the price for renting our motorbike? about $56 a month. The cost of a smartphone monthly data plan of 16 gigabytes? About four dollars. Price of a coconut at a nice beachside warung?
about two dollars. The cost of enjoying the beauty of the Balinese setting sun on the beach? Free. The wonderful quiet friendliness and kindness of the local people? Priceless.
Hello friends, good afternoon. My name is Jean. Together with my husband Vitaly We are living now in Bali, Indonesia Many of you have been very curious about how much our simple lifestyle here in Bali cost us. So in today’s video, we are going to try to give you a deeper insight into the current cost of living in Bali today, in 2021. First up.
accommodation. You might already be familiar with our little Balinese home, a simple one bedroom with a kitchen, bathroom and a living room, located in a less developed, less bustling part of Bali. A place like ours will generally cost between 400 to 600 us dollars per month to rent, depending on the length of your commitment, the accompanying furnishings and services such as weekly cleanings and etc. To get around, we have a mantap (steady) little motorbike, a Honda Vario. This costs us about 800 000 rupiah per month to rent, and that includes insurance as well as servicing, so it’s very convenient.
For gas, we pay about thirty thousand rupiah for almost four liters of Pertalite each time we top up. We’re quite active going around our area, so we top up maybe six to seven times per month, which makes the monthly gas expenditure around twelve to fourteen dollars. We love going around on motorbike. It’s easy, convenient and we feel close to the life around us as we move about. We’re also here in Bali for the longer term, so we have had to set up our house with a few appliances and a few extra touches here and there to make our home more comfortable and cozy.
For example, we had a simple work table custom made by a local workshop nearby. Including delivery to our home, this cost us 750 000 rupiah, about 56 dollars. We bought a basic rice cooker online from Shopee Indonesia. This is an indispensable item for me and cost us a princely sum of 263 000 rupiah, about 18 dollars. A sweet little toaster, so that we can have nice sandwiches at home, cost about 12 dollars.
There are monthly recurring costs such as electricity. For that, our monthly usage clocks in at about 35 dollars or 500 000 rupiah. Our mobile phone SIM card initially cost about 10 dollars.
Subsequently monthly data plan costs run along the lines of 35 000 to 55 000 rupiah or about two to four dollars. We spend a lot of time at home and cans of drinking water costs twenty five thousand or two dollars each, and we run through about six to eight cans of water a month so that’s about 12 to 16 dollars for water for drinking and cooking at home.
We send our laundry out to our neighbor’s little shop. She’s the sweetest lady and monthly our laundry costs comes in between eight to twelve dollars. We don’t generate a lot of dirty clothes between the two of us but we do change our bath and kitchen towels and the bed sheets regularly.
Food-wise we cook a fair bit at home. Our vegetables and fruits come from the local pasar (market) nearby from our favorite ibu – Ibu Jurro.
Like this, two bags of fruits – a couple of balinese red bananas, two mangoes, dragon fruit, starfruit, apples, jackfruit – cost about 105 000 rupiah. Two perfect bunches of bok choy like these cost just 2 000 rupiah or 14 cents. 2 kilograms plus of chicken wings, about 29 wings in total, cost us 73 000 rupiah from the market. We did a barbecue at home for this one big batch of chicken wings for us to share with our landlord family and Kitana, of course.
Meatwise, these are some sample prices at the supermarkets.
For products such as pasta, cheese, juices and milk, let’s pop by quickly into some of the supermarkets in the area. These are some of the sample prices. And lastly, of course, eating out here in Bali. We’re pretty addicted to Nasi Campur and an average meal at a lovely warung in our neighborhood averages at about 14 000 to 18 000 rupiah for me, because i usually eat mainly vegetables. They’re so good.
And about 24 000 to 36 000 rupiah for Vitaly, who usually has some helpings of protein, fish or chicken or whatever. So generally, extremely reasonable for really enak (delicious) food. A lovely little cup of ice jeruk (orange) from a street vendor costs only 6 000 rupiah, kinda like 50 cents. Lunch at one of the hipster cafes in the area, if you’re so inclined, usually comes in for us for two people on average at around 250 000 rupiah to 350 000 rupiah.
Hanging out with friends by the beach with drinks comes in at 30 000 rupiah for a coconut for me and 20 000 for a coca-cola for Vitaly.
We don’t drink alcohol ourselves but here are some indicative prices for beers and whatnot in the menu of this lovely warung on Jimbaran beach. So i hope by now that you have a better idea of the current living costs in Bali here in 2021. Excluding the once off costs of setting up a cozy home for both of us, generally it appears that our monthly total running cost for two of us living here in Bali now in 2021 comes in at around US$1400 to US$1500 a month. Everyone’s lifestyle habits differ quite a bit really, so we hope that based on the information we have shared in this video, you can perhaps extrapolate, based on your personal preferences, and arrive at a possible estimation of what your living costs in Bali could turn out to be if you wanted to come and live here for some time at the end of the day.
Whether one thinks that life in Bali is incredibly cheap or absurdly expensive, it’s really dependent and relative to one’s personal circumstances and experiences.
And whilst you’re thinking about this, i think it’s also important not to forget that there are other intangible, unquantifiable aspects to life here in Bali that makes this Island of the Gods such a special and unique place in the hearts of so many people all over the world. I hope you enjoyed this video and found the information helpful. Don’t forget to click like and to subscribe to the channel – that will just help us to grow, so thank you very much – and i guess i will see you in future videos, bye!