When living in the PH with out rent as we owned our own house we spent on average 70k peso a month. Electric is expensive if you use aircon so my average was 15 k per month just on that. So looking on spending 20k peso a month is possible if you want a real basic life I mean basic and like rice and dried fish. If you want to eat European food be prepared to blow your 20k budget. I found the cost of living personally to be more expensive than the UK just my thoughts but it's great to have targets and goals in life. BTW I retired at 47 so good luck at 40 I admire your drive.
Thank you for ur info. Do you think you retiring at 47 was a good move and if you had a chance to retire early would you have done it?
For sure I have many interests with out making money. But every one is different good luck in your quest
I would tend to agree with you these days, in Manila that is certainly true in many ways, lots of things can be got cheaply or better quality here in the UK now compared to the Phils, even the likes of T-Shirts, Primark here is as cheap as the open markets over there, Aldi and Lidl are probably cheaper for food than SM, electric is vastly more expensive over there and required for a larger part of the year, a cheap second hand car market does not exist, and quality electronics can be had here much cheaper than the Philippines.
I agree but how long it will be that uk cost will go up soon as today :http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33147660 Soon everything will go up up up
But if you want to retire on investments then higher inflation means higher interest rates mean better income from investments.
One tenth of a percent, I know I am lucky but I got a 2% wage rise this year even though inflation was at zero. Inflation in the Phils has been historically high even though it is now at a reasonable rate for a westerner. Wages over there are almost unchanged in a decade despite huge amounts of inflation in that time, when I first went there rice was 16 peso a kilo for good Thai Jasmine rice now it is pushing 50 peso a kilo, plus continued economic growth in the Phils will erode your pounds far more than anything else, 106 peso to the pound when I started there, worst I've seen was 59 php per GBP, thank God it's over 70 again, at anything close to 50 php I will never retire there.
I can't beat that any time in the last 6 years All I can say is I currently earn 66% of what I made in 1999 and that is not easy when you think how much money was worth in 1999, like half again the current purchase power of the pound We are all getting poorer all the time.....sigh.....
I'm sure we will all survive, just means some will survive better than others The only true way to get a good pay rise is to change your job.
Don't, you'll have me going independent again Sadly at my end of the game I could only earn more on contract, my biggest gripe about full time employment is lack of time off, in 1999 I reckon I worked about 200 man days, I work 228 now and that's after public holidays, I'm not moaning, I was very lucky for 13 years 96 to 2009, actually no I am moaning and I'll stop now
I got two back to back payrises of 7.5 % in 2012 and 2013. But before that I had a lean spell and only got a rise in 2010 through changing job, which can be a good way of getting a payrise.
There is a lot to be said for having a job where you get plenty of days off, also good not to have a fixed starting time, certainly suits a lot of people working that way. As you say, more money to be had on contract but there is more hassle connected with it, I'm really not enjoying this self employed lark, okay for money but not much else, stressful too which I could well do without. Oh, keep on moaning if you like, we like a bit of a moan here at BF, relieves a little stress don't you think?
