Bali Monthly Cost: Retired Couple in Early 50s Tells All (2025)

Bali Monthly Cost: Retired Couple in Early 50s Tells All (2025)

Hi guys, we made it through month number one, living on a budget in Southeast Asia. Woohoo! We did it. So, month one, we were in Shangoo, Bali. Uh, we’re going to get into it in this video and give you guys a full breakdown of if we stayed within our $2,000 budget or not. And we’ll kind of give you um some tips that we learned in our first month. As you could see behind us, we’ve already moved on to our second location. It’s Ulu Watu, also in Bali, just maybe about a 30 minute drive from where we were before. Hi, I’m Mark. And I’m Kenda. And we’re in Nomads Worldwide. So, as she was saying, we did spend a month in Shangu. And we explained that in our last video if you guys want to watch that just to get a little bit of a breakdown. Um, we’re going to um stay till the end. We’re going to do a full breakdown of our budget for the month. One of the biggest fears, at least for me, was leaving the comforts of home. you know, picking up and leaving everything behind. It’s it’s kind of daunting. We weren’t really sure what to expect. And $2,000 coming from the States really does not sound like a big budget to live on for a full month of everything. But it really depends on how you want to live. Living in Bali, you could do it on the super cheap. You could probably even do it cheaper than we did. Or you can go bougie and fivestar all the way. But for us, we wanted to make the most of our time here, leave all of the behind at home, and just really almost live like a local, I would say. Right. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And it it worked out way better than we thought. Um I was surprised uh listening to people on YouTube and online. I didn’t realize that uh people say it’s cheap and easy to live, but uh it really actually is if you uh put your mind to it. Living on a budget doesn’t mean you always necessarily have to be cheap all the time. You know, we did have a couple days where we spent a little bit more than the banker probably wanted to. But you know what? You have to live a little bit. You have to have your fun. Um you can’t just be living on street food and uh staying in your room all the time. Uh you do need to uh go out, experience uh some culture and some other type of food and stuff to keep yourself sane. Otherwise, the street food does get a little tiring if you’re eating that three meals a day every day. It does. But, you know, I think even like going out and having a good time like we did, we still actually compared to the United States, we still were pretty frugal, I would say. Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Um, there is places that are going to be a lot more expensive, but you, like I said, you just have to do your research and just make sure that you pick spots that are uh good, but not overexpensive. So, now we’re back at our villa. What a great day we had at the beach. Was that beach? Let us know. Did you guys like it? Comment below. You’re definitely going to be seeing a lot more of that in some upcoming videos. But now, let’s talk money. So, first things first, before we get into the whole budget thing, we want to be totally transparent. Uh, we did buy airline tickets to get to Southeast Asia. Uh, we bought those before we stopped working at the end of May. Um, and we didn’t travel here until the middle of August. So, let’s break that down for you. So, the airline tickets we went through, Skyscanner, Google flights, you name it. We tried every trick in the book that we learned online, VPNs, all that stuff, everything. We wound up getting um for both of us a one-way ticket um to Bali. It cost us 604 a person uh only one stop in South Korea and that was through actually Delta Airlines and we booked it through uh Booking.com and um that was it. And like we said, that was before our $2,000 budget, so that is not included. So, the main part of any trip or any uh vacation is lodging. So, uh we did our again a b bunch of research and stuff like that. And we wound up going with Airbnb. It’s the old standby. They give you reviews, they give you pictures. Sometimes the pictures are not always what they say, but just be very wary of that. Reviews are pretty much your best friend with that. So, we wound up spending, this was a little bit pricey for us, but we’re learning that um the little bit on the higher end is usually better quality. So, um for the lodging this time around, we spent it was 418. Um it was a shared living space. Yeah. Now, that included we had our own personal I’ll call it room. It was almost like a little apartment if you will. We had our own room, our own bathroom, and then we had a shared space. So, downstairs was a communal kitchen. It was outdoors. There was actually a few of them. We also had a pool area, a gym, if you want to call it a gym. Um, and then the best part, I think, for us was the workspace. There was a rooftop workspace, great Wi-Fi. Um, and the one thing with the place we stayed at, everything was included. Wi-Fi, water, um, utilities. Uh, I don’t think I’m leaving anything out, but all of that was included. You always want to check that because for some places it’s not. So, for us, 418 for lodging, not too bad. Tip number one, location is key. This is one of the most important things I think we are learning and you should do this too. Check the location of where you will be staying. For us, we don’t mind walking as long as it’s walkable. You can use Google Maps uh to like map out the location and find it. Uh so make sure it’s around restaurants or wars where we are. Um it’s around like I’d say entertainment and or attractions as best as you can. on a budget, it’s a little bit hard to do. Um, you’re kind of outside of stuff, but uh, it depends on your budget and stuff also, for sure. And it also depends on what you’re looking for. So, if you know you need a gym close by and you’re going to walk, look on the map. Make sure it is there for you. But location is tip number one for any good traveler. Now, getting to my favorite part of the whole experience is food. So, um, as you can see, I like to eat even though I’ve been walking a lot and I lost some weight. But, um, we we had warong everywhere around us which we kind of got spoiled. Um, there was also some western food around like pizza, um, some barbecue and stuff like that. So, uh, this time around we locked out. Yeah. Now, one of the most important things, tip number two for you guys, if you want to travel on a budget, you want to eat local. You can save so much money eating local. Just Yeah. just make sure you go to places that are busy because that lets you know the food is going to be fresh with locals with locals and um it’s it’s going to save you so much money. So just to put it into perspective for you on an average day um just eating street food or out of wars um you’re looking at probably about $3 or $4 um for both of us. So you’re we’ve spent typically uh maybe $18 to $20 a day um for both of us just on food, which is which isn’t bad. No, for sure. That’s if you stick to stick to being strict. Yes. Yeah. But the total for our food budget was, drum roll please. So are you ready? The total for the month for food was only $718. Woohoo. And that’s for both of us. And that’s for both of us with food, drinks, and different things like that also. but maybe even a little fun thrown in there. One thing that’s important for us, might not be for you, was a gym. We wanted to be able to work out um as often as we wanted to and as close to home as possible. And it also helps kill the time. I mean, you have nothing but time when you’re retired and traveling. So, uh going to the gym, it’s healthy and it also uh helps you waste the day some. Yeah, absolutely. Now, who knew Bali is filled with gyms, but a lot of beautiful people here. Most of them cater to the influencers, if you will. So, a lot of the gyms were way, way, way out of our price ranges for sure. We wanted to spend on the low end, maybe $20 a month a person, if that, but we locked out. We found the cheapest gym that was close to home and that was $40 a person. Um, but it was literally 5 