anyway thanks boys  and sorry about hijacking the page 

[hk blues]

1 minute ago, stevewool said:

It’s so damp here and we have another few months of cold weather , plus the cost of the utilities are just crazy and the threats of more increases coming soon , I was looking hard at Spain to move too, but since we have left the EU the price has increased for us Brits , anyway thanks boys  and sorry about hijacking the page 

You're lucky you're not here though, Steve.  The most expensive electricity in the world apparently  

[stevewool]

3 minutes ago, hk blues said:

You're lucky you're not here though, Steve.  The most expensive electricity in the world apparently  

I wouldn’t mind paying the most expensive electricity if everything else was reasonable 

[stevewool]

11 hours ago, BrettGC said:

 

Immigration - Approx 1.8k on a tourist visa; that's with 6 month extentions and annual ACR card fee - is it annual?  

Car - 2k, Rego, insurance, fuel, cleaning

 

Brett, the car you is 2K what’s Rego, plus immigration 1.8k is that something you pay each month ,yearly ?…

[hk blues]

3 minutes ago, stevewool said:

I wouldn’t mind paying the most expensive electricity if everything else was reasonable 

The point is it's far from expensive though, Steve.  Without wanting to make you bring up your lunch, we are currently at around £50 a month and even if it was double we'd still be probably 1/3rd of your monthly bill and we're not looking to save electricity.