[Music] [Music] [Music] I've been an expatriate twice in my life both times were amazing experiences it's not easy in fact there's a lot to figure out this time I'm in Southeast Asia [Music] Penang Malaysia to be exact I've never lived here I've never even been here I didn't come and hang out for a month to figure things out beforehand I'm here to see if I can create a life I like on this island for under $2,000 per month my budget will need to be all in housing food transportation utilities everything this is the expat penang an island around the size of singapore off the northwest coast of Malaysia home to 1.7 million people most of which are Chinese Indian and of course the Malay like this multicultural society the food is diverse some of the tastes are familiar and some a little more exotic [Music] and you're not gonna spill any of it it doesn't take long to find a favorite of the crew and I char kway teow few have had it and certainly not the way this street vendor makes it one of only a few remaining bicycle street vendors to carry the flame on his bicycle don't let that fool you though this guy can cook and this is breakfast like you've never had it start with rice cake add garlic chili paste and I take mine with two duck eggs add just a splash of pork fat for flavor and texture and you are in Georgetown Penang if I lived here I would I would definitely eat this at least a couple times a week how often do you get this every time oh yeah yeah can you get this in the US no way open flame no way the duck cake interesting really really good we got it a little bit spicy and since we are going to track our budget will log our breakfast as follows char kway teow four to two dollars and thirty cents two coffees a dollar fifty that's a total of three dollars and eighty cents now I'm in my happy place I've eaten something I can't get anywhere else in the world in a place that is slightly off the beaten path and it's time to go to an outdoor market this is the part where I start to feel alive so one of my favorite things to do in any foreign country is to stroll through an outdoor market each one is fascinating and different in so many ways one of my favorite place is so far ever to do this in the world is Kathmandu if you haven't been there you definitely got to go there but today again we're in Penang we've got clothes we've got my glasses we have baked treats there's a butcher shop over here toys for kids visiting local outdoor markets is a great way to begin to assimilate into a new culture you're forced to learn at least a little of the primary language and it's a great opportunity to become familiar with the exchange rate from your home currency this is again where locals would shop it's not a touristy place so the prices are a little bit better and you need to see what it would cost to get some produce in in Malaysia so oranges here you get seven four five ringgit now your exchange is around four ringgit per dollars so for about a buck and a quarter you're gonna be able to get about seven oranges so that's great same with the apples here these apples here are priced at one per one ringgit one ringgit per Apple so 25 cents per same with the oranges we've got some nice pears here from south apparently five four - or rather five four ten so - ringgit / so you're looking at at 50 cents per you've just got tons of variety it's all very fresh you have bananas you have grapes you have durian you have a watermelon pineapple everything you could need so looking around if I were here and I was shopping for produce I would say for me and whoever I'm with man I think you could get $15 US dollars worth of produce and it would last you almost an entire week and you would have again great variety lots of apples oranges pineapple local thing all local all organic after a day of street food and outdoor market shopping on penang i feel confident about how much it's going to cost to people to eat on penang assuming you go out to eat one meal per day and assuming you are cooking your other two meals at home i think you would be safe with the following budget 420 dollars per month and this will give you 1 average locals meal out produce dairy coffee meat chicken everything you will need in a given month [Music] one of the hardest things to figure out in any foreign country is how to get around this is a budget item you can save money on if you are willing to use public transit at this point I haven't decided the best way to get around tonight I know I have several options I can buy a car use public transportation scooters taxis and even the occasional rickshaw which while fun for a night out is definitely not a good practical daily option my initial thought is to look into getting a car and while Penang seems small enough I'm not sure the hassle and expense are going to make sense I'm not a big fan of riding the bus given the limitations of schedule and walking to and from stops but it's an option for an expat on a budget like any Southeast Asian country scooters are very popular and there's a good reason for it they're quick and easy to get around on and it's fun there are a few downsides with scooters though the rain on Penang the relentless heat and it's not a great way to travel a long distance but right now I just need to figure out my daily mode of transportation and figure out the