20k php / month enough for rent and utilities?

[Dr. Shiva]

Is 20k php per month being enough for rent and utilities?

With utilities it is meant electrical power, water, gas for stove and internet.

With rent it is meant for a house or apartment with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Region/town/city is not fixed at the moment.

Is this doable? My pension will be about 80k php. But due the instability in Europe it is possible that it will shrink by a bigger amount. 

[Snowy79]

If you go out into the province it's doable but I doubt in the cities. I know in Puerto Princesa, Palawan you can get rent for about 7,000 php but it's basic.

[Dave Hounddriver]

With luck you can find a tiny house for 12K a month or less and with good management you can keep utilities under 8K a month.  Its getting harder to do on that budget but if that's all you have then you will find something.  There are lots of places available for less than that but expect to find many houses that would be condemned in your home country for that money.  Still, many live here in those places.

[frosty (chris)]

We live in a 3 b/room 2 bathroom house in a sub division on Mactan, admittedly our Filipina friend owns the house and we get a cheaper rent 5,500. Our utilities for the month are a touch over 8 thousand, we have Sky (internet) 1600, elect 1800, water, 250 security 400, gas cost is 600 pesos about every 3 months or so. Before we moved here we lived in Bernadette Sub Div, the rent there for a 2 up 2 down, a nice place, plenty enough room for us was 8,000 per month it was in a small, quiet and well maintained sub div, in hindsight I wish we would have stayed there.

[sonjack2847]

That is very do- able I have rent at 10,000 electric is between 1200-1500 water around 300 internet 1299 gas every 3 months is around 750 TV is 500.There are plenty of houses/apartments around here between 3500 and 18000 the 18000 will have the utilities already paid.

[Jollygoodfellow]

6 hours ago, Dr. Shiva said:

With rent it is meant for a house or apartment with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Region/town/city is not fixed at the moment.

One of those questions where location is the big factor. Any idea of where you might settle ? 

[Dr. Shiva]

16 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

One of those questions where location is the big factor. Any idea of where you might settle ? 

There is a rough selection of following provinces, cities and towns: Ormoc city if we have to move this or next year; Davao City (one of my favorite); Negros Oriental (especially Bayawan, Valencia, Tanjay); Siquijor; Tagaytay City; Palawan (everything in or near Puerto Princesa and north of it.); Metro Cebu.

Metro Manila only if I can get a well paid job there. 

[Gratefuled]

Shop around. Spend some time in the places you would like to live. It all depends on what you want for your money and what you will settle for.

Remember these words: " NOTHING GOOD IS CHEAP AND NOTHING CHEAP IS GOOD"

There are exceptions but in the end, it all depends on you.

[mogo51]

23 hours ago, frosty (chris) said:

We live in a 3 b/room 2 bathroom house in a sub division on Mactan, admittedly our Filipina friend owns the house and we get a cheaper rent 5,500. Our utilities for the month are a touch over 8 thousand, we have Sky (internet) 1600, elect 1800, water, 250 security 400, gas cost is 600 pesos about every 3 months or so. Before we moved here we lived in Bernadette Sub Div, the rent there for a 2 up 2 down, a nice place, plenty enough room for us was 8,000 per month it was in a small, quiet and well maintained sub div, in hindsight I wish we would have stayed there.

Thanks for this post Chris, this is very helpful, only 6 months away from moving to Phils, going to La Union and think we can get something quite ok, for about 10-15k (I like my comforts).  Your utilities are very helpful - do you use a/c much?

[frosty (chris)]

32 minutes ago, mogo51 said:

Thanks for this post Chris, this is very helpful, only 6 months away from moving to Phils, going to La Union and think we can get something quite ok, for about 10-15k (I like my comforts).  Your utilities are very helpful - do you use a/c much?

The A/C only gets used at night in the bedroom, SWMBO likes it, me I just use a fan, we have it on about half speed but is cold enough to be looking for a light blanket half way through the night. It depends just what your location is, the last place we had always had a fairly strong sea breeze most days so didn't need a/c and fans were good enough. Good luck with the move, hope it all goes smoothly for you and just remember "It's more fun in the P.I "