Budget March 2016
It has been a while since I tracked my spending. It is a real pain the butt to write down every peso, so I do not do it often. I made an Excel spreadsheet for my phone that worked pretty well but then I found an app called Monefy. It is a free app that does a very good job. It automatically keeps daily totals, category totals etc. There is no direct connection to the PC (I sure miss the good old Palm programs!). It does export as a csv file, that will open in excel, so it is still easy enough to use. When it exports as a csv file you lose all the totals, but in excel that takes about a minute to set up.
The hardest part was getting my wife onboard with it. She said just to give her p1,000 and put that as her expenses. So I told her I just would not bother tracking the budget. She surprised me after a day of shopping with a complete list! So… one long painful month later we have some totals. My monthly estimate turned out to be pretty close to the actual:
Monthly Budget
Total p26,800
Groceries p10,000
Electric p4,000
Globe p1,300 (internet)
Cell Phone p500
Pocket Money p6,000
Savings p5,000
Actual Spending
Total p26,830
Groceries p11,871
Household p7,973 (p3,400 electric & p1,100 globe)
Eating Out p2,796
Entertainment p745
Health p1,591
Jeepney p694 (eating out, entertainment, health, and jeepney would count as ‘pocket money’)
What I did not realize when I started this was that our annual barangay fiesta was this month. So we spent less on ‘entertainment’ and more on ‘groceries’ and ‘household’. It balanced out to about the same but will look like we have no entertainment money. Usually we spend less on food and go out and play more. Of course every month seems like something wants to bust the budget … that is life anywhere though, isn’t it? But we did have a day of exploring some caves, so that was fun. Also, she took two trips to her province this month. (Exploring the caves blog)
Because we built a house, and have no rent, I put what would be rent money into a local savings. I keep most of my money in the US and just a little here in BPI. I pull out p30,000 on the first. Put p5,000 into savings, and give my wife p25,000 for the month (p30,000 = $666 USD @ 45:1, p5,000 = $111). When I first got here, 3 years ago, the exchange rate was 40:1 so p30,000 was $750, I appreciate the better exchange rate we have now. My wife has labeled paperclips for each bill. Four grocery clips at p2,500 each, p1,300 Globe etc. Anything left goes into the ‘pocket money’ clip. About p9,000 for pocket money, which we share ($200 USD).
One of the big debates among expats is ‘how much do I need?” No one can answer that for you. There are guys that say they live on barely $300 (USD) a month, and others who say $2,000 is minimum. So as the girls here say… “up to you”. For budget nothing is truer. I am comfortable here, but would not recommend my lifestyle to you, without knowing more about your needs and comfort level. I tell people I live on $800 a month, I am happy, but would not recommend it. Ha ha
I did this a year or so ago and just posted category totals. This time I think I will post the whole file. It is a breakdown, arranged by category, of all our daily expenses. To be honest it is not entirely accurate. According to the list we spent p28,630. Actually we spent the entire p30,000, plus the emergency p500 I keep in my wallet. So… somewhere p1,870 pesos is missing. With all the money flowing around for the fiesta, I am ok with that. Pretty close, that is, what, $41.
Usually we spend less than the weekly p2,500 budgeted for groceries. The extra money just becomes pocket money. So our entertainment gets a boost from left over grocery money. This month we spent way too much on groceries (as I said fiesta). So maybe I will have to do this again in a few months and see what a normal month is like (are any months normal?). You will see from all the pizza stops that I tend to buy a slice of pie every time we go grocery shopping.
