Here’s some other ideas I’ve thought of to make money while living in the Philippines. Feel free to take any of them for your own if you’re looking for a way to live permanently in the Philippines.
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There’s alot of things I wish I knew before I came to the Philippines. I like to write these blog entries imagining myself before I came to the Philippines and all the things I needed to know. When you think about sending money to the Philippines to a girl, there’s alot things you can imagine may go wrong (or right). In other articles I’ve talked about things that can go wrong, i.e. the girl is merely attempting to scam you. This article, however, takes another look at when things can go wrong with sending money, even when the girl is very sincere about meeting you.
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I’m fortunate that my career lets me operate anywhere in the world I can get an internet connection.  However, its not something that anyone can easily just “pick-up-and-do”, alot has to do with complex website design and web promotion.  I meet alot of foreigners who visit the Philippines, and a good portion of them would stay here if they could.  As such I’m always thinking about what I can do to make some money while living in the Philippines.

There has to be a million and one ways to make money online, I don’t know them all.  I have experience with freelance website design, creating retail websites, search engine promotion.  However - what if I didn’t know how to do any of that?  What would I do, pack up my bags and go home?  There really isn’t anything to do in the Philippines for a foreigner to do, that would make a significant amount of money (without involving risk or a significant outlay of investment funds).

So I’m always thinking to myself “what would I do?” and recommending ideas to other foreigners who can’t come up with a way to stay over here.  So here is one thing that I might do, assuming I had a low skillset and didn’t know how to do website design, promotion, etc.

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There are two hotels I’ve liked in Davao.  One is more for convenience, the other for leisure. For convenience I’d pick Crown Regency Residences.  For quality (and assuming there are only a couple of us), I would definitely pick Blue Jaz Resort and Waterpark on Samal Island.

When I first came to Davao, I first stayed at Crown Regency Residences.  Since then, we’ve stayed there two other times, total combined days would be over a month.  It seemed to me the cheapest deal for a large place to stay for lots of people.  We got their family sized suite, and it has a couch downstairs where you can pull out a bed, as well as two bedrooms upstairs.  Their maximum people is listed at 6, and that was actually the largest I was able to find.  When I first came here in 2007, we weren’t married yet, and Elizabeth needed chaperonning.  It was myself, Elizabeth, her mother, sister and 2 cousins.  I honestly couldn’t find any other place that would hold that many people (without having to get multiple rooms) … so it turned out nice that Crown Regency turned out to be a great place to stay.

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I moved permanently to the Philippines on my second visit, March 22, 2008. From March through December 8 2008 (about 9 1/2 months), I lived in San Fernando, which is a little barangay of Bislig City.  This is a very small town, in fact the only stores are the little every-other-house ones that sell only rice, snacks and coke.  Then from December 8, 2008 (the day I got married to my beautiful filipina wife Elizabeth), we moved to Davao.  Davao is the third largest city in the Philippines (beneath Manila and Cebu), and had a good assortment of entertainment and things-to-do.  We lived in Davao from December 8 through today’s date, about 6 months (and our six month contract is nearly completed), so we must move.  We have considered remaining in Davao, however, now we are headed back to San Fernando, Bislig.  The two cities are very different, so I thought I would write about why we are moving back to the more rural area, and the differences between rural and urban Philippines.

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The package looks wonderful, Globe Tatoo wireless USB modem has mobile internet connection, HSDPA of 400 to 700 Kbps, thats a maximum speed of 1.2 to 2 Mbps.  Even the 3G speeds of 150 to 250 Kbps, maximum speed of 384Kbps looks wonderful.

What you actually get is pretty pathetic, however.  Download speeds of perhaps 15kbps.  You will barely break dial-up access speeds.   They say their “Maximum Speed” is 2Mbps, but if they had to list their minimum speed, it’d be 5Kbps.  And average would maybe be 15Kbps.  This Globe Tatoo is nothing more than a repackaging of Globe Visibility, it is not any faster. Read the rest of this entry »

In my first article about filipina girls, I talked about various situations with filipina girls, one of those being packs of lesbians running around, tricking guys to send them money and after they get some, going out to discos partying.

I’m going to elaborate on this a little bit further, because that story has developed a little more, but also because I think of anything I could possibly write, this alone is going to save foreign guys the most cash and heartache.

I have an American friend from California, to protect the innocent I’ll call him Chuck.  Chuck became my friend when he came to the Philippines to meet the cousin of my beautiful wife Elizabeth.  Chuck is a good guy, and unfortunately got stuck with this cousin Jannette Joy (that is her real first and middle name, leaving out her last name only to save myself possible grief over family conflicts that may arise from me telling the world how bad my wife’s cousin is).  This cousin also goes by “Joy Joy” which I’ll call her here.

Joy Joy is a lesbian.  She is, I believe 19 years old now.  I want every guy to read this paragraph several times and let it sink in.  If you stood Joy Joy up with 10 other of the most wholesome girls in the Philippines, who are sincere and good for you, and would give you a long and wonderful, happy life of marriage … and you had to pick which one was the best from you out of nothing but looks, an innocent looking beauty … you would probably pick Joy Joy.  If you took 10 other of the most wholesome girls in the Philippines, and had to chat with them online (without seeing what they look like), and pick the best girl for you based off nothing other than chat, you would most likely pick Joy Joy.  This is because it is her job to get you to trust her and to send her money.  She is very, very good at it.  So now, the full story of what this girl did to Chuck, as well as another guy Read the rest of this entry »

I love Davao.  I’ve lived here since December 2008 through today (exactly six months).  Our rental is up this month and we went out looking for houses to buy or rent.

One of the places I was most interested in moving into is One Oasis.  Its a condo unit in a very short walking distance from SM Mall.  SM Mall, compared to Gaisano and NCCC, I think is the best.  It seems the newest, its the brightest.  The food in the restaurants is of superior quality, the food in the supermarket is of superior quality.  Walking distance means I could avoid having to buy a vehicle.

Several months ago, I made 30,000 pesos reservation fee on 3 lots at a Samantha Homes subdivision, thats about $638 USD.  It is a project near Mt. Apo.  Beautiful area, but its perhaps a 20 minute drive from SM Mall.  I had a big change of mind, wanting to just live near SM Mall in walking distance (thus is One Oasis).  However, when it came time for financing Read the rest of this entry »

The first time I came to the Philippines, I got sicker than I had ever been in my entire life.  This was September 9th, 2007.  I stayed 3 weeks and went home very sick.  The second time I came to the Philippines (March 22, 2008, I got sicker than I had ever been in my entire life (surpassing the first time).  I was very concerned of course, I was wondering whether I could ever live in the Philippines with it being so horrible for my health.  This story gets better though … Read the rest of this entry »

My entire life I’ve never had a problem with body acne, or boils — really large zits.  The water in the Philippines isn’t really treated like it is in the United States.  In the US they put chlorine and probably other things in the water to make it safe from germs and bacteria.  They don’t have that here.  This is a tropical climate, and as you can imagine bacteria can thrive in that sort of an environment.

As a result, I find my skin is more likely to break out into these large boils which are quite painful.  This is less of a problem in Davao vs back in the province city of Bislig, yet its still a problem.  There’s two things you can do about it, anti-biotics and treat your own water for prevention. Read the rest of this entry »