Over my years of living in the Philippines, I have literally met thousands of expats.  Some have become friends, others I have only met once or twice.  There is one thing, though, that impacts nearly every single expat that I know or have met.  That thing is financial.  Nearly every expat that I have run across over the years always has limited funds.  They came here with plenty of money, but spent it unwisely.  Some came here thinking that their pension would be plenty for a super life in the Philippines, especially when added to their "significant" (they thought) savings.  Somehow, though, those funds in savings never seem to be enough.

Hey, I am not belittling anybody here, I got myself in the same situation a couple of times over the years, but luckily have always been able to work my way out of it.  My first incident where the financial alarm bells were buzzing happened just 2 years after I moved here.  I came here thinking that I had plenty of money and it was not even a worry.  I had ideas for businesses to supplement my savings too, but my savings ran out a lot faster than I thought they would.  When this happens, you know it is happening, but you tend to ignore it.  When you finally face reality and accept that you are in trouble, it is usually late in the game, when things get critical.  That is how it happened with me.  But, I went into action, and was able to save myself and my family.  In fact, I came back stronger than ever and was able to earn a great income in the Philippines.

I recently got an inquiry from a fellow who is not yet in critical condition, but he sees his savings beginning to dwindle, and he wants to save his situation before he is forced to move back to the States.  That was a real motivator for me too, as I was loving life in the Philippines and did not want to leave.

A friend that is quite close to me came here a few years back with about $20,000 in savings, and an adequate retirement pension, he thought he was set.  I cautioned him to preserve his savings as much as possible.  But, it was only months and the savings was gone.  That is a tough situation to be in, believe me.  My friend has been trying different ways of supplementing his income, and I think he is experiencing some success.

In today's podcast, I address this financial issue that seems to arise for virtually every expat, and I explain how I got out of the problem.  Hopefully the things I did can help you also overcome the problem or avoid it all together.

Listen in, hopefully you will learn something, or perhaps you have information based on your experience, and you can share that with other readers and listeners!  You would be most welcome to do so!

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Thanks again for listening, everybody!