Total -28630
Eating Out -2796 Groceries -11871 Household -7,973
Entertainment -745 Health -1591 Jeepney -694
date category amount description
18/03/2016 Clothes -300 Diamond mart
4/3/2016 Cell Load -500
1/3/2016 Eating out -285 Capt dad
2/3/2016 Eating out -350 Jolibee
2/3/2016 Eating out -17 Mt dew
4/3/2016 Eating out -75 Pizza
6/3/2016 Eating out -50 Waffle and coke
10/3/2016 Eating out -100 Cokes wedding party
12/3/2016 Eating out -53 Pizza and mt dew
12/3/2016 Eating out -132 Andok’s
12/3/2016 Eating out -45 Waffle and coke
18/03/2016 Eating out -20 Waffle
18/03/2016 Eating out -55 Coke and M&Ms
18/03/2016 Eating out -280 McDo’s
19/03/2016 Eating out -200 Zarks
19/03/2016 Eating out -13 Water
19/03/2016 Eating out -100 Churros and coke
21/03/2016 Eating out -199 Lechon chicken
21/03/2016 Eating out -75 Bongs (soup joint – not pot joint ha ha)
23/03/2016 Eating out -231 Capt Dad
23/03/2016 Eating out -42 Ice cream
25/03/2016 Eating out -13 Coke
26/03/2016 Eating out -193 Batchoy
26/03/2016 Eating out -58 Pizza
30/03/2016 Eating out -210 Pizza and mt dew
2/3/2016 Entertainment -320 Fiesta pageant
3/3/2016 Entertainment -75 Fiesta games
25/03/2016 Entertainment -350 Caves
1/3/2016 Food -118 Gaisano
2/3/2016 Food -392 Capt morgan
2/3/2016 Food -400 Fiesta cokes
3/3/2016 Food -477 Fiesta beer
4/3/2016 Food -4,200 Groceries and fiesta
4/3/2016 Food -212 Fiesta wine
6/3/2016 Food -200 Robinson’s
12/3/2016 Food -1,462 Robinson’s
18/03/2016 Food -1,500 Robinson’s
19/03/2016 Food -560 Robinson’s
21/03/2016 Food -274 Robinson’s
23/03/2016 Food -187 Wet Market
26/03/2016 Food -1,750 Robinson’s
30/03/2016 Food -139 Wet Market
1/3/2016 Health -55 Vitamins
1/3/2016 Health -144 Meds
2/3/2016 Health -120 Massage. Her
12/3/2016 Health -250 Massage. Me
12/3/2016 Health -150 Haircut
15/03/2016 Health -147 Meds
18/03/2016 Health -15 Laminate PhilHealth card
19/03/2016 Health -260 Meds
19/03/2016 Health -300 Massage. me
26/03/2016 Health -150 Meds
2/3/2016 House -1,100 Fiesta Unitop (new dishes & utensils)
4/3/2016 House -296 Fiesta balloons and kitchenware
12/3/2016 House -3,477 Electric
23/03/2016 House -1,100 Globe (internet)
23/03/2016 House -2,000 Savings (usually p5,000 but fiesta took it)
10/3/2016 Taxi -60
19/03/2016 Taxi -100
1/3/2016 Transport -26 Jeepney
2/3/2016 Transport -130
4/3/2016 Transport -120
6/3/2016 Transport -60
10/3/2016 Transport -36
12/3/2016 Transport -15
15/03/2016 Transport -84
18/03/2016 Transport -69
18/03/2016 Transport -13
18/03/2016 Transport -30
19/03/2016 Transport -15
19/03/2016 Transport -18
21/03/2016 Transport -26
23/03/2016 Transport -26
30/03/2016 Transport -26
8/3/2016 Vacation -1,500 Wife to province
18/03/2016 Vacation -500 Wife to province
Tito Tim,
I’m in Afghanistan and I’ve been following your videos on youtube for some time now..
Oddly, I just noticed the blog link above the subscribe button of your youtube page.
I’m considering using the monefy app. I’ve seen some videos and it looks to be helpful.
This app will make the daily tracking easier.
I will be visiting the PI in Sep. – Oct. Hopefully we can arrange a visit.
I’m looking forward to retiring in the PI, but the wife is Hard and Fast against the idea.
Maybe its time for a new wife… LOL… Cough…
I don’t use the blog much anymore, since I started vlogging. It is still here… but in need of attention ha ha.
As for retiring, well I have some old Navy buddies that thought they were retiring here but their Filipino wives had other ideas.
On $800 a month all your family happy, isn’t it?
Yes, but “all” is just the 2 of us 🙂