3900 Marbles and Health Insurance.

(Updated 04 DECEMBER 2019)

Let me ask you folks a question.  I just had a conversation with a lady who wanted to bounce some ideas off me about business.  It was a pleasant conversation, but there was one “take away” from it that still kind of rings in my ear and rattles around in my brain, even an hour or more after our conversation ended.

The main thrust we were talking about involved health care and health services and she made a statement right along in the regular flow of the conversation that I have probably heard a thousand times before … but it just jumped right out at me this time, and I have been thinking about it ever since.

The statement went something like this …”after all, if we are talking to retirees, their absolute number one concern is health insurance.”

Retiree’s Absolute Number One Concern is Health Insurance?

[Read more…] about 3900 Marbles and Health Insurance — 2019

Is Your Child a Citizen?

(Updated 05 December 2019)

Here’s a comment I recently received that may interest a lot more readers than just the guy who made the comment.

So I thought I’d take a few minutes and answer this reader’s questions in more detail, for the benefit of others who may pass by here as well.

The subject is something a lot of you out there have already dealt with, or will deal with, or have been wondering about …

But then many of you reading this may be Filipino citizens.  Does that make any difference in the child’s citizenship acquired at birth (often called “birthright citizenship”?

Well yes, indeed it does.  more citizenship information here

and here, U.S. Citizenship Through Parents or by Birth

Before you click on the “More” link to read the rest of this article, remember one important caveat.  I am not a lawyer, I can’t give legal advice and nothing I write here is to be considered legal advice.  This is my own personal opinion based upon my own research.

Now, if you’d like to read on. [Read more…] about Is Your Child a Citizen?

How To Stay Long-Term in the Philippines — Balikbayan Privilege

(Updated 16 October 2019)

I’ve written several recent articles about staying long-term in the Philippines.  If you haven’t seen them you can read them here:

How long can you stay in the Philippines if you are a US citizen?

Ways To Stay Long-Term in the Philippines — Part 2

Staying for an extended time on a tourist visa or with many of the permanent residency visas the Philippines offers can run into some money.

How about a way that requires no forms or applications to fill up and which is absolutely free?

Interested?  It’s called the One-year Visa-free Balikbayan Privilege.  If you want to learn more, just click the “More” link and I’ll give you the lowdown.

[Read more…] about Ways To Stay Long-Term in the Philippines — Part 3

What Top Right Corner is that, Dave?

(Updated 5 December 2019)

Umm, this page you are reading right now.  Or any page on this site.

I’m asking because I have software that tracks where people have visited, and I notice that two of the absolute least visited pages on this site are the  FAQS page (that used to be a commonly understood acronym/abbreviation for “Frequently Asked Questions” and the Best Places Philippines page.

The FAQS page:

In some ways, years ago, I thought this would be the most important and helpful page on this site.  Whenever someone would ask a question of common interest … such as say “How Long Can I Stay in the Philippines?” I would enter that question on the FAQS page along with a concise answer.

That’s what having a FAQS section is all about … people can visit there and get answers to their questions without wasting their time and mine in asig the same question over and over again.

I explained it here and even included a link for people to ask additional questions with just a single click.

Here I will list Philippine FAQS (and answers) as they come in.  I’ll attempt to put them in some sort of order, but issues and opportunities arrive in random bursts, so many of these Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS) will as well.  Got a question you don’t see “Asked and Answered” here already?  “Shoot it to me” here:  Contact Philly.

Apparently, this was a dumb idea, since no one ever visits or leaves additional questions.

Any suggestion?

The Best Places Philippines Page:

I started this page a long time ago as a place where readers could see “their” place on the Philippines “on the map” so to speak.

Each blue pin on the map, when clicked on, shows the name of the reader who posted it as well as a capsule description as to why this might be the “best place in the Philippines” for you.

So many people have the question in their minds as to where they ought to move to in the Philippines … yet so few ever visit the map and have a look.

It’s a full-fledged link into Google Maps.  You can do so much more than just look at some pins on a map.

For example, here’s what you see if you zoom in on my own pin on my home here in Marilao, Bulacan on Luzon.

You Can Learn A Lot About The Philippines With Google Maps

Also, be sure to go to maps.google.com and try the “satellite view”.

For example, how would traffic be if I left mt home right now to drive to my local SM City Mall?

So what do you think?  Why don’t people make more use of the map?