downsides later [Music] how much French sure you smile oh yeah 350 why get a year so we're looking about $85 per year what kind of warranty - yes Ronde two years twenty thousand we said which never confesses okay so two years or twenty thousand kilometres whichever comes first okay what's the top speed how fast it about the 1990 killers you know okay okay how much is the road tax dependency see about normally [Music] so 10100 if i buy - yeah yeah okay all right that sounds good - year twenty thousand kilometer warranty lasts the whole time I'm here perfect solution for getting around day-to-day okay so you've got a lot of ways that you can get around on Penang I've researched everything pretty thoroughly and I think this is how I would do Penang living here there's a little scooter it's called a Honda ex5 technically it's a motorbike and you can get a couple of those with a two-year 20,000 kilometer warranty which i think is enough for a couple of years and it's going to run you about $1,300 us each so for two you're looking at $2,600 so I would use grab when it's raining and then when I want to go on a road trip whether it be to the east coast to see some different beaches or drive down to Kuala Lumpur or drive up to Thailand whatever it is I would rent a car a car rental is gonna run you about 15 US per day great solution I know that gas in Malaysia is actually quite reasonable around two dollars and thirty cents per gallon the insurance and road tax for the scooter are cheap around 20 dollars per month for both I don't think I'm going to ride more than 500 miles per month on Penang so my motorbike expense is going to be around $70 per month to operate both motorbikes my transportation plan includes an occasional car for hire and an occasional rental car for road trips you can get most anywhere on Penang for about $3 using grab and a rental car is going to cost you all of about 15 dollars per day based upon these numbers I feel like a very reasonable number to count on for transportation is going to be a hundred and fifty dollars per month this will give me room for all of the motorbike trips I'm going to want to take two round-trip cars for higher per week and about 24 days of car rental per year penang transportation for to a hundred and fifty dollars per month [Music] one of the pleasant surprises of Malaysia is our discovery of white coffee when I heard the term I wondered if it just meant coffee with milk or if the bean was actually a lighter color we met up with selamat Eva local businessmen and coffeehouse owner I'm hoping this guy can shed some light on this growing mystery we have been told that white coffee is roasted with butter we have been told that it's not roasted any differently but that there are things added to a Chinese secrets we've been told many things about white coffee but we do not know the truth can you tell us the truth this [Music] to be honest to you yes I don't have to the sec answer that is fabulous honestly honestly that's the best answer you could have given because had you known it would have taken all the mystery away because at this point there are so many stories we don't know it's a little many I love it a crucial part of living abroad is connecting with other expats we're headed to the old bus depot where a few locals and a few expats run a weekend craft fair tank is the gateway to the rest of Southeast Asia and sense of she just likes going to betray me on Maui where does she like to go look how we okay you know those are all 40-minute quite some good Aang is it is a good jump higher that I did not know I am the International Airport here you could go AirAsia and go almost anywhere Bali so like Malaysia has great beaches also like on the other side so you basically are full time expats you just go all over the place you figure out how to live when you get there so where will you go after this well so right now we're not really sure again we've just started five months so this is your first XPath expiry no no I mean we lived so we'd if we've lived in Thailand we've lived in Turkey we lived in Colombia and Mexico yeah so my wife I married Merida travelers something that since she was 16 years old the travel bug and me another hand I'm a city boy from New York City and I don't never really did the travel thing met her while working out and her love and dad in my car come up with someone who's not going to face them you better get your bags brother so my first experience and that whole thing was going to Colombia night slum BIA and so any ideas where you'll go after this after this you know it's just wherever the wind takes you right it's tough because you know all my siblings and her siblings I'll have some kids and we're gone for extended period of time and then we go back and forget us then we stay and remember us to move again but here's the awesome uncle and aunt Roy oh yeah the world we're bringing back okay dangerous place is the meteors or whatever yeah but yeah do we thinking more Central America South America next time at so long a flight but it's once in you're done then you get yeah you know but again you get that no place like home feeling sometimes you know again this is this is home to people very very welcoming very sure you know all that stuff but it's not that local coffee shop introduced to it's not you know yeah yeah so