In Reply to: It's called purgatory posted by baliboy on Monday, 14. March 2016 at 12:51 Bali Time:
I chose to give it all up at forty and for the last eight/nine years have worked two or three months seasonally (during seeding and harvest on farms)each year to live between Nepal and Indonesia, with Indonesia/Bali now my home. I/we have no children nor any debt.
Firstly having an Indonesian/Balinese partner helps enormously with cost. $3 dollars for chicken at the local market compared to $7 or $8 at Hardy's or Bintang super markets, for example. Some melons in Hardy's are 45 000 rupiah, we pay less than 10 000 rupiah. You will find costs reduce greatly once you're "living" here and get to know what the costs of things actually are. Find your local Balinese market and go there.
$50 000 AUD will buy a very nice house in the rice fields 15 minutes outside of Ubud which we have. $30 000 will get you something smaller a little further out. You can build a small house for $12 000 on a small plot of land that costs $3000 further out still - yes, you really can. In my wife's home village we bought 10 are of land ( 100m x 100m) for $3500. We plant a fast growing tree used in construction which we can harvest every three to five years which gives us a little extra cash and takes next to no looking after.
We live very comfortably on $1500 a month which includes luxuries like eating at nice restaurants twice a week, trips to Islands, Amed etc staying in nice accommodation once a month. But other than that we live quite frugally with my few Bintang each day being our greatest expense. We eat a main meal in the evening which costs us an average of 20 000 rupiah, we can also eat the same at our local warung for 13 000 each. We don't dress fancy and rarely buy clothes, only when we really need them. We grow our own herbs and chilies.
I enjoy sitting with a cup of coffee a lot watching the rice fields stretch toward small mountains not far beyond with the birds, lizards, dragon flies, field workers and slow rhythm of life going on around me giving me enough. In the afternoon i go to a local warung that has wifi and drink a few beers for a few hours and annoy people online. At night we go for a walk through the rice fields and later watch a movie. We get up early.Simple.
$15 000 a year gives us more than enough to enjoy a simple life in Bali, really! We have no children and no debt.Add a bit more for health insurance, the yearly flight home and you're done. Finding seasonal work is easy. Join an agency. i do it all on Gumtree.
"Simple" living is the key. We like it.
It is better to have regrets you did, rather than regrets you didn't. Give it a go, baliboy.