minutes. Yeah, it was a 5minute walk, if that. Um, it was had everything we needed. It was a little bit small, but they had free water for us and they had really great protein shakes that we actually bought almost every day and had those for lunch. Another thing too is a lot of the gyms uh we are no nonsense. I just like weights and cardio. A lot of the gyms uh the prices include um classes and training and all this other stuff and and like saunas and and so um we don’t need that. But if that’s for you that’s fine, but it’s probably not going to be budget. One thing we did do in preparation for this trip was we got rid of our big um phone carrier. We had T-Mobile and it was just draining us. So, we went with a company called US Mobile. They are fantastic. They offer international calling in some places. It doesn’t work in Indonesia, but otherwise, it only cost us $19 a month, and that is for unlimited um everything you need. Data, talk, text. Um the one thing is too, you could upgrade um to a higher plan if you want to get like other international places, but uh we we stick with the basic. So, what we did, which a lot of travelers do, is use an eim card. So, what we did before we even got here, I got a quick one online off of Cluke. It was $10. That way, when we landed here, I was able to get on my phone, access um whatever I needed because we needed to meet up with our driver that was going to take us here. And then halfway through the month, I had to upload it again, and that was another $12. So, overall, it was $22 for eims for us. I think I can do cheaper next time, and I’m working on it. But it’s very important because if you’re out on the streets and you need Google Maps, you need to have that data. So eims are very important. Now, normally uh if normally if you’re in a hotel or home stay or whatever, they’re going to have Wi-Fi. So 90% of the time you could be on Wi-Fi, but like she said, if you’re walking around or you you don’t have Wi-Fi available, you do need the EIM, a local EID, definitely. Okay. So, one other thing that we we uh researched and the jury is still out on, we’re we’re we’re kind of playing it by ear. I don’t know like if health coverage is is necessary or um if it’s just cheaper to pay as you go. I guess it really depends on the situation, but uh we did go with Travel Guard um which is a travel insurance company. Um it uh offers like emergency insurance, emergency evacuation, lost luggage, and different things like that. Um it wasn’t very pricey. Um for the month it cost us about $111 and that uh covers both of us for any like emergency or tragedy that happens while we’re here. Mhm. And I think also too that depends on what country you’re in. Being in Bali, from what we’ve heard, you definitely want to have some coverage for that. Yeah, the medical coverage varies from place to place. So, as we move along, we’ll give you guys the breakdown of if or not we got travel insurance or medical insurance along the way. So, stay stay with us. So, when we arrived, uh we didn’t know if we were going to have to rent a scooter or not. Um when we got here, um we had everything around us. So, we did not rent a scooter. Um we were a little bit nervous too cuz it would be our first time. Um so we did have to spend on transportation. Um they have Grab here or Go Jack which is just like the Uber u in America and in Europe and stuff. So uh that wasn’t too bad. Uh it’s pretty cheap actually. Uh they like $2 to $3 a ride unless you’re going far. Um and that one came out to about it was uh $66 for the month and we took it multiple times to the beach um to I went for an appointment like certain things like that. But overall, it was $66 and um it was super easy to use. So, there’s a lot of things that you kind of when you’re living at home, you don’t really think that you need to pay for things. You take it for granted. You totally take it for granted. One of them is laundry. Um especially living here, we sweat like crazy. Coming from Arizona, uh we we originally were from New Jersey and we were used to the humidity, but uh living in Arizona for 8 years and then coming out here, the humidity is kicking our butt. It’s killing us. Hopefully we acclimate, but we’ve been doing a lot of laundry. But that being said, our laundromat uh it was literally a minute walk up the street. They were lovely. They remembered my name and got it right. No R in it. Kenda. And our monthly budget or total rather was $9. You can’t beat that. Yeah, it was great. And I didn’t have to do it. So even bigger score. I would have paid more for that alone. Another thing you don’t think of like incidentals along the way. Um, I splurged a little bit. I got a massage one day. I went and had some waxing done. Mark got a haircut. But being said, all of those things, I think the total for those three things alone, it was only $54. Um, I would have paid way more than that for two eyebrow waxes back in the States. So, $54 for all that. Pretty good deal. And you can see that I nipped the haircuts in the bud by just shaving my head because that saves us a lot of money. Um, ching. So, now let’s get to incidentals, uh, like toiletries and some clothing and stuff like that that you might not think you need, but sometimes you do. So, um, toiletries include shampoo, soap, toilet paper, tissue, stuff like that. Um, we had to buy extra. The sometimes the villas and or the, um, the home stays will supply you a little bit of that stuff, but, uh, there’s always room for extra. It’s very cheap. It’s not too bad. I think the total for all of that stuff was $11. Yeah, it was $11 for the entire month of all the extras we did. And then a few extra things we did get. We needed to get pillows because the pillows in our place, they were not so great. Yeah, they were way thin and my big fat head, I need to have a nice cushion. So, the pillows for two brand new pillows, it was $12 total. And then I needed some new flip-flops and I got those for $12 also. So, not too bad. But, uh, one other thing, too, is always bargain shop. And if you go to like stalls and stuff like that on the street, make sure you bargain or barter. Um because you could probably get the stuff for a lot cheaper. Also, fun. You always have to have a little bit of fun in your life, guys. Being retired on a budget, we had to stay within our budget, but we did it. We spent a total of $106 for the month. That included um a couple days. We went on some tours. We had um a few drinks one night. Not too much crazy stuff, but $106 for the month I think is pretty fair. Yeah. Now, we budgeted um for that kind of stuff. Um we separately budget for fun. Um there is like with drinking and stuff, we kind of cut down on that on the road. Now, that’s entirely up to you, whatever you want to do, but it does save you a lot of money if you don’t indulge in drinking and stuff all the time. And it saves you a lot of calories, too. It’s a lot of calories. So, after hearing all of this, do you think they think we made our budget of $2,000 or less? What’s the verdict? So, after all said and done, everything for the month, excluding airfare, of course, was $1638. So, we did come in under budget. Um, we’re going to try to our best. Yes, it can be done and probably a little bit less. Uh, we’re still learning. This is our first month, so there was a little bit of bumps in the road as far as like figuring things out, but it can be done. So, did you guys think we were going to be able to come in below budget? I’d have to say it’s all thanks to the banker over here. He kept me in check a couple times, but we came in below budget, which I was kind of surprised by, but super happy about. Uh, what did you guys think about it? Anything that you would have tried differently, maybe done things differently? What did you think about the accommodations? Let us know below in the comments if you would stay in where we were staying this time. So stay tuned guys for our next video. We’re going to give you a breakdown of our first week here in Ulawatu and some rookie mistakes that we made along the way. Um but lessons learned for us. So guys, as always, keep exploring, keep thinking, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

