Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS) About How To Travel, Retire, Work or Start a Business and Live in the Philippines
(Previously published. Significantly updated and corrected in March, 2013, to answer a whole slew of "but does the law allow me to .... ? questions. If it doesn't say you can't, you can) OK, if you’re reading this and you are under the age of 14, go away. We’re both breaking some kind of federal law about making this site ‘child safe” or some other kind of federal anti this or anti that act, and I am not about to start complying, so run home and tell your mamma the mean old … [Read more...]
Philippine Retirement Living and putting your "Retired Brains" to work. This article was published a few months back and has been corrected, updated and added back into the article mix to help out those who want to know about earning a living in,the Philippines, doing business in the Philippines and earning money online in retirement. I also publishing a lot on this subject on my site about Empowering Your Retirement, which is of interest to all baby boomers, seniors and retirees. no … [Read more...]
This original article on Why Choose the Philippines was published some time back. I was not able to follow-up on it. I have updated and corrected errors and will be publishing a separate comparison article on my top choices within the next few days. Enjoy. Why Choose the Philippines One of the questions I have heard many times over the years is “why choose the Philippines”? This is usually in the context of, why not “country X” or “country Y” instead? So far as foreign … [Read more...]
There's a whole lot going on at Marilao Blog Central here in the Philippines. All of its good, but my goodness, where does the time go? I've started to post several articles over the past few days, but they aren't "done yet", so I better get a couple important things out of the way while I can. First: I intend to develop a program like this one of these days soon here near my home, but good intentions pave roads. In the meantime, while I am "intending", friend Bob and his family are … [Read more...]
This is another article built out of questions readers have sent me. Thanks to Erny (and others) who make this possible and who keep me on track and focused on the real world. Several questions were asked about my daily activities and how I get along with the food here in the Philippines ... so here's some answers: I try to go out each and every day. If there are no other commitments, I just go to our local mall. Depending on my mood and the weather I walk there (just over a mile) or … [Read more...]
OK, Labor Day is over, today we should be enjoying a Saturday and thinking about or praying for the people who perished on September 11th and the sad fact of how we have given up so many freedoms since then in the name of “national Security”. Tomorrow, the 12th, is my birthday, I’ll be celebrating at home with family. 65. Damn that sounds old. But like friend Paul said recently, inside I’m still a teenager wonder what the f*ck happened. I’ve got a lot of things going on right … [Read more...]
One of my long-time Australian readers sent me a link to a nice article from an Australian expat living in Indonesia. It made for some good, and thought-provoking reading. Even though there are a huge list of differences between living in Indonesia and living in the Philippines, there are definitely some important lessons we expats often could learn from this article: One night this week, as I strolled home from dinner with my wife, I did something I do all too rarely. I walked … [Read more...]
Just yesterday I found and wrote about a neat online expense comparison tool called Expatistan.com. Expatistan take costs from cites around the world, mostly input by local residents, and cleverly compares them to local costs in a city you might be interested in … giving a quick and first hand look at what it might cost you to live in a far way place. In les than 24 hours I was made aware of a similar tool know as numbeo.com, which performs some very similar functions and in a roughly … [Read more...]
Last week the UnofficialCook and i went to Subic to have lunch with friends and then to attend one of the regular mixers put on by the Subic Bay Freeport Chamber of Commerce (thanks for inviting us, Susan), held at Johan’s Beach and Dive Resort. Now immediately many readers are going to say, why would Philly be going to a Chamber of Commerce affair? is he planning on “putting up a business” as we so often say here in the Philippines? Nope. I’m retired and plan to stay … [Read more...]
My blogging colleague at Living in Paradise, who describes herself as “the Filipina wife of a warm and loving American who has decided to come and live with me in Paradise”, recently posted an interesting post regarding an important upcoming decision in her life and asked for comments. You know me, I write long, so I decided to borrow her words and expound a bit on my views here, because the question at hand is one a huge number of Filipinos and their foreign spouses face every year here in … [Read more...]
There’s an old game any serviceman knows well, based on my years in the Air Force. Probably it is just as common in civilian life too. Among other things it is called “Can you top this?”. In practical and irreverent terms it is also called “First liar never stands a chance”. Basically it involves a bunch of (usually) guys sitting around and (girls can play very well too, women take no back seat in story telling, especially if there is an ex-husband around, … [Read more...]
I’ve mention the excellent source for Philippines jobs, http://www.jobstreet.com.ph/. Although this site is far from specific for foreigners, there are thousands and thousands of jibs listed. In the past year or so I have been pleased to see this site evolve as well, it’s been cleaned up, searches are faster, options to narrow searches are more robust and it general it’s a very good example of Philippine business moving smartly into the “on-line” generation. But if … [Read more...]
