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Cheapest Places to Live > Malaysia on Less than $28 per day

If you’re considering moving, retiring, or working overseas - Malaysia should really be on your list as it is incredibly affordable, very well developed, has excellent food, western standard hospitals, and yes, they speak English! If you don’t know much about Malaysia yet, make sure you read our guide and articles to learn more! In this article we explore the cost of living in Malaysia. Enjoy!

Cost of Living in Malaysia

While it’s necessary to be mindful of laws and customs that may be unfamiliar, Malaysia is a popular destination for expats and digital nomads due to the comparatively low cost of living.

Accommodations

With rent for a one-bedroom apartment averaging between $250 to $350 (USD), depending on location, an extended stay in the country is quite feasible. However, to get a rate like this, you’ll likely need to get a 6-12 month lease and visas are generally only good for up to 90 days. However, if you’re willing to travel out of the country for a little while and then come back in, that setup may work out quite well.

Hemisphere Restaurant & Bar in Kuala Lumpur

Food and Restaurants

Groceries and meals out are also really affordable – a three-course meal for two at a mid-range restaurant will likely stay under $20 total, that’s about $10 per person. However, a typical meal may only cost about $2.50. We did have a few fine-dining experiences that ended up costing us only about $20 per person!

Transportation

Taxis and personal cars can get a bit pricey if you’re using them a lot, but public transit is inexpensive and, in the urban areas, the area it services is quite wide. Most people generally use a service called "Grab" that is very similar to Uber, but those are quite cheap - a 30 minute drive might cost $6.

Jobs in Malaysia

If you’re not a digital worker or looking to retire, Malaysia still offers some great work opportunities. Native English speakers should have no problem getting a job teaching English with a 120-hour TEFL certificate, but there are several other sectors with high demand for expat employees, including IT, engineering, banking and finance, and marketing. Malaysia is one of the most visited countries in the world, so there are also frequently jobs available in the travel and hospitality industries as well.

Jobstreet Malaysia

Most people will search for professional jobs on the Jobstreet website. Jobstreet is one of Asia’s leading online employment marketplaces, and a subsidiary of SEEK, which is more commonly known in Australia and New Zealand.

Is Malaysia a Developed Country?

Modern Malaysia

Since its founding in the 1960s, modern Malaysia has successfully diversified its economy through the development of manufacturing, services, and tourism. Economically, the country is on track to be considered a developed nation by 2025. While there has been great progress, there are still strides to be made, particularly in the areas of education, freedom of the press- which is tightly controlled by the conservative Muslim ruling party, and social programs to lessen the economic gap.

Malaysia Healthcare System

Public Healthcare

Healthcare in Malaysia is a two-tiered system with universal healthcare supplemented by private insurance. The facilities and care are much more easily accessible in the urban centers, and the quality of the care there is quite high. The public healthcare services are available to citizens and properly registered permanent residents.

Most expats purchase private international healthcare to ensure that they have access to facilities that they need. Emergency services are available, but if you don’t have insurance you may have to pay more for them, and they are harder to access in rural areas.

Private Healthcare and Gleneagles

Alternatively, they can also use the private hospitals and facilities without insurance coverage. That being said, public healthcare services are incredibly cheap, and even private healthcare services are very reasonable. We have been to a few Gleneagles hospitals in Malaysia, which are one of the best private hospitals in the country.

At the one in Nusajaya, Jenny gave birth to our daughter. The total birth package, including the obstetrics doctor fee, ended up being $1,225.49. With all prenatal doctor fees from the beginning of the pregnancy - and immunizations after the birth - included, the entire cost of that pregnancy and childbirth ended up being $2,024.72 - and that’s before any insurance was applied! In comparison, locals told us that using a public facility may have ended up costing only $100-$300 total.

Retiring in Malaysia

Malaysia Retirement Visa

As part of its development programs, Malaysia has made a concentrated effort to make the country appealing and accessible to expats, including retirees. The Malaysia My Second Home visa is a dedicated retirement visa that allows for a 10-year renewable stay if you meet the income requirements and pass the criminal background check. Besides the duration, a retirement visa offers several things that a tourist visa does not, including the ability to purchase property and vehicles, own businesses and invest, and hire employees. Applying is not difficult and there are several services to help you if you run into problems.

