Walter spent seven years living near Waikiki in Hawaii.

Before that he lived in La Jolla, San Diego. Government lawyer for a high-end agency. Upper income by any American measure. Oceanfront access, premium neighborhoods, a career most people spend their whole lives working toward.

He left all of it for a one-bedroom in BGC.

Not because he had to. Because he chose to.

Watch Walter's full story here

Walter spends $4,000 to $5,000 a month on his personal lifestyle in BGC. Here is what that buys him.

A beautiful one-bedroom condo overlooking the pool in one of BGC's best buildings. Three to four restaurant meals per day at genuinely good establishments without ever watching the bill. Weekend flights to Singapore, Bangkok, and Hong Kong — a four-hour flight from Manila — whenever he feels like it. A private membership at Manila House, BGC's premier private club where members dine, network, and entertain guests in a setting that rivals anything in Asia.

On top of his personal spend Walter runs a virtual law practice with a team of eight Filipino staff for an additional $2,000 to $3,000 per month. Full team. Part-time hours. High quality work.

His total monthly spend including the business — $7,000 to $8,000 per month.

In Hawaii that same $7,000 a month barely covered rent and utilities.

Walter is direct about this.

Hawaii is gorgeous. The beaches are world class. But money does not go very far there and the social scene at retirement age — mostly couples, mostly sedentary — was not what he was looking for.

He was servicing offices across Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Guam through his work. He started touring cities. The Philippines was not on his list. He stumbled through Manila by accident, discovered BGC, and kept coming back to it as he ruled out other cities one by one.

What sold him was simple. BGC offered a first class quality of life at a fraction of what it would cost anywhere he had previously lived. He was upper income in America. Here the same income put him in the top 10% of earners in the country.

That is not a small difference. That is a completely different category of life.

Walter is not a typical retiree. He did not come here to play golf and disappear into a hammock.

He loves what he does. He loves the clients he serves — doctors and hospitals needing legal advice. He decided to keep doing it remotely from BGC with a Filipino team supporting him at wages that would be impossible to sustain in the US.

He said it plainly. There is no way I could afford three or four people part-time back in the US. The quality of support I get here at this cost simply does not exist in America.

In his first year in Manila he had more social engagement, more dates, more evenings out, and more genuine human connection than in seven years in Hawaii combined. His words not mine.

He is not slowing down. He is running faster than ever — just from a place that actually rewards it.

Walter has lived in Colombia, Panama, Honduras, and Mexico City. He has done international moves before. He knows what it looks like to do it alone.

His verdict was direct.

You could do it yourself but you are incurring tremendous stress and frustration unnecessarily. It is worth paying the money to have someone take care of those details. It pays itself off.

He is right. The expats who arrive in BGC with everything already handled — the condo, the bank account, the SRRV visa, the healthcare — spend their first weeks actually living. The ones who arrive without that spend their first months figuring out what they should have sorted before they left.

Walter chose the first option. One year later he said he could not imagine things going so well.

Click here to start your move to the Philippines the right way.

Travel Well,
Evan Lorezca
The Savvy Expat