Retired in Da Nang Our Monthly Budget Breakdown Expat Life in Vietnam 2026

What's up guys it's that time of the month, not that time of the month but a time of the month when I want to break down what our monthly expenses are for living here in Vietnam and Da Nang as a couple. Now you can live cheap no doubt. I've talked to a lot of expats, a lot of single men they tell me that their expenses are somewhere between $800 to $1,500 a month for a single person. You know they're living in studios that's a much smaller expense than we're incurring for our apartment. So yeah you can live for a thousand bucks. I wouldn't want to try it. Why rough it? I mean being broke is one thing but being broke in a third world country, developing country, it cannot be fun. It's gotta suck. Anyway I just want to give you a realistic look as to what it costs to live here in Vietnam for a couple, a retired couple. Now we have western tastes, western standards, we do compromise on some things and we make up for it in other ways but I can tell you this much you cannot beat this. It's easy living here in Vietnam. Life on easy mode. So stay tuned I'm going to break down our expenses including our cost of housing and all the major expenses. Now there's some additional expenses that we incur specifically because I got prescriptions that I need to get every now and again. So I normally get about a three month supply and it works out to about $150 a month. So I'm going to add that into the mix. We do grab everywhere as much as we can. My wife is determined to get a scooter and I'm against it but I guess if we're going to be here long term we got to consider it because it does make life a lot easier and just gives you more freedom. But you know hey we'll see. There's my wife crossing the street. Anyway she goes to the grocery store right right over there called Moon Milk. Very close there's another one called Wind Mart that we go to a lot. Pharmacy right down there and then there's another market down there that way. All of them are open 24 hours except Moon Milk. I think they close at 10. I mean gosh what a city. Love it. I can't stress it enough. Just love being here. Love being here. All right what's up guys. Let me give you the breakdown for the average for December, January and February. That includes the full month's rent of our new place here in Da Nang. So before I get started I need to whet my whistle. Sapporo. Proud sponsor I wish. So let's get right into it. I did say that a good budget for a single person here in Da Nang would be anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500. If you can do that $1,500 you're just really good. And we're not talking about this live like a king bullshit okay. Talking about just living a free life. Don't have to worry about your budget. No such thing as balancing the checkbook at the end of the month because there's always going to be more money than there is month for you if you live right. And that's what I want to you know get across to people checking this video out is don't come to Da Nang or Vietnam or any Southeast Asian country trying to flex and say I want to you know live like a ball or live like a king. That's not what life is about. You don't want to rub it into people's faces. You just want to live a comfortable life where you're leaving a very light footprint. You don't want to be disruptive and you certainly don't want to be an obnoxious guest. You want to be a gracious guest to the host country that you're staying in. So that's our objective for my wife and I when we got to Vietnam. We wanted to make sure that we are we're doing our best to be welcome to stay because we're not bad people. Visitation numbers has increased dramatically for the country. The government does see that there's a an influx of people that are interested retirement here in Da Nang or in Vietnam in general. And so they're implementing some policies to make sure that they get the right person the right type of visitor. And I hope that we fit the bill and I hope that you fit the bill as well. So as I said I'm going to give you a breakdown and average for our monthly expenses here in Da Nang. Let's start off with our rent. Okay so our rent is pretty straightforward. It's 14,500,000 dong per month which roughly translates to 550 US dollars. So that's fair. We have one bedroom one bath apartment with a large balcony which I'm sitting on right now. You can see out here yeah it's a beautiful day. And the beach is literally five minutes. In five minutes I can be on a lounge chair underneath an umbrella. 