Okay, this is blatantly stolen from a friend of mines Cambodia Blog, but he says that he does not mind.
When you have finished reading this, remember that my volunteer allowance is around US$200 a month – plus rent…
D
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Dear all,
I have been corresponding by email over the last few months with a young couple in Belgium who are contemplating a move to Phnom Penh to set up permanent residence. They recently asked me whether it is possible for two persons to survive in Phnom Penh on a fixed income of US$750 per month. I thought that my reply to them might be of sufficient general interest to the readers of this journal that I am posting excerpts below:
With regards to your specific question about getting by in PP on $750 a month, the answer is that with careful money management and provided you live a very, very, simple lifestyle, you can just about survive on that amount of money. But it all really depends on the type of life you want to live. You can live just as simply or extravagantly as you want, and each comes with its own price tag. Jill and I live very quietly and simply in a family type environment. We eat all of our meals at home, do not go out after dark, do not frequent bars, do not spend money on beer or meals out.
Each month it takes about $550 to support us. If you also factor in the cost of medical insurance which we pay annually, visa renewal, our monthly expenses would probably run somewhere in the $700 to $750 range.
You can find a very nice apartment in the $150 to $175 range. It is very common for families in PP to rent out space in their homes, and it is usually one whole floor of an Asian style shop house. This will usually include anywhere from one to three bedrooms, one or more bathrooms and space to set up a kitchen area.
We found accommodation for one person we met through my weblog, and he is renting one floor in a neighbour’s house for $150 a month. It is a four meter by twelve meter space, with one bedroom and one bath. The family put in a new air conditioning unit for him, and furnished the space with a new bed and armoire, curtains, fan, etc. It is typical to rent for a term of several months, rather than on a month-to-month basis. Our friend rented this space for six months, with a three month deposit up front.
Electricity can be a bit pricey over here. If you are running one a/c unit on a moderate basis, together with a TV, fans, computer, etc., you can expect a monthly electrical bill in the $35 to $40 range.
If you get cable TV installed (a must, unless you plan on going mad with boredom), installation is $50 and monthly cost is $10 (or $50 for 6 months, if you pay for 6 months in advance). Bottom line, you can get a very decent apartment, together with all utilities, including cable TV, at a monthly cost of around $200.
If you've got a monthly budget of $750, then you've still got $550 of spending power for your other expenses!
One thing that you would absolutely need is good medical insurance, particularly coverage that provides for evacuation to Bangkok in the event of a medical emergency, as the medical facilities and quality of care in PP are very poor. For someone in your age range (late twenty's, early thirty's), you can expect to pay an annual premium somewhere in the $400 to $550 range. So that would be something less than $100 a month for the two of you, leaving about $450 a month for the balance of your expenses.
Food is another area where the expense can vary widely, depending on your tastes and lifestyle. Jill and I eat very inexpensively. Her sister does all of our food shopping and cooking. She shops everyday, and buys all of our produce and meat at the local open-air Khmer markets. With the exception of packaged noodles, we really do not eat any processed food. Everything is fresh.
Each week we provide her sister with a $20 food allowance. That easily covers the costs of meat, fish and vegetables. Over and above the $20, Jill and I buy rice (a 50kg sack for about $17 or $18, which lasts about 6 weeks) and boxes of instant noodles. As long as we've lived here, I do not think we've ever spent more than $125 for the monthly food. Jill and I do indulge ourselves with a certain amount of western snack foods, which probably run around $30 a month. So over all, our total monthly food expense is going to hover somewhere around $140 to $150.
If the two of you were to live here and eat all of your meals at restaurants which cater to foreigners, you could easily spend $350 to $400 a month on food. If you were to eat half of your meals at good quality Khmer restaurants, and cooked the other half of your meals at home, you would probably be spending about $200 a month for food. If you ate a Khmer diet and had someone cook all of your meals at home, you could eat for as little as $100 a month. Again, it all depends on your personal tastes and lifestyle choices.
In my personal view, the best and most inexpensive way to go is to rent space in a Khmer household, then hire someone from the Khmer family to do your household cleaning, laundry and cooking. This is a very common arrangement, and a very inexpensive way to live.So to make a long answer short, two guys can easily live on $750 a month, provided you do not get seriously involved in the foreign ex-pat social scene, which is very hedonistically inclined and heavily dependent on alcohol consumption and expensive restaurants, both of which can severely strain a meagre budget.
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This could explain why I never have any money !!!
D
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