you want to go back occasionally you know and sometimes it's nice to recalibrate for a while yeah who's been a place like Colombia it was only three our flight to Miami tell me your name I'm Danny Danny yeah nice to meet you Robert [Music] we got we got sticky rice sticky rice okay coconut and friend ended oh is this the what's the coconut jelly called with the sugar milk okay sugar sugar and fun deadly oh this is not coloring okay so pandan leaves coconut and sugar yes all right try that let's give it a try beautiful lovely this is delicious tapioca yeah so in any sugar coconut coconut tapioca victory then we have brown OH okay let's give this a try and it's warm too this is all you can get this in other places but yet you don't really have the original pandan leaf sometimes they pop coloring okay [Music] earlier in the week we met a couple from Australia living in Malaysia on military assignment they've been here for a few years and I think they will be invaluable in getting a lay of the land we're meeting for dinner to talk about life on Penang and there is no better place here for dinner than song river meet Mr Tan the chicken man and yes he cooks with the fam that's probably enough so when did you initially move to so very first time I I got a posting here was 2004 okay I was based in Townsville at the zone up in North Queensland yep and I didn't really know much about Malaysia and a position I opened up and it was a three-year posting okay so I thought I'll just throw my name in the Hat and see how we go Penang really became sort of a home away from home I've travelled back here to catch up with friends Becky yeah just for other sports stuff as well holidays Lauren and I came over here we came up to meet a friend back in 2010 and that's where I sort of introduced Lauren to canang all was your reaction open we I mean a friend of on when I was supposed to date last time we used to sit on now we had an apartment we used to sit on the balcony with the beer and we called it the balcony in fact when you're sitting on the balcony looking at me go how good is this yeah if you pretend to focus on how bad everything else is you gonna sit on your balcony and focus on the bad stuff no look at the fear look over here on by lucky to be here the beer is cheap yes you know the food is cheap you're sitting there eating food how much money I moved my family of eight to Costa Rica in 2009 yeah that's Geomagic it may you know because you're expats okay we started selling stuff that we didn't really need anymore because I realized I had to take my five thousand foreigners for foot house life down to whatever number of bags I was gonna freakin take to Costa Rica so I had this massive job and I primarily did it as I started throwing stuff away I started taking stuff to storage eight people's lives down to 20 duffel bags suitcases and carry ons and we went to Costa Rica with just those things to live there for an indefinite period of time we got on an airplane I didn't even know where we were going to sleep that night right well literally we'd not only did we not know that's never going to live we didn't know where we were going to sleep that night that experience will end up there for a year that experience changed my family's life forever my kids grew you know in ways that they never ever could've grown they became fascinating interesting bilingual people in that one year one of the decisions we made was this isn't necessarily a work decision or a career decision although that's a although that's a it's good here it's an international engagements it's learning and working with different cultures and and I love that but it's it's a family decision to grow as people and and make interesting people you know [Music] i I see happy people I see people who aren't wrapped up in a cell phone I see people who are who are kind and who just live life from a very very different place this is why I do this this is why I go these places and and and and wish that there was enough time in my life to live in every country in the world there's so much to see and there's so much beyond the silliness of running around trying to to make bazillions of dollars what's important to me is living a life that that is real living a life that I love living a life that I'm proud of and that is interesting that has texture and color and feeling and passion and love the world is so much smaller than we think it is it's so much more accessible than our minds make it out to me there's always a bed at the end of the day there's always a plate of rice and some chicken at the end of the day you'll always be okay you just have to pack your stuff sell stuff get rid of stuff and go and see this incredible planet [Music] depending on the country one of the biggest line items on any expats budget is going to be housing honestly I'm concerned what our housing is going to look and feel like on Penang and if it's going to be a budget buster to get something I want the first stop is a very traditional home we've got a line on a very traditional jetty home it's by the water it's got a lot of history the area has a lot of human interest it's it's very cool I don't know that it'll be quite what we're looking for it's very very affordable literally around a hundred and fifty dollars per month that said I've made one big decision about being