40k Vietnamese dong, 40,000 Vietnamese dong is not a whole lot of money. A buck 50. So a buck 50 for the whole day you get a lounge chair and an umbrella and you can stay out there in the in the beach of Da Nang. Utilities I would throw in there the water bill for the apartment complex and the management fee. Each of which we are charged 100,000 Vietnamese dong per person per month. So it's $15.25 per month. Next on the housing related expenses would be electricity. So electricity we are charged 4,000 dong per kilowatt hour. We're looking at 15 cents per kilowatt hour is what we're being charged. And it is averaged out to be about $70 a month. Not bad. And right now the weather is nice but we still have the AC running because we go out and play pickleball in the morning. And we come home we want to make sure that it's cool because we're still hot it's still humid here. Our unit comes with wi-fi but it's a direct line into our unit so it's pretty fast. Fast enough for us so no expense on the wi-fi for us here. And it's secure because we run it through a VPN as well. Okay so that's the main item. So rent $5.50 a month. Utilities which includes water management fee $15 a month. Electricity $70 a month. So not too bad. That gives you an idea. Please bear with me I only look smart. Okay so that is $635 total all in for our accommodations. That works out to 16,600,000 Vietnamese dong. Important that you understand that because you need to keep track of your spending in Vietnamese dong or the currency that you're living on. Now we're practicing what I call international arbitrage. And that is we earn our income in a strong currency. In this case the US dollar. And then we live on a weaker currency. In this case the Vietnamese dong. That's a life hack. International arbitrage. You want to do that because life is easier that way. Trust me. Now let's go to the top of the list. I have A on the top of the list alcohol. Okay because sometimes we buy bottles of vodka, bottles of wine, beer. And I try to keep track of that if we go out to a bar. That on average we've been spending about $115 a month on alcohol. So it's not too bad. Not too bad. It's not like we're luscious. But you know keep in mind beer is cheap here. You can get a good buzz on $115 a month here. Next on the list is coffee. And I put under there coffee, water, and snacks. That's averaging about $55 a month. E-sim and cell phone. Okay so I have a data plan. I don't have a cell phone number. So we do have a data plan here for my phone. And we also have a cell phone plan for my wife. All total that cost us about $10 a month for the two different plans. Next on the list groceries. We do do some cooking at home. We do go to the grocery store. We go to Lotte. We go to Go Market over in Tan Khe. We go there once a month. And we just do a big haul. And so it averages out to be about $275 a month of groceries. Whatever we need to get. So I don't know exactly what it is. I just go along for the ride. And I push the cart. And it comes out to about $275 a month. Now that's kind of on the high side I guess. But she does cooking at home because we like to have a variety of things. And she's a great cook so why not. Next on the list grooming. See this fancy haircut. The shave. Sometimes I do the ear cleaning. All that. My wife gets her nails done. So she does a mani pedi once a month. I do a haircut about every three to four weeks. All total between the two of us. That's looking like $15 a month. $15 a month. $15 guys. I used to pay for a haircut back home in Las Vegas. Base rate was $35. Don't even talk about shampoo, massage, scalp massage, earwax cleaning, any of that stuff. Just a basic haircut was $35. And then I just throw a $5 tip in it. Because like my gosh I can't tip you $10. So what I did was cut my hair. Not a great cut. A decent cut. So I'm paying $40 for a haircut back home. And in here I'm paying $5. So almost 10% of what the cost is back home. That's what I'm paying. Okay so $15 a month. Now I'm rounding these numbers up because I'll give you a pdf copy of this if you're so interested. You can just send me an email or get on whatsapp. Find me and I'll be happy to send this out. Healthcare. Now this is a separate item that you may or may not incur. I have congestive heart failure. So I have some medication that I need to take on a regular basis. Monthly basis. And I have I think I have four different medications. And let me tell you about medications here in Danang. I went to the cardiologist. He shared with the cardiologist my prescription list. He took a look at my list and he shook his head. The first thing he did was like shake his head. He goes he says west western medicine. Always for western people that come here it's maximum dosage. So he immediately cut me back dramatically. And so I went from five medications to four and each of those meds were dropped dramatically from its dosage level to the minimum level. And I felt great. All total I say it's about $150 a month. You know make sure that we're always stocked with medication. So about 150 bucks a month. And that's our expense. You may or may not have that type of an expense. But I'm going to include that in there because that's unique to us but also part of our total budget. Laundry. We send our laundry out for wash, dry, fold all often but maybe once a week. Pick up and deliver. It's all folded, fresh, nice, smelling good. Okay we spend about 20 bucks a month on that. Now we could do it here. We told them to remove the washing machine here. One I don't want to use the washing machine because I don't know how long it's been