Almost 1 year ago I made this video right here,
and in that video, I said that the living cost for one month in Bali
was 9,485,000 IDR
or 492.62 pounds in total.
Boy, oh boy, is this not the case anymore!
Back then, I was actually paying pandemic prices,
and ever since, the cost of living in Bali has risen a lot.
So I want to give you guys a more realistic overview of what your monthly expenses will look like
if you're looking to move to Bali right now.
At the end of this video, I'm gonna give a full monthly breakdown
of how much you're gonna be expecting to pay a month in Bali,
and we can decide together "Is Bali still that cheap SE Asian digital nomad dream land?"
"Has is gotten too expensive?"
If you enjoy this video, please subscribe,
I'm trying to hit 2,000 subscribers by the end of the year, and I think I can do it.
I just want to stop by saying that yes, if you want to come here and live like a local,
if you want to live outside the populated areas of Bali,
then it can still be done very very cheaply.
Although this isn't gonna be the case for people looking for their western comforts,
especially if you're looking to call Bali your long-term home.
Trust me, you're probably gonna get bored eating Indonesian food
for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day,
and you're probably not going to live outside that digital nomad communities
here in Canggu, Kuta and Uluwatu areas. Oh, and Ubud.
But with that said, let's dive in.
One year ago, in my last video, I was spending 5 million IDR per month,
and splitting it between 2 people, and nothing much there has changed.
I'm now staying at a place called Agatha Canggu guesthouse,
and I'm still splitting it between 2 people.
I know this sounds cheap, and that's because it is,
but when I moved into this guesthouse last February,
I was actually paying only 3 million IDR per month.
And now, because I've been here for almost a year,
I actually get a very good discounted long-term guest price, 4.7 million,
but I've had friends that have enquired to stay here in recent months,
and they've actually been quoted 7 million a month to stay in this very same guesthouse.
However, at this moment, 7 million is actually on the low end for Canggu,
and getting a decent guesthouse in the main areas of Canggu
is probably gonna run you anywhere between 7 and 12 million IDR per month right now.
That's like 450 to 750 US dollars per month.
To put this into perspective, back in the UK I was paying around 700 dollars a month
to live in a 2-bedroom apartment with my friend,
and that included the bills and we lived right in the center of my hometown, just off the high street.
That makes the rent price for a lot of guesthouses in Canggu,
the same as what it was costing me to live a month in the UK, and that's nuts.
And don't even get me started on villas, because they're so hard to find right now,
they're getting snapped up as soon as they hit the market,
and the prices have skyrocketed since pre-pandemic.
Also, good hostels are pretty expensive at the moment.
You're probably looking around 12 to 20 dollars a night for a dorm room,
and that's gonna be a pretty good hostel.
I mean, there's gonna be pretty cheap hostels out there, but they're probably not gonna be up to a nice standard.
But they're definitely not going to be that sub 10-dollar a night hostel that you expect from SE Asia.
Top tip though, if you're looking for cheaper long-term accommodation,
then search areas outside of Canggu, like Seseh, Cemagi, Kerobokan.
It's likely that you can find guesthouses out here for probably around the 4 to 8 million a month
instead of like the 7 to 12 million a month.
It is 20 minutes outside of Canggu, but if you're okay with doing that ride almost every day in and out,
then why not go for it?
It's also quieter out there as well,
but bear in mind there's definitely less Western options when it comes to food.
So scooter rentals is actually another price that's shot up since tourism has come back to the island.
If you're coming here to Bali, you're likely to spend around 60 to 150,000 a day,
depending on the size of the scooter
but remember, it's cheaper if you book it long-term.
I'm actually still renting the same Yamaha MX I was renting when I made the last video,
but instead of 1.2 million a month now, it's costing me 1.4 million a month.
Now that's not a big jump in price, but actually I'm getting long-term customer price again,
and I think now for an M Max you're probably looking anywhere between 1.6 and 2 million,
depending on who you're renting from.
If you're not looking for a big bike like mine
and instead you're opting for a smaller Honda Vero or Scoopy,
then you're probably gonna run around 1 to 1.2 million a month to rent one of these,
but I prefer bigger bikes because you get more storage space,
it tackles steep hills easier, especially with two people on it,
it feel more stable when you're riding it, because it's heavier,
and that way it just makes the overall ride a lot more safer.
Bear in mind, the other week fuel prices went up as well from 7.5k liter to now 10K a liter.
Now that's not a big jump and the fuel prices haven't gone up on the island in a long time,
but now it means it cost me around 50 to 60k to fill up my tank, which I do around 4 times a month.
Food in Bali is one of those things that could be eaten as luxuriously or as cheaply as you like,
it just depends on your taste and budget.
However, this is another area where prices have risen quite a bit in the last 6 months or so,
especially for western food.
