by Rick Levy

http://adjusting2philippines.blogspot.com

In August, 2005, my spouse and I retired and relocated overseas from the U.S to the Philippines. As you will see, doing so was not an easy undertaking, and at first I was reluctant to even consider the notion. But thanks to my determined wife, good timing and fortune, and a lot of logistical help from our families, this turned out to be one of the smartest decisions of my life. And because I like to share information about prospective opportunities, I wrote the following narrative about this move.

This story begins in the early part of the decade. My wife Lydia and I were living a modest but comfortable life style, but our careers were at a dead end. I hated my job, but I was making a good wage and had important fringe benefits such as health insurance that were too valuable to give up and start over again.

Then there was the age factor. I was almost 60, so it was unlikely that I would find new employment that would match my salary and benefits at the time—that is if I could find any work at all. Legal or not, age discrimination in the U.S. is a serious concern. Of course, employers who practice this bias usually do so discreetly. For example, to get around the prohibition against asking an applicant for his/her age, the prospective employer will ask for a copy of the job-seeker’s driver’s license for “identity confirmation”. And a salient feature on that form ID of course is date of birth.

Meanwhile, Lydia’s problem with her work was over-qualification for her job. When she was already middle-aged, she earned a B.A. and an M.A degree in psychology. Yet, despite these achievements, the only work that she could find was the position of pre-school teacher, based on her other degree in education (more age discrimination?).

And both of us had long commutes to and from work. Mine ranged from 1½ to 2 hours each way (about 55 miles). Lydia’s was even longer. This meant leaving home about 5am and not returning till about 7pm. For us the notion of an eight-hour work day was a joke.

Whenever Lydia and I are faced with an extraordinary problem for which there just doesn’t seem to be a suitable cure using ordinary solutions, her favorite expression is “then what?” Believe me, if ever there were a “then what?” state of affairs, this was it. It was time to get creative and think outside the box.

Little did I know that Lydia had already hatched a plan that she had actually started putting together in 2001, but it involved taking a big chance, and knowing my risk-aversive nature, she held off telling me until she had thought it through to the smallest detail. Even so, when she first dropped it on me in 2003, it took several months for me to buy into it. But when I did, there was no turning back.

What Lydia proposed for us was truly the great escape: Taking early retirement and moving to the Philippines, her country of origin. On the face of it this sounded like an impossible dream. We were in debt and had no assets to sustain ourselves if we stopped working. We were renters, so we didn’t own property that we could sell to liquidate our debts and live off the remaining proceeds. How then could we possibly make this cockamamie idea work?

The first thing that Lydia did after revealing her ideas was to quit her job and apply for social security for which she had recently become eligible. As counterproductive as that might sound, after factoring in work related expenses such as commuting, she determined that the difference between her salary and S.S. income was minimal and more than compensated for by the newly available free time needed to attend to the details that would put her plan into action, such as packing and shipping.

Before I became fully supportive of this move, I had considered hedging our bet by leaving our furniture in storage in the U.S. while we tested the waters of life in the Philippines. Eventually, I gave up that idea. If Lydia’s plan was going to work, I had to be totally on board and fully committed.

I have to acknowledge that in planning a relocation to the Philippines, we had a few home court advantages. We qualified for a special permanent resident visa program extended to former Philippine citizens and their foreign spouses. These forms are known as the 13(g) and the 13(a). As for shipping our possessions, it so happens that we were familiar with a freight service called LBC that specializes in shipments to the Philippines, and like Fed-Ex (but not as expensive), the sender can arrange for a scheduled pickup, which of course is an extremely convenient feature. (This is not a paid advertisement, just personal experience.)

Due to size restrictions, we couldn’t send our large furniture items through this shipper (Later in this narrative, I will discuss how we disposed of these goods.), but we did send many of our smaller household furnishings via LBC. In addition, Lydia had made arrangements with a family member in her home province to receive and store the boxes as they arrived in the Philippines, as we did not know yet exactly where we would be residing.

Finally, to begin financially underwriting this relocation, I had just turned 59 ½ years old, so I was now at the age where I could cash in my IRA without incurring a penalty.

Our dream was taking on a life of its own.