there. Probably all moldy on the inside with standing water. They don't have a dryer. You know I like to dry my clothes. So instead we send it out to the cleaner. So 20 bucks a month is a really sweet deal for us. And you know we go through a lot of clothes because we're playing pickleball. Meals. So this is grab meals. Kind of like uber eats but grab meals or eating out. And the meals can vary. We can go western food. We can get burgers. And let me tell you burgers here. Oh my gosh. Hamburgers here. Cheeseburgers here. The best I've ever had. Smash burgers with egg or an avocado on top. Amazing. Of course we eat a lot of Vietnamese food too. So we'll get a $35,000 meal. We'll get a bun mee for 20,000. And again remember 20,000 Vietnamese dong. A bun mee at 20,000 is 75 cents. Boom cha Hanoi which I love. I get you know all these basic Vietnamese foods. And they can run you anywhere from a buck fifty to three dollars per person. So very reasonable. On the other hand western food is going to run you about eight to twelve dollars per person. Okay. So you need to take that into consideration. We mix it up because we like both and we want variety. So all total for us our expenditures when it comes to meals out. Five hundred fifteen dollars a month. Okay. And that's not even you know thinking about anything. You're like you're hungry. Yeah let's go eat. What are you hungry for? I have to have pictures on my phone because the question arises every day. What's for dinner? So I have to look through my phone. I have an album called Hungry. And I open it up and I just look at the different pictures. What am I hungry for? Oh yeah I'm hungry for that. Haven't had that in a long time. Boom that's what we order. Okay. You get your favorites. You got your favorite restaurants. And it's easy. Nice pro tip for you. Huh. Something. I know. I know. I know. I'm on top of things. I'm going to help you out. Um miscellaneous. Ah and just throw in there a hundred bucks. Whatever. Pickle ball. Legit pickle ball. What do we spend on pickle ball? So when I put down pickle ball, I am putting down just the court fees. Or anything pickle ball related. If I'm doing a lesson, okay that's pickle ball. If I'm doing a wrap on my paddle, that's pickle ball. That's basically the expenses that we associate directly with our involvement with this addictive sport called pickle ball. So on a monthly basis our pickle ball expenditures are about a hundred dollars. Right here. Grab. Greatest thing since sliced bread. So grab is the uber equivalent. Okay. And we grab everywhere. Like you know if you've been watching my videos you you know my stance on renting a scooter. I'm not convinced. Okay. It's at our age. I'm six years old. I don't really want to get on a bike and get hurt or eat it. I mean I could be doing. I could drive perfectly well. But somebody else could just be flying by or clip me or something. And next thing I know I'm sliding on the ground in road rash all over the place. Now we're planning to be here for long term. So I'm sure we're going to have to compromise and probably get a bike or something. But I really am not looking forward to doing it. It's not that I'm afraid. You know it's just I just I'm aware. And you know I always like to say a man's got to know his limitations man. And I know my limitations. And besides we're coming up into summer months here. In the summer you're going to get heat stroke if you're riding a bike because you got the helmet on. Okay. That's one thing. Secondly the seat's going to be freaking scorching hot when I get into a grab car. It's air conditioned and it's one of the largest things on the road. And there's a protective barrier around me and my wife. The bike's got to watch out for the car. So again not to belabor the point but arrive alive and beat the heat. So grab ride share. We spend two hundred thirty five dollars a month. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's how much money we spend. I don't care what you think. I could bring that down to 50 bucks if I have my own scooter. Big deal. So I'm going to save what 150 bucks and what try to ride in the rain try to navigate this traffic in Vietnam. Now it's not as bad as it is in Ho Chi Minh I'm sure or Hanoi but it's bad enough. Okay. So I'm not used to this and I don't want to get used to it. I just arrive alive get inside a car in this hot ass summer and be safe and be cool. So again ride share is two thirty five a month. Wow. I really I really nailed that one. Water. Okay. Water. When I say water it's delivery of those five liter jugs of water. We get two of those every month and they're delivered right to our doorstep and brought up cost us about three dollars fifty cents for two bottles every month and they bring it right to our doorstep. I see a lot of expats they're hauling their bottles of water they don't know. When you don't know you lose out. So if you're not speaking the language you're kind of losing out because if you ask somebody they'll be able to deliver it to you for a low cost like for laundry. My wife went through probably six different