You will need three things:

1. Shelter
2. Food
3. Water

Everything else is a bonus. Let’s look at them one by one.

Shelter

You can get a bed in a ‘Bed Spacer’ dormitory for around P500- 2000 a month. That is exactly what it is, a bed and the price varies depending on cleanliness, number of occupants and other facilities as well as location.

Most bed spacers are close to colleges and factories and are either for men or women. You might have to pay extra for light and electricity although the light is usually included. You may need to pay for water for drinking and bathing as well as laundering your clothes.

You can rent a small house or a couple of rooms for under P2000 a month, some are quite livable and others are merely slums. With some basic electricity use for a light and a fan (forget airconditioning and even a fridge is pushing it!) you should allocate P2500 a month for shelter. Say US$50.

Food

Every week you should allocate P100 for rice, that is about 4kg of the better quality stuff.  Buy two kilograms of chicken and some fish and a whole mess of local greens and some bananas and mango as well as some noodles. Add some condiments and you should spend no more than P500 a week. Call it P2000 a month, or US$40.

You are now living off a local diet and you can expect to lose a lot of that Kano midriff. Forget fast food except maybe the odd P10 street tempura treat – fish balls fried and dipped in delicious sauces and eaten off the skewer beside the street vendor’s cart. Masarap! (delicious)

Water

You can drink the local tap water in most places. I did. I drank it in Manila, Cebu, Angeles and elsewhere and rarely got a gyppy tummy or worse. If you drink coffee then the water is boiled before you drink it. If you are worried, then use some precious fuel and boil up a load of water, let it cool and keep it for drinking. Buying bottled water is expensive, perhaps a dollar for a ‘gallon’, which is actually a 20 litre container.

Far better value is to buy beer. Beer Na Beer is the cheapest and works out around P10 a bottle, maybe less and of course bought by the crate from the local depot, never at full retail from the sari sari store. Two or three a day will set you back maybe P1000 or so, say US$20.

As for getting around, you will either walk or have invested in your own trisikad and pedal everywhere. You are now managing to live on P5,500, say US$110 a month and still have P2000 or US$40 left for cigarettes and emergencies! A packet of cheap local cancer sticks will cost you around P300 a month, say US$6. The rest is your own!

You can enjoy basic health insurance with PhilHealth for P100 a month so why wouldn’t you get the coverage? If you were ever in the Military or have always enjoyed camping you will find little hardship living this way. There will never be a dull moment as there is always something happening, something to see or somebody staring at you.

You can camp out on a beach under the tropical stars and make a shelter from coconut palm fronds and ‘trapal’ (plastic sheeting), making all your own furniture from bamboo and coco lumber. If you live near a mall with a public toilet you can use that to stay clean with. In Bogo, northern Cebu I had a friend who lived on the beach at San Remigio and hitch hiked into Bogo most days to use the toilets at Jollibee and to hang out at the small mall there. He learnt the local language, made many friends and always had somewhere to stay if the rains hit hard. He spent less than US$100 a month, saved the rest of his social security and every year he went to Hong Kong to renew his visa and live it up a little.

I knew an Englishman who drove a jeepney for a living (illegally) and met his wife to be as she was his conductor. They live in a nipa hut with a dozen kids, are poorer than church mice but happier than most people I know. When he became eligible for his UK pension he nearly cried at the thought of having ‘so much money’.

Life is about choices. You can choose to live on little and be happy or you can choose to be up to your neck in debt, living in the west and hate every minute. If you choose to retire to the Philippines rest assured you can live extremely cheaply but ask yourself how cheap do you want to go? I was in the military and I love camping but shoe string living gets old really fast. Even in a tropical paradise.

Of course the answer will be different for everyone although there will be plenty of retirees who fall into the three groups I have set out below. These are not official demographics, just my own ideas based on my own experience and observation.

Remember the TV show ‘Green Acres’? Let me use that show as a guide. First of all we have the Lisa Douglas types, or LDs. They can’t handle the farm life and have to have all the luxuries of home. They will need over $2500 a month to even begin to be comfortable.

Next, the Oliver Douglas type, or ODs. They love the simpler life and can manage very well on $1200-$2000 a month, depending whether they live in the province or a more expensive urban situation.

And then there are the Hooterville Locals, of HLs. These people manage on less than $1200 a month. They rarely travel out of the ‘county’, are fine with eating the same food as the other locals with just the occasional foreign delicacy and are happy living modest lives.

The reality is that you can live there comfortably on less than $1000 a month providing you don’t have a dozen kids and don’t spend every night in the bars chasing GROs (bar girls). That lifestyle can get expensive and old really fast.

If you want to be middle of the road and still live well, budget as an OD. Remember Oliver left his New York law practise and settled down to be a farmer. He loved the life and while there were some hiccups and hitches along the way, he took them in his stride.

I have been to the Philippines on vacation, cashed up and living large like Lisa Douglas, Darlink! I have lived on $500 a month in the province like a Hooterville Local and enjoyed almost every minute. However I have to say for me, the best life was when I lived like Oliver Douglas. Not too flash but no hardship either.

It’s up to you and what you can afford but is there any point to retiring somewhere exotic just to eke out a less than normal living? Retirement in a Third World country can be inexpensive but never ‘cheap’. There are economies of scale the locals enjoy that we can never emulate without really immersing oneself into the local lifestyle. You can get used to anything but the aim of retirement is not to suffer and ‘put up with’ less than best if one can avoid it.

Of course if the alternative is living under a bridge back home, those barmy tropical nights sure make the decision easier! Maybe in the Philippines you will find your own Green Acres. While you look, we at Retire To Philippines -Budget Planning Guide will be here to help every step of the way.

Remember. For priceless information on affordable retirement, you’re home!