 

Top 10 Art Schools – 2018

Top 10 Art Schools – 2017

 

[Read more…] about Top 10 Art Schools – 2019

A Green Card is Not a Visitor’s Visa.

(Updated 25 November 2019)

This article was published some years back.  I’ve significantly updated it and added material, because the issue has become much more critical, given the focus of the current administration.

Many of my readers either already have, or plan in the future to become quite well acquainted with the United States Permanent Resident Card, commonly known as the “Green Card” (government form number I-551)

Many folks I have chatted with in the past 17 or 18 years of being intimately interested in moving to the Philippines, living in the Philippines, bringing a Philippine citizen to the US, and other related matters, do not know much about this card, legal permanent residency status itself, and the rules, both written and unwritten that apply.

[Read more…] about A Green Card is Not a Visitor’s Visa

Happy Fourth of July

(Updated 4 July 2019)

Yes, indeed I have been AWOL from the site here a long time.

As we were taught in the military, the “excuse” is, “No Excuse, Sir”.   Everything is going well for me, but life has been happening … that’s all I can say

Took A Little Vacation/Rejuvenation Trip

Today is the 4th of July, 2019 and I am in the good old red, white and blue USA.  Mt. Dora, Florida to be specific.

My wife and I  arrived here in the very wee hours of 2 July after flying MNL-NRT-BOS-MCO.  (Google is your friend)

The trip was not too long (delayed two hours or so by weather in Tokyo, but our JetBlue flight connecting Boston to Orlando was three hours late so everything worked out well (except for the other 180 people who had to wait an extra 3 hours in Boston, just for us ;-0

I’m in the Orlando Area now

and even though I’ve only done a little shopping and dining I am still shocked by the prices here.  Rather than belabor the point I’m going to refer you to an article I wrote last October when we were last in the USA:

Still Keeping Me Rudely Awake 2018

[Read more…] about Happy Fourth Of July — Temporarily on US Soil

Can a US citizen move to the Philippines?

(Updated 16 June 2019)

The answer to that question is a resounding YES.

I’ve been reading about, writing about and actually living a move to the Philippines for nearly 13 years now.

It only struck as strange very recently how complicated and obscure my writing and most others writing on this subject have been,  I apologize right now for all those years of making it seem so darn hard.  It isn’t.

If You Want To Move To The Philippines You Can.

Tomorrow if you would like and if an airline has an empty seat to sell you.

“But Dave”, I hear you saying, “my head is swimming with all these details of visas, permissions, planning and all sorts of complicated issues people continually write about.  It can’t really be that simple, can it”?

Well, The Bottom Line Is, It Absolutely CAN Be that Simple.

[Read more…] about Can a US Citizen Move to the Philippines?

Moving to The Philippines from the USA

(Updated 25 April 2019)

Why would anyone ever search Google for the phrase”Moving to The Philippines from the USA “?

Well, there’s a lot of possible reasons, but one that comes to mind right away is geographic arbitrage.

Geographic Arbitrage

Geographic Arbitrage (which I’ll call Geotrage from now on in the article)  is a rather complicated term for a simple life tactic … earn high and spend low.

“Easier said than done, Dave, ” I hear you saying.  “I can only earn so much (and don’t forget to whine “I’m on a fixed income” *sigh*.

“And it just costs so much to live … just the basic necessities.”

If You Just Can’t Make Ends Meet, Perhaps Geotrage is for you”

Arbitrage most simply defined; … is the practice of taking advantage of a price difference … “.  Now often when you hear someone rattling on about “arbitrage” they go off onto complex deals involving foreign exchange, buy or selling stocks and all sorts of complex monetary deals that give many of us a headache.

And which can be disastrously costly if you make a big mistake.

For our purposes here, we are going to define our coined word … Geotrage” as “earning a high cost of living income” (HCOL) while living in a low cost of living country. (LCOL).

Here’s an Example That Worked For Me

I’m a US-born man now in my 73rd year.  13 years ago, when I retired from my US government job, at age 60, I was about $40,000 USD in debt, had already sold my US home at a very low price to pay off even more debt, and I was living in a decrepit double-wide trailer with holes in the walls.

I receive a very nice pension from my former job … spent 38 years of my life all over the world earning it, but my income could hot really have been any more “fixed”.

Actually, I wish my income had been even more “fixed” because after 13 years of the “tender mercies” of three US presidents (cutting Civil Service entitlements is “good politics for either Red or Blue politicians) I make even less than I did in 2003 when I retired.