groups to find the perfect person to do our laundry and she found it and we're sticking with them. So you know it pays to have a queue in your life. It makes life living here in Vietnam a whole lot easier. Now that being said there's a lot of people that are here in Vietnam that are not Vietnamese and are coming together as couples and trying to figure out if this is the place to be and I give them credit because they're putting boots on the ground and they're doing the right thing they didn't do it the way that we did it the way my wife and I did it was we burned all the boats we sold everything burned the boats just skedaddle. Wow am I old or what skedaddle what the **** is that word. We came over to Vietnam and we um we came here sight unseen and we figured we could figure it out between the two of us. We could figure it out you know we got google translate but it was still difficult but that's just part of the whole journey you know coming over here and expecting everything to work out perfect is is a mistake it's not going to happen you gotta be able to go with the flow and understand there's going to be bumps along the way and how you respond to that speaks volumes about your character and whether or not you're going to survive here and succeed and I think we're doing pretty well we are acclimated acclimated I mean like my health has improved dramatically since moving to Vietnam the food is better the sun is better the living is better the beer is cheaper and the medication and health care is amazing you know we've had friends that we've had to take to different hospitals to get some specialized medical treatment and they all could not believe how cheap things are in terms of medical care and how decent and up-to-date the standards are it is Southeast Asia so you know whatever you're accustomed to back in the west yeah toss it out the window that doesn't mean that what we did back home is the right way to do things not always but they do things a little bit different here so you just gotta go with the flow that's all you gotta do keep an open mind and go with the flow let me wrap this up so I gave you everything all the expenses so all total about twenty three hundred dollars a month plus in our case subscriptions I'm a youtuber trying to do videos here so I got some expenses related to that those subscriptions to watch different shows apples got me apple one you know they got me so you got those subscriptions whatever your number is I think a good baseline here twenty three hundred dollars a month and if I take out the two hundred dollars for prescriptions okay that's twenty one hundred dollars a month the number that I had shared earlier you know anywhere from two thousand to three thousand dollars a month for a couple living comfortably here in Vietnam here specifically Da Nang I think is realistic two to three thousand dollars depending upon the extras that you have to have in your life now my wife and I talk about this a lot too we say what would change but what if we had three times that amount coming in four times five times that amount coming in who knows this youtube thing could take off you know I got a digital product I'm gonna sell you and you're gonna love it I'm gonna share that with you in another video again it's not about living like a king it's about living smart living free and living financially comfortably that's all it is for a single guy yeah you could do eight hundred dollars a month if you're broke and you only want to eat local food and you're watching everything okay you could do it but it's rough but I would say a comfortable amount for a single person to live here in Vietnam would be about twelve hundred fifty to fifteen hundred dollars a month with that you're good you're golden okay and if you're bringing in like two grand a month you're spending 15 you get the same for a rainy day you know because you've got to do visa runs you got a budget for that and let me tell you one more thing if you're a single guy coming over here and you work in your budget and I'm telling you fifteen hundred dollars a month is good for a single person a single man and then you fall in love and then you find a woman and then you think this is the one uh first of all she's not the one you're not the one and secondly your budget just got blown blown out of the water fifteen hundred dollars kiss it goodbye you're gonna have to come up with a bigger number okay and we're talking about a bigger number you know you're gonna multiply that by fifty percent so fifteen hundred dollars add seven hundred fifty dollars to that that's twenty two fifty guys do you have that kind of money every month twenty two fifty you're planning on spending fifteen hundred dollars a month and there goes the budget because you met some Vietnamese sweet-talking woman and remember you're just the ATM sorry to break it to you but you're the ATM and as soon as the ATM runs out of money and it spits out a notice insufficient funds you're done done and dusted it's the cold hard facts okay guys I hope this is helpful I hope you learned something aloha