on Penang I don't think I would live here without air conditioning just a little bit too warm did I say right yeah Kim you can say what you feel don't you touch him - what what yes we hug now Cynthia now knee sheshe for letting us see your house I don't speak any other Chinese that's it the home is plenty big but it's modest I would enjoy the location but I think it might be a tough place to live and to be really comfortable the lack of AC the bathrooms I've got some serious concerns but the family and the area are as good as it gets the bedrooms are nice size as is the kitchen a few minutes into the tour I discover the most unique amenity so I literally can fish right in out of the houses then you just throw this one okay you sit down okay this and you can just stream this fish right in there what do you catch fish fish at that time we we know how to swim but my mom because the water is so high so my mom so that we just go from here we have a life we just go from here and then we go down and then we just go the length of the day in there we just kick your legs and then we shiver from this mm-hmm how to say this one to be be Mahan this beam to this beam rocker to the beam I love the area the human-interest is off the charts the culture is fun and energetic but I need my home to be a place of respite especially in a foreign country a place where I can go home and be truly comfortable that said for a hundred and fifty dollars per month I am very intrigued [Music] When in Rome stop and watch a movie in Chinese so we are on our way to what I think is going to be the opposite end of the spectrum a brand-new high-rise condo in a high-end development I have serious doubts if it is going to fit my budget but I think it's good to get a feel for what is out there and how much it costs the area is clearly less interesting than the jetty home the culture of the area while still interesting feels more homogeneous than exotic inside the condo is surprisingly spacious there is a view of the bay two bedrooms two bathrooms a beautiful kitchen and everything is brand new one major drawback it is not furnished that's not necessarily a bad thing but I've purchased a house full of furniture in a foreign country and it's not cheap or particularly easy so this is starting to feel expensive and decidedly less convenient there is AC however and a beautiful pool and since Penang is really hot and humid that is very tempting my biggest concern is the rent it's definitely going to be a budget buster at $1,300 per month plus furnishing plates as much as I like it and as comfortable as it would be I'm going to keep looking for something that is a better fit financial literally at just about the last minute we get a line on an apartment a few miles away in what has been described as an expat area it's not a jetty home and it's not a brand-new high-rise condo I'm hoping it will fit what I'm looking for initially my response this might work it's not brand new so it doesn't have the brand new price tag but it's clean and it's furnished it has two bedrooms two bathrooms a nice view of the area a nice kitchen a more than adequate living area and thank goodness it has AC and a beautiful pool [Music] I think it's time we meet with Ben our real-estate agent to discuss the terms and conditions of renting an apartment on Penang I'm actually really impressed this is a really nice apartment and it's got a pool and that was a thing I was like I don't know if I want to live in Penang without a pool that would be that would be rough and I absolutely had made a decision I'm not gonna live in Penang without air conditioning so I was really pleased to see that I guess at this point I just have a few questions about how does it work here okay so can I do a one-year contract typical yeah okay couple countries where you're expected to pay for the full year at one time how does that as payment of rent are you you just need to pay on Manly basis so if let's say if let's say you are able to pay for the whole year I believe the owner will be happy yeah you would they give a little discount or maybe or if I'm the owner I would I would offer that yeah so you would do it yeah okay that's that's helpful to know tell me what bills am I going to need to pay electricity water internet internet electric city water and cable TV okay and also the stories is there a written contract for the rental agreement between me and the owner of the property yes we need to do a written contract if you find the property to an agent of course you have to pay the agent so the seller doesn't I do the seller will pay for a month okay and the tendon will pay for a month okay so we split the closing costs for the agent yeah and of course the agreement fee so yeah so it depends on how they charge usually it will be around tree under ingot okay so about $75 yeah so who's who's in this particular area and we have families like tell me about I noticed by the way I notice there's a security guard is that typical in this price range to have a security guard yeah okay yeah you you have a security in all condos in pinning all conducts yes all wow yeah it's great if there's no security we can call that a condo interesting okay so there's no security it's technically not a car that's just a flat we call it a flat that's called a flat yes on a part but even some flat