So if you've been following our story you know that my wife and I have spent just over a year living in Malaysia,
and in this video I'm going to talk all about how much money we have spent here,
and just give you some general information about the cost of living in Malaysia. Let's get started!
While in Malaysia we spent three months living in Cameron Highlands one month in Georgetown,
five months living in Batu Ferringhi, two months in Ipoh, and then one month in a combination of other places that you can see on the map there.
I'm going to take the total amount we spent in seven different categories and divided by 12 so that it's a monthly average for our spending.
Keep in mind that these averages are for two people both my wife and I.
Let me begin with the cost of housing. We spent an average of US$586 per month on housing, and that includes our utilities and internet.
All of the apartments we rented were three bedroom apartments,
now with just the two of us we didn't need three bedrooms, but three bedroom apartments were the easiest to find in the places we were living.
We rented our apartments mostly through Airbnb.
That makes the cost a little bit higher because you are paying the extra fees, but it is also a good way to find short-term rentals.
We did get some discounted rates, due to covid some of the owners dropped their prices.
But the best way to save on housing is to get a one-year lease instead of renting through Airbnb.
We couldn't do that because we didn't know how long we would be staying in Malaysia,
but we talked to a couple who signed a three-year lease on an apartment that was identical to ours in the same building in Penang.
They signed their lease before covid so no discounts, and they were paying 1400 ringgit per month.
That's about US$340 per month.
That's for a three bedroom fully furnished apartment in a complex with a pool, security and a gym but that doesn't include the utilities.
So on top of the 1400 ringgit for rent they said they were paying about 30 ringgit for electricity.
Now that sounded very low to me, but they don't run the air conditioner which if they had that would make the price go up quite a bit.
They paid 10 ringgit per month for water that's just a few US dollars.
They also said they paid 90 ringgit per month for tv and internet.
We saw internet plans advertised in Ipoh with prices ranging from 100 ringgit to 200 ringgit per month depending on the speed.
In US dollars that would be between $25 and $50 per month.
And if you use an agent to help you take care of finding an apartment and dealing with the lease paperwork that costs usually about one month's rent.
So back to our cost of living our average was $586 through Airbnb,
but we think we could have lived comfortably for US$450 per month with a one-year lease, including utilities and internet.
I also want to mention a website called iproperty.com that has listings of apartments for rent a great way to get an idea of long-term rental prices.
All right, I'll talk about the cost of food next. We spent an average of US$351 per month on food.
I'll talk both about food from the grocery store here and also from eating out.
There are plenty of full-size grocery stores in Malaysia, mainly Tesco, Giant, and Jaya.
But there are also many outdoor local markets that sell fruits vegetables and even meats.
Now one thing that really influences the price of food items is whether or not the food is local or whether or it is imported from another country, with imported food of course being more expensive
Alcohol is also quite expensive because it's heavily taxed.
That wasn't an issue for us since we don't generally drink alcohol.
If you want to know the actual prices for specific grocery store items like tomatoes rice bread milk butter eggs etc then check out the video in the link that you see on the screen there.
Now for eating out the cost is going to depend on whether you're eating local Malaysian street food or if you're eating in more restaurant type places.
The local food, well first of all it's delicious, but it's also super inexpensive.
Here's just an example: roti canai is a common food for breakfast.
It's a kind of like a flat bread that comes with a curry sauce for dipping,
and the cost for this is usually between 1 and 2 ringgit, that's about 25 or 50 US cents.
And it's surprisingly filling. I'm not still hungry after I eat roti canai,
and if I were still hungry I'd just get another one at that price.
For lunch a popular local dish is nasi lemak. It's a rice dish with anchovy sauce sometimes wrapped in a banana leaf and sometimes served with fried chicken.
And this dish typically costs under four ringgit, that's less than a dollar.
And then a typical lunch or dinner might be nasi kandar.
This is a curry based dish with rice, vegetables and fried chicken, usually 10 ringgit or less, that's about two or three dollars or so.
Now like I said if you're going to eat western food in a more mid-range type restaurant you'll pay a little more.
Many of these restaurants will have lunch specials.
For example this Italian restaurant has a lunch special of pasta or pizza with juice for around 20 or 30 ringgit.
That's in the four to six dollar range in US dollars.
So our next biggest expense category is our health insurance which comes in at US$198 per month.
We have an international policy with IMGlobal.
We have never actually filed a claim or used this insurance but we feel it's necessary to have it.
It covers us everywhere in the world including in the U.S. whenever we go home for a visit.
Next is our miscellaneous category, everything not in the other categories, and we averaged US$101 for this category.
This would include our cell phone sim card, which we just got a card for one of our phones.
It also includes things like clothes that we bought in Malaysia, toothpaste, our masks for covid virus, and yeah, just all the other little things that add up.
The next category is for medical appointments and we averaged $76 dollars per month in that category.
Now I was telling you about our health insurance, it has a $5000 deductible,
which we have never come close to spending that much so we've paid for our medical appointments with our own money.
And let me just say that our experience with medical care in Malaysia has been fabulous,
absolutely top quality, very accessible, and in some cases the cost is 10% of what we are used to in the United States.
We had several doctors appointments here in Malaysia, blood tests, dentist appointments, medication, eye exams.
The eye exam was $12, that would have been over $100 in the US.
We wanted to get all our checkups done in Malaysia while we had the chance and we are glad that we did.
Next is our spending on entertainment and this ended up coming out to be an average of US$59 per month.
For us entertainment is mostly outdoor activities and sightseeing type activities.
We loved the paddle boarding in Gopeng that you see there.
We loved the snorkeling on the Perhentian Islands.
We loved taking a tour of the tea plantations in the mountains and Cameron Highlands.
We loved taking a boat tour through the mangroves on the beautiful island of Langkawi.
We loved taking the funicular up to the top of Penang Hill.
We loved taking a Malaysian cooking class to learn how to make some Malaysian food.
We loved taking a batik class where we learned the art of dyeing and coloring fabric.
And many more activities, I can't show them all.
Throw in a few museums, a couple of movies at the movie theater, and a concert and that's the $59 per month on entertainment.
And finally we have our transportation category which came to $39 per month on average.
Try surviving in the U.S. spending only $39 per month on transportation for two people, yeah, that's not going to happen.
The public transportation system in Malaysia, both within cities and also between cities is efficient, inexpensive and very convenient.
It's very easy to live in Malaysia without owning a car.
The $39 was mostly for buses and trains, although we did occasionally take a Grab taxi, which is also super cheap usually 5 to 10 ringgit for a short ride.
So when you add it all up and put it all together it comes out to be US$1410 per month for one year in Malaysia for both of us.
For us we are spending about half of what we spent living in the United States,
and of course we recognize that the strength of the US dollar makes it possible for us to live more cheaply in Malaysia.
Remember that everybody lives a different lifestyle your spending might not be the same as ours.
Thanks for watching everyone.
We have many other videos about our life in Malaysia, so check out our channel page for more.