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Picking the right place to retire

Keeping costs low while seeing all of the best places in Malaysia is our speciality, and you’ll get an amazing taste of how Malaysia offers that by traveling there as it only costs around $25-$28 per day. Once you’ve spent time in these places, you’ll have a better understanding on whether it’s going to be the right pace for your retirement. We’ll send you to 2-4 places that are very close to the Gleneagles hospitals, plus we’ll give you everything bit of information that you need to find your way around and an open channel to us if you ever have any questions.

Although we stayed in Malaysia once before this, primarily to keep costs down while visiting Singapore, we wrote a separate budget for that adventure. So, this one will focus on our 14 month stay solely in Malaysia instead.

Malaysia

February 21, 2020 - April 20, 2021

Total Number of Days

424 days

Total Expense

$23,972.95 USD

NOTE: $23,229.09 not including airfare to Malaysia - why mention this? Because everyone’s airfare to Malaysia will be dependent on where they are from. The other expenses - while in Malaysia, should be comparable for everyone.

Average Daily Cost per Adult

$28.27

NOTE: $27.39 per adult WITHOUT airfare to Malaysia

BUDGET BREAKDOWN

On this trip, we spent 146 nights in Penang, 7 in Perak (Ipoh), 2 in the Cameron Highlands, 16 in Melaka, 140 in and around Nusajaya in Johor, and the other 113 in Kuala Lumpur. We took 1 road trip from Penang to Kuala Lumpur, hired a driver to get us to Melaka, hired another driver to get us to Nusajaya in Johor, and then yet another driver to get us from Nusajaya all the way back up to Kuala Lumpur. All of this running around made for an epic trip across Malaysia - even in the first year of the Coronavirus Pandemic - but it was also necessary because we ended up getting pregnant and having a baby in Malaysia during that time.

Transportation (airlines, taxis, trains, subways, buses, etc.)

$1,912.64 (average of $2.26 per day per adult)

Taxi / Grab: $821.38
We almost completely used Grab to get around in Malaysia, which a service like Uber. They are extraordinarily cheap. Keep in mind that this is the total cost of our Grabs over a 14 month period, so on average it was costing us only $58.67 per MONTH to get around, which would have only got us about 2 days with a rental car.
Airlines: $743.86
The airline tickets to get to Penang, Malaysia from Auckland took up 39% of our total Malaysia transportation costs, and that occurred on our very first day into Malaysia for this 424 day trip. We generally recommend using Momondo or Skyscanner, because that’s what we use to find the best ticket prices - plus they send you to the airlines directly instead of being the middleman.
Rental Cars: $309.73
We rented one car for 10 days in July 2020 to help us drive from Penang to Ipoh, then to the Cameron Highlands, and then to Kuala Lumpur for a total cost of $276.83. Additionally, we rented a SoCar twice for about 10-11 hours each time for a total cost of $32.90. Both were exceptionally affordable in our opinion.
Gasoline: $24.94
For 12 total days of driving around Malaysia, so about $2.08 per day - can’t complain!
Metro / Train: $6.60
We did take the bus a few times out to a mall in Auckland, and also out to the Auckland Domain to explore the city.
Parking: $6.13
There are parking costs for road parking in certain places in Rotorua, Christchurch, and Wellington that we ended up having to partake in.

Accommodation

$11,022.56 (average of $13.00 per night per adult)

Airbnbs: $10,850.36
We stayed at 15 different Airbnb’s in this Malaysia trip
Nanny / Housekeeping Services: $172.20
Prior to our daughters birth, we needed to accustom our son to a nanny as - during the covid period - we were not allowed to bring him into the hospital and both of us wanted to be present for our daughters birth. So, from October 22nd until January 3rd, three days per week, we hired a nanny to come by for 3 hours to help clean up our place and watch our son for a little while.

Food

$9,140.53 (average of $10.78 per day per adult)

