On a post I recently made about “Going Home” one of our frequent visitors, Peter, asked what you should do in a certain situation. He told how he had offered financial assistance to a cousin of his wife so that she could take a trip to another spot in the Philippines. Soon, many other cousins […]
The expat community is abuzz
In my day to day life in Davao, I talk to a lot of expats. A lot of my friends are expats, and I usually end up meeting other expats if I am out and about. Because of this interaction with so many other expats, I can generally get a pretty good read of the […]
The Money Tree
Last week, Feyma wrote an interesting article about family demands for money and such. Feyma and I got married nearly 18 years ago now, and in that time, I have seen so many examples of Filipino families thinking that the money supply was endless now that their daughter had married a foreigner, or now that […]
The Good Life vs. The Cheap Life
It seems that one of the big motivators for Westerners who want to move here can be summed up in one word: CHEAP. Living in the Philippines is cheap, that’s the common belief. Well, it is cheaper to live here than in the West, however, as I’ve written several times recently, that gap is closing […]
Middle Class in the Philippines
For today’s Podcast, Dave Starr and I will be talking about a variety of financial subjects related to living in the Philippines. Basically, we start off the conversation about the Middle Class in the Philippines and how we have seen it grow over the last 20 years or so, and believe me, it is growing! […]
Price Comparisons
As I told you in yesterday’s column, the cost of living in the Philippines is rising dramatically. Because this is something that is on the minds of many ex-pats here, I decided to do a little side by side comparison. For purposes of comparison, I have converted (and adjusted pricing) all into Pounds instead of […]