Warning. reading this post may be very taxing. Do not attempt if you suffer from heart disease or have any other health condition that requires a physicians (or accountant’s) care.
Q & A 25 Sep 2008 Do I Have To Pay taxes?
Question: I currently live and work outside the US so I don’t owe US federal [...]
A couple of the most popularly searched posts here on PhilFAQS, the authoritative blog about traveling to, retiring in and in and living in the Philippines are this one What Things Cost — Department Store 1 and this one What Things Cost — Department Store 2. I have hesitated to write much about my personal [...]
My apologies that this post was “borked” with the partial HTML mess. I can not just delete it as certain links already point here, so the post is republished in it’s entirety in the next post. Thanks also to those who took the time to tell me about the problem and tried to [...]
Many queries I’ve received over the past few years involved finding a house that’s more to American or European standards and a place for the children to attend school. My standard answer is, I personally am not going to spend the money that so-called "International communities" come up to, and I’m a believer that your [...]
This is a "blast from the past". I’ve decided that each and every Saturday I’ll republish one of my popular older post. Even though the site has many ways to look up data published years back, people aren’t always in a position to hunt around, so this will be yet another way to find things [...]
Cost of living in the Philippines is always one of the most consistently searched for items here on PhlFAQS … your site to learn the answers to the FAQS (Frequently Asked Questions) about flying to the Philippines, moving to the Philippines, retiring in the Philippines and whatever else the “ringmaster” here decides to ramble on [...]
First of all, let me state this is not a picture of our "dirty kitchen" here in the Philippines. But it might be someday, though. Probably not, but one of the things my lovely wife and I have discussed at some length is smarter ways to make ourselves more energy independent. The idea of making [...]
Don’t bother digging out your Tagalog or Bisayan dictionaries, those word are in Japanese .. or precisely, Nihongi Nihongo (thanks, Paul) , the official language of Japan … Japan, like the Philippines actually has an abundance of languages, Nihongo is the one foreigners are most likely to learn.
During the years I worked in Japan I [...]
As many readers already know I keep very close tabs on what people search for here at PhilFAQS, the site for people who want to know the FAQS (Frequently Asked Questions) abut moving to and living in the Philippines. If you found this site by a search from Google or one of the other search [...]
Well, actually we did cut the cake, but after we brought it home. Turns out that even after we paid all the fees (the 7200 pesos turned into 9200 Pesos when the cake was included, we still couldn’t have the cake in the party venue … why I didn’t ask, my guess is it would [...]
Image via Wikipedia
I’ve mentioned previously how titles and forms of address are much more important here in the Philippines. It’s a little something that isn’t a big deal to most foreigners (it can even be a bit amusing, such as the part-time commissioned water bill collector in our neighborhood who insists she be addresses [...]
Image by glenmcbethlaw via Flickr
Today is my birthday. I’m holding off celebrating until tomorrow, the 13th, because my little nephew Mazen is turning 4 tomorrow and we’ve decided to share our birthday … I was born on the 12th of September and he was born on the 13th of September, but it will still [...]
I mentioned in an earlier post how the length of the day here in the Philippines is so different from what many readers here are accustomed to. It takes some getting used to. In most northern hemisphere countries the sun is always in the south to an observer on the ground. It gets higher in [...]
What in the world is a Ber month? Oh, that’s simple. It’s a shortcut term for what passes for winter here in the Philippine northland. It’s slang for any month with a "b e r" in it.
I’ve mentioned in the past that "night is the Philippine winter", based on the fact that the average swing [...]
Maybe I am wrong on this post. Perhaps there are not as many people my age, or at least old enough to remember when punch lines like my headline above played a part in any number of uncouth, racist and often very derogatory “jokes” that were heard every day … what, the police arrested [...]