To Put It Mildly, I Had Month Left Over At The End Of My Money.

However, was I going to get a decent roof over my head and pay off that whopping pile of debt without going to Wal*Mart and getting a job as a door greeter … or flipping burgers at McDonald’s on the night shift?

I don’t even have a college degree, and even if I did, have you ever seen anything more pitiful than a60yo man sitting in the line of bright, young 20 yo’s at the employment office …waiting to be interviewed by a 30 yo who thinks that age 40 is “old”?

Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You Takes On New Meaning After Age 50

What could I do?  What would YOU do in my shoes?

Fortunately, I had an “ace in the hole”.  I was married to a lovely lady from the Philippines who was with me there in the USA, working hard and earning everything she could to help pay thongs off.

Since my wife was already a US citizen, we were pretty much free to go and please as we wished, and when I had visited her family in the Philippines I noticed that life seemed a lot more laid back and easy there … and A HECK OF A LOT CHEAPER!

Remember the Geotrage definition a few paragraphs back?  Earn in HCOL money (US dollars) and spend in LCOL money .. like Philippine Pesos?

My wife and I sold off the two cars we didn’t need, garage-saled everything else in our house and bought one-way tickets to Manila, Republic of the Philippines.

Did we survive?

You bet we did.  We didn’t just “survive”, we thrived.

All that credit card debt is now paid off.   We own a car, bought new and now free and clear and a two story 3 bed 3 bath home that’s now fully paid for.

All in slightly under 13 years.  And trust me, we didn’t live like millionaires but we lived quite decently and well.  Ate too much, had too much fun, traveled to other locations in Asia very cheaply and have generally enjoyed life to the hilt.

How Can You Save By Leaving The USA?

First and foremost, things in most Asian countries are cheaper.

On average at least 40% cheaper.  Here are two independent sites which document people’s spending all over the world and allow you to compare costs one country or city with another.:

Numbeo

Expatistan

Go ahead, take a look for yourself and see what your costs might be.  The savings can be significant indeed.

Secondly, You can save a LOT on Income Taxes.

If you are a US citizen, you must report and pay to the IRS Federal Income tax on all income … by law.

You can’t escape US federal income tax by moving outside the USA.

But there’s a huge legal potential for tax savings for all citizens who are outside the USA for 330 or more days per year.  It’s called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (or FEIE).  And it is not a trivial amount by any means.

In the tax year 2018 for example, the FEIE is $104,100 USD for all taxpayers outside the SA for more than 330 days.

This means that the first $104,100 you receive in earned income from your work while outside the USA is excluded, that is subtracted out of the total adjusted gross income that you owe taxes on.  This can easily mean a direct reduction of 20% or more in your total cost of living for that tax year.

It Ads Up Fast

Let’s see now, as much as 69% direct cost of living savings, plus as much as 20% savings in US income taxes?  We seem to be getting into some real savings here.

Also, don’t forget state taxes.   There is no requirement that any US citizen also be a citizen of any US state.  In fact, there are several hundred thousand US citizens in this world who have never even BEEN to the USA.

So if you’re currently a citizen of a US state that levies outrageous state taxes on you, just change your legal residence overseas and you pay no state taxes to anyone.

How much would that save you every year?

So FarWeAre Up To A Pretty Whopping Potential Savings, Aren’t We?

What should you do next?

First, research, explore and most of all, open your mind to the fact that living inside the USA, especially in a high cost, high tax state is NOT the only way a US citizen has to live.

Second, realize that Geotrage need not be a “forever” thing.  A lot of people I talk to have the idea of moving overseas when they retire kind of floating around in the back of their minds.  This may be the wrong way to look at things.

When you are 60 plus, with health issues, needing to use the services of Medicare (important to note that Medicare pays for nothing outside the USA), grandkids growing up and such, being back in the USA may be the best place for you.

Making a 10 or 15-year move overseas when your earning power is at its peak, when your kids are not sucking up $100k a year in college tuition, etc., may be best … it’s all up to each individual family.

But Don’t Close Your Mind To The Power Of Earning High and Spending Low

I kept my mind open and wow, did it improve my personal finances a LOT.

If you have questions or comments, or you are curious why I chose the Philippines, rather than Thailand, where 90% of the Geotrage folks seem to head, be sure to leave a comment .. and let me know what you want to learn more about.

Let me know what else I can tell you about:

Moving to The Philippines from the USA.