Cost of living in dumaguete? ($860 VA disability pension enough?)

DB: care to share why you're hopping so much.. We've been in the same rental for 2-1/2 yrs north end of dmgt...

 

Trying out different areas as renting has allowed me to do, will build eventually but want to make sure where to build or buy while my son is too young for school

 

DB, sounds like a pain in the @ss, but i understand, if it woiks for you, kewl, good luck.. Hope you can swing private school, the public schools leave a lot to be desired, like history, MATH (as someone pointed out, what would happen if all the calculators dropped dead)......ethics, business planning, reading.....

 

Apart from the fact that the TO obviously is not very interested in getting hints and answers, I am wondering what we are talking about here.

It’s not a matter which kind of lifestyle you can afford with 860 bucks. Unimportant whether you live in a mansion with pool or a nipa hut, you have a girl friend and children or not, you eat tenderloin every day or sinigang.
Irrelevant.

Only thing that matters is lack of medical insurance. This is essential and you can’t afford it with low income. Means, first serious sickness, better said first expensive sickness, put you directly into bankruptcy. If you survive.

Hospital bills can easily reach a Million Pesos, just for a surgeryor any kind of senior treatment. Then you might need rehabilitation. Cost you another couple of hundreds of thousands of Peso.

With 860 bucks per months you can not make necessary savings. Depending on the exchange rate you just have 35.000 to 45.000 Peso per month.
That’s enough to have a very very simple life. That’s it.
And why should somebody move around half the globe to have this kind of lifestyle ?
Ok. That’s privacy. Don’t want to judge about it.

As said, Dir me it is an absolutely NoGo to emigrate with 860 Dollar in my pocket and without any kind of medical insurance in a country like Philippines. No way.

 

This is why I shake my head when people say they are happy to take care of their extended family's medical bills - one serious vehicle accident involving, say, 5 family members and that could be P5 million.

 

Well, that would be an extreme situation, but it could happen. Of course.

I am lucky and don’t get even asked for financial support. Family is quit ok and they know very well that they cannot f*ck around with me.
Would do it in case there is something really serious going on with parents or siblings. I know them since more than 11 years and I wouldn’t let them die if I could avoid it.

From my point of view the thing to do is to have a local medical insurance in place for wife, her parents and siblings (in my case).
Phil Health costs you a few bucks per year, and releases you from getting asked in case your family is like that.

 

Yeah ... my personality is to prepare for the worse-case scenario (although I don't have a fully stocked bunker yet!).

When you so often see a family of 5 or more fully unprotected on one motor cycle then you know the possibility of serious medical costs is one crash away.

 

At least Phil-health will pay up to 50% of the medical bill, then it will be "up to you"