im assuming you lived a relatively comfortable lifestyle with the figure your quoting. thanks.

About a $900-$1000 a month
Rent and Utilities = $700
Food = $100
Miscelleneous = $100-$200

I liked to keep myself under a $1000 budget.

Since my program was 13 months, around $13,000

thats exceptional! howd you manage $100/month for food? was it area dependent?
i was getting higher quotes of at least $25K for living expense lang.

Because I know how to cook and would rather cook than eat out. If you eat out all the time, it really eats a hole in your budget not to mention thanks to the humongous portions, it will make you gain a lot of weight. Food really isn't expensive if you do all your cooking yourself. I mean if your get a a few pounds of chicken, meat, pork, get enough vegetables, rice and other things. It really isn't that costly and will last you for the month.

If you don't know how to cook, well it's high time to learn because it really will make a big difference in your food budget.

you can always try canada like i did, slightly better exchange rate...the only negative thing about it is of course the horrible winters, except for vancouver which is often rainy lang but is still chilly for us pinoys...
ice burn is right, cooking by yourself is the way to go, there's lots of cookbooks to follow naman and filipino stores are all over anyway....

If there's going to be a Wal-Mart in the local vicinity, take advantage of it. The prices really do make a difference. Simple stuff like shampoo can run up to $5 at a convenience store or pharmacy (like Walgreens) while the same product and size would be at Wal-mart for about $2.

Cheaper yet, a 99-cent store.

This reminds me of a batchmate in AHS who attended Kellogg for his MBA. He did not know how to cook and was sick of cafeteria food. He once tried to use the oven to roast 1 solitary hot dog. Hindi kasi marunong magluto. Heh heh heh ... . He did the next best thing. He went home to Manila during the first x'mas break and proposed to the girlfriend for a summer wedding, brought the new wife to Chicago and he had a cook for life.

Another way to save money, find out if you have relatives in the city where you will attend school or network among other Pinoys. They can feed you once in a while. I did that for my friends attending Kellogg or Chicago because I had my own apartment.

This was 10 years ago in Philadelphia -- $1,500 per month. Pero living super comfortably na ako don -- I had a one bedroom apt for myself. If you would get a room mate, you can deduct $250.