Moving to a new country takes a lot of research, a lot of trial and error, and usually a lot of patience.
When you are living in Bali as an expat, or if you are considering moving to Bali, it can be really helpful to get your tips from others who have done the same before you!
We have some key businesses and services that really help with making our Bali life easier, and also help with our cost of living in Bali too.
Read about each of them below…
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Using AeroConnect (link only works for mobile devices) to take care of our visas in Bali has not only saved us a lot of money, but the process has also been far more professional than anyone we have dealt with in the past.
Using the AeroConnect app we can track every step of where our visa process is at, and they have a money-back guarantee in the case your visa does not get approved.
The AeroConnect team is also who we highly recommend when it comes to setting up a company as a foreigner in Indonesia, their rates and professionalism takes all of the guesswork out of what is required to legally establish yourself a company in Indonesia.
This service gives you an assigned airport butler on arrival who fast tracks you through the immigration process at the airport and guides you through the entire process (this is especially helpful during times of COVID when landing abroad and following new protocol can be confusing!). AeroConnect is certainly a Bali lifeline for us now, we love the professionalism of this company and highly recommend their services.
*This link only works on phones
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When it comes to day-to-day life in Bali, things such as transport, food delivery, buying electricity for you house, purchasing phone data, buying cinema tickets can all be done from your phone…and better still can all be done in one app!
Grab app is a super app that literally makes your life and time in Bali so much easier and cheaper! We can’t tell you how many times a day we used this app. Using Grab to book our transport in either a car or a motorbike, or to order food delivery are the two ways we use the app the most. This is super app though, the more you use it, the more features you will discover!
When you run out of something at home or want to send something to a friend or client, you can even use to the app to do this. There is even an option to shop from the Mart. We can’t tell you how handy it is to be able to get groceries or other items delivered without having to leave home. Paying bills and buying tickets can also be done on the app. Like we said, the more you use it, the more features you will discover!
You can either pay using cash or you can connect your account to your bank card. For us, we find it so much easier to have our card attached to our account, this means no searching for cash or waiting for change when you order something. The truth is, once you get use to life with the convenience of Grab app, it’s very hard to live without it, it truly is a Bali lifeline and must when you are living on the Island.
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If you are living in Bali there is no doubt you have seen some of the disturbing images coming out lately of the plastic situation on the beaches during the extreme rainy season. We feel it’s everyone’s responsibility to do what we can, when we can, to reduce single-use plastics being used.
Easy things we’ve always done are to always carry a reusable shopping bag, refuse plastic straws and take a water bottle with us and refill where we can (rather than buying water bottles). When it came to reducing single-use plastics in our home we found this task a little overwhelming, and this is where Zero Waste Bali has become an integral part of our Bali lives.
Late last year we heard about their new REFILLution Bali program. Basically, it’s a monthly delivery/subscription service where they will bring you whatever you need, and this includes swapping out your liquid items (think oils, shampoos, body wash, laundry products), meaning no more throwing away plastic bottles every month! You hand back your empty glass bottles and they give you new full ones.
Your used glass bottles are then cleaned and then reused. Their service is great and there is nothing to be locked into. You can create a recurring, monthly delivery, which you can also make changes and additions/exclusions as you need to each month.
For those like us who found the idea of changing out household items to be zero waste a little daunting, Zero Waste has created starter packs for each of the rooms in your house. That way you can just start with one room and transition slowly (every bit helps!). The best part is, we’ve done the math, when you compare buying these items from traditional stores gram for gram the zero waste alternative often works out cheaper.
Zero Waste Bali is always really supportive with any questions that you have about their services and switching from single-use plastics. We also have taken to gift buying from Zero Waste. Their starter kits make a great gift. What better gift to give (both to Bali and your loved ones) than to help someone start their own zero waste journey.
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Living in Bali as an expat means that you usually have money both in your original home country and in Bali, and quite often you need to transfer between the two countries. Not only can this work out to be super expensive, but it can also be so time-consuming if you try to do this through the local banking systems. We absolutely can not live in Bali without Wise, we use it both for business and for personal use.
Wise is easy to use both in the app form and in the desktop version. You can not beat their exchange rates or their low fees when it comes to transferring money between countries. Better still it is super quick! Often when we send money from Australia to Bali, it hits our Bali bank in under a minute.
If you are transferring money between countries for any reason, definitely set yourself up a Wise account.
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I wish we had discovered Rebtel earlier but alas, now we’ve found it, it’s here to stay! When calling our banks etc back in Australia (any business that doesn’t use internet-based contact options) we’d end up spending a lot on landline calls. Someone gave us the tip about the Rebtel app.
We now have a monthly subscription for $5 USD per month that gives us unlimited calls to Australia (including 13 and 1300 numbers). You can either choose one country or you can choose worldwide numbers for $10 USD per month.
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