Groceries: $4,451.46
We shopped for groceries mainly at Econsave, Tesco, Jaya Grocer, AEON, BIG, Village Grocer, Isetan, Cold Storage, Lotuss Stores, and Ola Mart. Seriously a crazy mix of grocery stores, but our favorite ones - with more of our western favorites - were Jaya Grocer and BIG (Ben’s Independent Grocer), however they were the most expensive ones as well.
Fast Casual Type Restaurants: $2,360.43
We ordered though Grab Food, FoodPanda, and Dominoes Delivery quite frequently. We also really ended up liking the Veggie Deluxe burger from Fuel Shack in KLCC.
- Here are some of our favorite foods from Malaysia
Dine-in (table service) Restaurants: $1,655.95
We would recommend Winter Warmers, Sushi House, Pizz@ in the Sunway Citrine Center in Nusajaya. Additionally, we’d HIGHLY recommend Peranakan Place in Melaka as well as the Hemisphere Restaurant & Bar in Kuala Lumpur.
Pastry Shops / Cafes: $564.62
Our top stops were at Starbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Auntie Anne's, Cinnabon (fresh and incredibly cheap in Malaysia), and for the best cheesecake that we’ve ever had in our entire lives, go to Moody Cow Cheesecake in George Town, Penang - it literally stole the 10 out of 10 spot on our cheesecake scale and knocked down our second favorite, the Cheesecake Factory, to a distant 5 out of 10. It just doesn’t compare anymore! We had the Berry Lemonade and Evil Queen slices, and I crave them even now while writing this!
Convenience / Street Food: $108.08
These were items we picked up at mini-marts like myNEWS and 7-Eleven.

Activities/Entertainment

$480.63 (average of $0.57 per day per adult)

Although there are a number of amazing tours that you can grab that will encompass much of what we did, here are the things that we did by ourselves.

Local Attractions: $433.83
Some of our favorite places in Malaysia are Penang Hill, the Lost World of Tambun Theme Park (incredibly amazing, totally worth the price), the Mossy Forest in the Cameron Highlands, Putuo Village near Johor Bahru, Taman Eko-Rimba a.k.a. KL Eco Forest Park in Kuala Lumpur, and Petrosains at KLCC.
Cultural Sites: $28.31
The Qing Xin Ling Leisure and Cultural Village in Ipoh had all sorts of amazing things, and Mini Malaysia & Asean Cultural Park in Melaka was very memorable.
Amusement: $18.50
We did try out a VR arcade once, VRinity, at the Medini mall in Nusajaya. Also, Bradley went to the TGV Cinema once, at Sunway Putra mall, to see Godzilla.
Free Attractions: $0.00 (in the follow articles we mention our favorite things in each area, many of which were on our own at no cost)

Moody Cow Cheesecake in George Town, Penang - Berry Lemonade Cheesecake

Miscellaneous

$1,416.58 (average of $1.67 per day per adult)

Hygiene items / Bathroom supplies: $427.44
We did need to buy plenty of our own lotion, toothbrushes, deodorant, iron tablets, and personal items.
Other Items: $412.29
This includes a number of printouts that we had to have for our daughters birth, covid testing, and ballots - plus mailing costs - to vote for President in our home country. It also includes things like ziploc bags, garbage bags, medications, a few mugs, a few towels, phone accessories, a power bank, baking trays, Christmas decorations, a toaster oven, napkins, sponges, gifts for our children, etc.
Clothes: $388.67
We bought a decent amount of new clothes, mostly from Uniqlo, but also a ladies swimsuit from the Lost World of Tambun.
Phone SIM & Data: $146.32
This plan was through Celcom and included a SIM Card with 48 GB of data per month, plus phone minutes, for the ENTIRE YEAR. That’s about $10.50 PER MONTH. Guys, compare that to what you are paying wherever you are - it’s just amazing! Plus, we found it to be more than enough for our trip and thought the service to be very good!
Laundry Machines & Soap: $22.62
Washers were included in the cost of the Airbnbs. This cost was for laundry soap.
Donation: $19.23
A few people who desperately needed some money received some from us.

Mini Malaysia & Asean Cultural Park in Melaka

What does this not include?

Life Insurance - what we have includes a Legal Will, a Trust, and a few other things and was extremely easy to get online in a single day even without tests, but it isn’t included in this budget.
Berkshire Hathaway Travel Insurance + Medical (annual cost of $328 for a family of 3 - ask us how)
Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card Annual Fees that get us Additional Travel Insurance & free Airport Lounges (annual net cost of $150 annually). This card also earns us an extra bonus of 3% off on all of our Airbnb’s and restaurants during our travels, gives us a 0% foreign transaction fee, and occasional extra bonuses for booking new Airbnb’s as well. Alternatively, you could just get the Priority Pass instead of applying for a credit card (10% off with this link). We save well over $400 annually on free meals at airport lounges - not including the free beer and wine - plus it provides a relaxing upscale cafe-like experience with great wi-fi while you’re waiting for your flights - it’s a necessity if you travel frequently!
Netflix & Disney+ memberships that we occasionally grab (we usually just pick one of the two, watch what we want to see, then cancel and get the other one).

While these are costs associated with our travels, they are not country-specific, which is why they are not included in this expense report.

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