Most restaurants have upped the prices on their menus by around 10 to 20,000,
which doesn't sound like a lot, but when you eat over a month, it does add up.
In my last video, I said I like to eat local food a lot so that I can keep my costs down, which was true,
but after a year here in Bali eating local food that much became very repetitive,
so it's not something that I do that much anymore.
I still love Indonesian food, don't get me wrong,
but these days I tend to find myself leaning in more towards western options,
especially as Indonesian food a lot of it is fried and oily.
So a fancy meal out here in Canggu is probably going to run you between 150 and 200,000 per person,
depending on the place.
A mid-range meal is going to be about 100,000 to 150,000,
and local food hasn't changed all that much
and it's still going to cost you around 20 to 50,000 for a local meal.
I usually eat two meals a day, a late breakfast and a dinner to save a bit of money,
like I did in the last video.
Plus, know some really great breakfast places that do a deal for breakfast and a drink,
so I never really more than 70 or 80,000 for a breakfast.
Let me know if you want me to make a video about where to eat cheaply in Canggu.
And for dinner I usually eat local around twice a week, I would say.
I would say maybe one fancy meal every week or 2, and then the rest would be mid-range meals.
Sara and I are also sucker for a cinnamon roll, and as much as I hate to admit it,
we probably eat them twice a week and it cost us 37,500 IDR each cinnamon roll.
Sorry, not sorry.
I can hear you all saying it right now "Ryan, why don't you cook at home? You'll save yourself some money",
and I see your point, and actually we cooked at home the other day,
and to buy all the ingredients from the local market was still 250,000 IDR,
which we can easily get a good meal out for 2 for that.
So there's not really any point cooking when it's just as cheap to eat out.
So I bet you're wondering about partying in Bali.
Well, actually, I've pretty much all but stopped drinking.
Every now and then I might enjoy a beer with dinner, but I haven't got drunk in a very very long time now,
and this has saved me so much money! It's unbelievable!
Drinking here in Bali is actually just as expensive as it is drinking in the UK.
A large bottle of beer here from the shop is around 35,000 and from a restaurant is around 50,000.
Cocktails will run you usually more than 100,000 per cocktail,
and spirits and wine are really expensive as well.
It can be really cheap if you drink arak,
which is the local moonshine brewed here in Bali, which I recommend.
Everyone should do that once, it's definitely an experience.
But otherwise, if you're going out say once a week at the weekend,
it's gonna cost you an extra 500 to a million IDR a week just to party.
I use Safety Wing as my travel insurance and it doesn't require you to have a permanent residence anywhere,
and when you sign up with other insurers at the beginning of your trip,
they require you to start from your home country, which isn't the case.
You can buy and renew Safety Wing insurance from anywhere in the world.
And you also don't need to declare which countries you're going to before your trip,
which other insurers do require you to do.
It's only 42 dollars a month
and I know that a lot of my friends here in Bali and around the world,
they all use Safety Wing as their travel insurance.
Luckily so far, I haven't had to make a claim.
Touch wood, but so far I haven't heard anything negative about this insurance.
If you're looking for affordable and easy travel insurance,
I'll leave my affiliate link to Safety Wings in the description below,
And if you use this link, you'll be helping support me as a creator. Thank you!
Other expenses is the part that's going to include laundry, SIM card plans and haircuts.
I do my laundry slightly different now. I actually take it to a coin laundry and do it myself
instead of giving it to the multiple laundry places around Canggu.
And this is because I found that doing the drop-off and pickup laundry,
my clothes would get stained a lot more often from the dirty machines and iron,
and they would also lose items of clothing quite often.
Luckily, that's never happened to me, but it's happened to a lot of my friends.
When I go to the coin laundry, I can see for myself that the machines are clean,
I can use my own detergent, so I get to choose,
and I load and unload all of my washing myself, so I don't lose any clothing.
Not only that, but when you drop off your clothes to one of the usual laundry places,
it usually takes actually takes 24 to 48 hours to get your laundry back to you.
When I do it myself in the coin laundry, it only takes an hour and a half for the wash and the dry.
I really recommend this way of laundry in SE Asia,
the price isn't subjected to the weight of laundry that you provide.
It's 20,000 IDR per machine, and I usually use 4 machines: two for colors and two for white,
so it's 80,00 a time, and quite often I split this with Sara.
But as a single person, that would only be 80,000 IDR a week for laundry.
For SIM cards, I actually moved from the main carrier here in Bali, Telkomsel,
to a different carrier called XL.
The problem with using Telkomsel long term in Bali
is that you need to register your IMEI number of your phone with the government
and you need to pay a one-off tax fee that's 50% of the phone's value, over 500 dollars.