they have security but just that the security is not that Street yeah they allow maybe they just they go to sleep yeah they just sit there anyway they don't really stop anyone by in condo they need to do register is very strict no not everyone can pass through the security if I want to buy a condo yep na yeah on Penang can I do that yes any rules as a foreigner you have to buy a property of at least a million million ring yeah 250,000 US yeah our government is doing this to protect the local so basically they're saying hey we need to keep the the the less expensive properties available for the local community not let those get eaten up by people from the outside and so there's a $250,000 minimum yeah because when one of the reason is because I'm a lot of a lot of people who buy property they are not actually the genuine homeowner they just buy the property to invest to invest yes so they don't want too many investors yeah that makes sense so give me an idea like electric bill how much am I looking per month let's say I'm gonna run the AC every night all night long just so I can sleep well not regularly uses your otherwise what am I looking at for electricity it depends on the household life for myself my view is only about 100 ringgit and mine Wow yeah because that's $25 yeah because I'm I'm running a 1.5 horsepower AC every night okay what am I looking at for water water usually around 20 doing it so literally five dollars how much for Internet so let's say I want unlimited I'm gonna stream Netflix I'm watching all kinds of stuff how much room below 150 ringgit you can get a very good package okay yeah so we're looking around 35 us for that yeah that's why we'll take as I drop you yes nice I was pretty fast yeah they're fast okay what else you mentioned something about sewer yeah that one we have to pay maybe about 200 200 riggity years so we're looking at literally about 50 bucks per year yeah I would like to paint the condo if I do the same color that she currently has that the owner currently has is that okay if I paint it same color definitely not a problem okay same color so I can freshen it up I can I can do things to make it you look good yeah okay great well I I think I would rent it it's a pretty nice place I would definitely give it a try if I only wanted to do six months could I do six months yeah that's the minimum that's the minimum yeah perfect okay at this point I'm feeling great about my budget on Penang in fact I'm going to be well under the $2,000 per month goal that I set I found a great little 2 bed 2 bath condo in a gated complex with a/c and a nice pool the condo is furnished and the Landlord is flexible about me painting and touching up to make it my own and I can buy a few items for the place that will give me the ability to personalize it without having to go and buy an entire house full of furniture the rent on this little condo is only three hundred and eighty dollars per month and I like it a lot so there you have it your monthly expense on Penang an ample food budget with eating out one meal per day and cooking too at home $420 per month transportation combo of motorbikes grab and an occasional rental car with fuel and insurance all in one hundred fifty dollars per month utilities for the condo including electricity water sewer and Internet $69 2 bed 2 bath condo three hundred and eighty dollars per month cell phones for two is going to run you about $80 per month budget in entertainment at $100 and a buffer for miscellaneous of one hundred and fifty dollars and your total monthly expenses one thousand three hundred forty nine dollars my work is done the budget is thirteen hundred forty nine dollars all in and I'm ready to relax on the one we're at two buns in Penang one of the important things that I noticed when I'm out of the country especially living out of the country is every now and then it's really nice to get a burger interesting thing about Penang burger doesn't necessarily mean beef it can mean chicken it can mean fish any kind of sandwich but of course we were hunting for a burger burger so we got a nice little burger this place has some wings Korean style they call them kim jong wings so i've got a kick out of that we've got some fries here got a little coke so we're all set up and now i can get that that kind of that that feeling of home that you every now and then you just need as an expat when you're living out of the country and things are hard especially if you haven't talked to somebody from your home country sometimes this nice have a little bit of comfort and we're doing my favorite thing to do which is to eat on camera it's really comforting to do that as an expat a burger and fries or or whatever your thing is a slice of pizza or I don't know you know whatever your thing is that really feels like home can really be a lifeline there are times as an expat where you feel the the distance you feel the seven eight nine thousand miles that you are away and so those kinds of things can be really important to just have have something that just kind of not like they call it comfort food for a reason and it's particularly comforting when you're 7,000 miles from home join me next week from Cebu Philippines where once again I will see if I can hack my way to a better life in a cool place for under two thousand bucks a month [Music] you
