I only read the first post, My Take: Philippines is a good choice for living, if you have a work with a work from home set up , you can live $50 daily for a food.
$50? That would be terrific! I actually have become accustomed to living on somewhere between $10 and $30 a day for food. Some days 300 pesos lasts the whole day, mainly because my girlfriend is a great cook. She makes a mean pork adobo. One other thing I never had before that I found out is quite delicious is flayed eggplant battered with egg.
Electricity Rate and Both Water Rate is not that expensive tho yearly they have an outage problem. If your girlfriend is a Philippine Citizen, you can also have to apply for a rent to own house which is i think have an easy paying scheme.
We did rent for about 7 months, and yes it was a lot cheaper, however I never got around to buying an aircon or a decent bed, and after a while, everyone knows where you live and just shows up at your door randomly... I didn't like that part, and prefer to be on the move.
One night the Barangay Tanod told me I should move because there was a known robber who would come visit my next door neighbors. Apparently he was a real bad apple, and they actually feared for my and my girlfriend's safety. They told me, "some day we're gonna have to kill him." So, when the police tell you you should move, its time to move.
Since then I've been living in a combination of cheap hotels and AirBnBs.
Having a decent job with a decent pay you can really survive here in the Philippines. One Major Problem here is the Government, They continue to lick Chinese Government Asses, Duterte's Government is not only "extra judicial killings", Senators, Mayors, Much of them are stupid ass-lickers of Duterte, While Duterte is a stupid ass licker of China. News for this Government's stupidity is not only happening once, it happens everyday and I'm sick of it, Much of the Filipinos are poor, uneducated and uninformed who uses free facebook (a place where idiots shares fake news and continue to support this hellish Government) which made them a fan and a supporter of this Shitty Government.
LOL. Your comment started off so positive. I stay out of politics. I was here in 2016 during the presidential debates, and I remember watching on TV when Rody said they should bring him out to the Spratly Islands on a speedboat, and he will plant the Philippines flag there, and let the Chinese to do him "what they wish." He's pretty much done a 180 degree turnaround on his stance toward China since then, which just goes to show he's also just another politician, to a certain degree.