So if you have a new iPhone,
this is going to set you back around 250 dollars just to register your IMEI number here in Indonesia.
And if you don't do this, your phone is going to stop working after 3 months.
Stupid, isn't it?
When your phone stops working after 3 months, you won't be able to go to little phone shops around anymore.
They stopped being able to re-register your phone a few weeks ago,
so you'll have to go to Denpasar every 3 months to the Telkomsel HQ
to get your phone re-registered, so that it works again.
With XL, for some reason, this doesn't seem to happen.
It hasn't happened to me, it hasn't happened to my friends, so it's a good option to go for,
and honestly the signal isn't that much different to Telkomsel itself,
and it's a tad cheaper as well.
And when you want to top up, you'll be able to go to any phone store anywhere on the island
and they'll be able to do this for you.
I pay around 60,000 IDR per month for 12 GB of Internet
and I'm pretty happy with this price.
I used to go to a really nice barber's on Batu Bolong called Old Town Barber,
and I really recommend this place, it's really good,
but it was a bit expensive, around 130,000 for a standard haircut.
Now if you're looking for a good quality trim and you don't mind paying the price,
then I do recommend this place.
However, I found a much more local place in Berawa that cuts my hair for only 50,000 IDR,
and they do almost as good of a job.
And for this price, it means I can get my hair cut twice a month and I still save money.
Yay me!
So let's count all that up and see what your realistic monthly expenses are here in Bali every month.
So here I'm not including any personal monthly expenses like my Adobe plan, direct debits or cloud storage,
and I'm not going to include any non-essential items I've purchased this month,
like trainers and camera gear.
I want to give a fully realistic expectation of what you could be spending a month
if you decide to live in Bali long-term.
So for a guesthouse, you're looking at 9 million IDR a month in the center of Canggu.
For a scooter, you're looking at around 1 million IDR a month and 200,000 IDR amount for the fuel.
For meals out, which I'll use my eating routine,
I eat seven breakfasts, around two local meals for dinner,
one fancy meal for dinner and 4 mid-range meals for dinner a week.
That's 1,327,000 IDR a month on food.
It's not that bad in the grand scheme of things,
but remember if you'd like to eat 3 meals a day,
this is going to be a third more expensive than what I pay,
And also, if you get extra things, like I don't drink coffee, so I don't buy coffee at all,
but if you like to get a coffee a day, that's also going to add up and make it more expensive.
Travel insurance is 42 dollars a month, which is around 660 000 IDR.
Laundry is 200,000, my haircut is 100,000
and I pay 60,000 a month for my SIM card plan.
This brings a realistic essential monthly outgoing in Bali to...
Drumroll, please.
12,545,000 IDR,
or just over 800 dollars.
Not including any non-essential purchases
or any personal monthly outgoings that you might have already.
And bear in mind that if you want to eat three meals a day,
or maybe you want to live in a villa instead of a guesthouse,
or you like to party and go out and visit beach clubs,
it's going to cost you a lot more than this.
In my last video, I included non-essential purchases that I'd bought that month,
so if we remove them from the total last year,
at the end of 2021 in December,
I was paying around 7,585,000 IDR a month,
or around 485 dollars.
So that's an increase of over 300 dollars per month since the end of last year.
I mean, my feeding habits have changed a bit as well.
I don't eat as local as much, but still.
So the real question is: has Bali become too expensive?
In my honest opinion, yes.
I would say yes, in the digital nomad areas like Canggu, Ubud, Uluwatu.
Yes it's definitely gotten too expensive.
Like I said earlier, I was paying a similar monthly expense
for my two-bedroom flat in the center of my town back in the UK.
And I came here to Bali at the end of last year
because it was cheaper to live here for a month than it was back in the UK,
and that's not the case anymore.
I mean, you do have to bear in mind that this is definitely a higher quality of living.
You do get to eat out every day,
and if you decide to get a villa, you get to live in a villa
which is obviously going to cost a lot more back in the west.
But in general, on an average basis, it's definitely the same as living back at home.
And if you're looking for that Bali high life that you see on social media,
and you want a villa, you want to go out partying all the time,
you want to visit the best beach clubs, you want to eat lovely food, 3 meals a day,
it's gonna cost you around 1,5 to 2,000 dollars per month at the very least.
And don't get me wrong, you can live in Bali for very cheaply if you so wish to.
You'd be getting a local house instead of a guesthouse or a villa
and paying for it for a year up front.
You'd be eating local food,
but you'd basically be swapping your western lifestyle for a Southeast Asian lifestyle,
and if you're okay with that, that's great!
But for a lot of people this isn't going to be the case.
So what about you?
Do you think Canggu has gone too expensive for a SE Asian city?
Let me know in the comments below, let's start a heathly debate about this,
and subscribe for more.