Curious about what it really costs to live in Bali in 2025? 🌴 In this video, we break down our Bali monthly cost of living as a couple in our early 50s living on a budget. From rent and utilities to food, transportation, healthcare, and lifestyle expenses, we’re sharing the full picture of what it’s like to live comfortably in Bali without overspending.

We’ll cover:
✅ Our real monthly budget in Bali 2025
✅ Housing, food, transportation, and daily living costs
✅ Surprising expenses foreigners often forget about
✅ Tips for saving money while still enjoying Bali life
✅ Why Bali is one of the best destinations for budget-friendly living

Whether you’re planning to move to Bali, try out slow travel in Southeast Asia, or just curious about the true cost of living abroad, this video has the answers. We’re proving that you don’t need to be retired to enjoy a fulfilling, affordable lifestyle in paradise. 🌏✨

👉 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and join us as we share more about slow travel, budgets, and real-life experiences while living abroad.

#BaliCostOfLiving2025 #BaliMonthlyBudget #LivingInBali #BaliLife #SoutheastAsiaTravel #SlowTravelCouple #BaliLifestyle #CostOfLivingBali #BudgetLivingBali #ExpatLifeBali

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0:00 Intro
1:50 Budget Talk
3:03 Airline Tickets
3:47 Accommodations
5:04 Location
5:53 Food
7:21 Gym
8:33 Phone carrier, E-SIM
9:58 Travel Insurance
10:52 Transportation
11:33 Laundry
12:16 Self Care
12:57 Incidentals
13:58 Fun
14:40 Total Spent for the Month
15:10 Outro
————————————————————————————————————————————————————

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DISCLAIMER: The information shared in these videos/website is based on our personal opinions and experiences. We are not licensed financial professionals. For specific financial advice, please consult a certified financial advisor or CPA. Additionally, we are not sponsored by nor affiliated with any of the websites or companies mentioned in our videos.

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