Well depends, when I live with my GF in the province we dont spend much, I think we would live very good on 30k a month together, and that would be 15k each.

And then we dont eat like pinoys, I cook alot but buy the groceries at the market, and some in SM.

I can break that up for those intrested.

Rent 3500 for 2 bedroom around 50 sqm in Mabalacat (30 min from angeles)
2mbit comclark 1200php
Elec 1800 per month (aircon running, would be like 500 without aircon)

Food 300 php per day = 9000 per month

15k left so 500 php for other expenses such as cinema, eating something more expensive and so on.
But that assumes you find a girlfriend with her own money who is willing to have a western relationship with shared expenses.

Obv I spend a little bit more as we go out to eat and restaurants as ABC and such, but if i wanted to I could do it easily.

It's much easier being comfortably at home during rains and floods.

Eating healthy is usually a bit more expensive, but yea do tend to buy a lot of import meat from NZ (and a lot of meat in general). And also other high quality ****.

If you haven't already, I recommend checking out a fresh or farmers' market if you cook a lot at home and if one is close enough. Produce is a lot cheaper than supermarket prices and fresher. I'd say stick to buying meat at big stores though imo, as it's probably not worth the risk with it sitting out on the street and all that.

Yeah, for meat I usually just buy from the supermarket, or imported ones I buy at S&R (a bit more pricey but usually worth it).

Salcedo Saturday market and Lagazpi Sunday market are both great for lots of good decent foods. The eggplant lasagna made by Rose is the best food i have ever eaten ever.

CEBU
1. Is there any casino with Live Omaha tournaments or CG in CEBU city area? Or at the half Island just outside city?

2. Anyone living there that want to hook up and take a beer?
I'll be arriving there tonight and staying 3 weeks.

I play mostly Omaha tournaments online but have done the regular study/work grind at same time so don't have much time to play poker. That part is changing since my work contract ends in two months and I'll consider relocating to Cebu. I'm just thinking life is to short to live with the cold weather in northern Europe. My nick on Poker Stars is:
http://www.officialpokerrankings.com...B1067.html?t=3

there is APT cebu in Feb, the most cg action would be around then. was thinking of heading over for that

http://www.theasianpokertour.com/apt...ries-cebu-2014

We have a small community in Cebu, will PM you my Skype. Think we're gonna have a meetup soon, like sunday or so.

Regarding the live games I'm not sure, all of us here just play online.

Oh I wanna go to that too.

Although when I was in PI last time I got totally ripped off with the currency exchange.

so 1 peso is around 0.7 thai bht. I had some pesos left over I wanted to change back. I was in a hurry and changed it at bkk airport. I only got around 0.40 bht. Couldn't believe it as I was only getting just over half the value.

If I changed to baht in the PI would I get the proper rate? Every exchange place at the airport was the same and not much diff in the city as far as I remember.

How do you guys make deposits onto pokerstars? I tried using my debit card from BDO that is connected to my savings account there and it was a no go. I went to the bank today and the girl told me I can't use my debit card to make any online purchases?!? She said I need to sign up for a credit card for that? wtf? So how am I supposed to deposit if I can't even use my debit card to load money onto entropay or whatever the ****??

sounds the same as thailand, the card they give you is just for ATM use, you then apply within the internet banking for the 'credit card' / web shopping card. that's just a debit card linked to your balance for online use, often a virtual card, you just get the numbers. you can use that to deposit onto entropay (another virtual card) then poker sites.

Well you gona lose money on exhange no matter what. You probably wont get any good rates for changing baht to pesos anywere. Some guy told me it is better to change for dollar first(even though you get 'ripped' twice). But offcourse try to avoid exhange points in airports general. If you don't have dollars, it might be best to try luck with atm...Withdraw max each time(usually 10k pesos) and change your pesos to Dollars before you go out of Philippines

Yea my guess would be that you'd get a much better currency exchange rate here in PI (for pesos -> baht). Always worth shopping around before exchanging though. With a 50% cut in value I'd rather keep the currency though tbh.

yeah just checked bank of bkk and commonwealth bank in oz. The peso doesn't travel well.

bank of bkk - buy peso at 66% of what they sell.

commonwealth - 74%

many large banks don't buy them at all.

peso appears to be the worst with tawain dollar and Vietnam dong not far behind.

You're probably correct in saying best way is to exchange into dollars in PI but I would suspect even then you lose a fair chunk even then. The pretty awful sites for BPi and BDO don't publish buy and sell exchange rates for good reason.

Not very enticing for foreigners who want to live/do business in PI surely.

That sounds great! Adding you right away.
I'm sitting in Manilla waiting for plane. Booked a hotel exactly in middle of the 3 universities that border to downtown Cebu City :P

I've read about that and will check in the hotel/resort that hosted the last event. Btw u had a great post/link in the other thread with all info u collected. Cheers!

Who are going to APT Manila in October?

yw

http://www.theasianpokertour.com/apt...es-manila-2013

I've been living in Manila for over a decade.

I've lived all over the place, done lots of things I am proud of, and I've done lots of things I am not going to admit ever.

I decided to finally register and post, as I've seen so much information and questions come up about the Philippines, and that so much of the information here is not really correct.

Feel free to ask any poker/finance/real estate questions you might have, I'll do my best to answer from my experiences here.

Finally someone who knows what they are talking about

Welcome! And feel free to correct anything that might've been posted as incorrect previously :-).