I'm Not Trying To Throw A Bomb In Here But...

[throwawaydad]

I have decided that in order to make an appropriate decision, I will need to make a minimum at least THREE trips to the P.I.

Three trips?  Yep.

I would like to advance an idea that some folks may have forgotten (or ignored).  There is a tendency to focus on price (understandably), while denying the price you would pay to court an A/W.  Plus the concept of marriage, with all its good intentions, still demands careful decision-making.  Squeezing the nickel NOW is definitely not in one’s best interests.

Let me give you a hypothetical scenario in Chicago, where I live.  This won’t be “typical” but it happens to many of us more than one would realize.  We just neglected to notice.

Saturday Date.

Chicago Cubs Good Seats (2 tickets)      140.00
Parking               25.00
Refreshments at the game         30.00
Dinner afterwards            50.00 (at least)

Total                  245.00

“Oh, I would never do that…too expensive!”

OK…cut the price in half….122.00.

Do that every week for 2 years.  Over TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

My plan is to budget between 8000-10000 dollars in this situation.  Multiple trips over…look on craigslist.org for a place to rent (probably nicer than a hotel, and more private).  If I “strike out” for whatever reason, then I will have had a nice vacation in a place I’ve never been.  If fate / luck / karma / divine intervention look my way, I’ll consider it money well spent.  She’ll be ready and CONFIDENT, and I’ll be ready and CONFIDENT.

If you don’t have the ca$h now, that’s fine…just get going.  Take on a side job (even a POS job).  You’ll make additional cash and have less time to spend it.  If you have a Health Reimbursement Plan @ work, make sure you utilize it to your advantage.  Look @ your Dental Insurance.  Most plans have a $1000 yearly limit.  $1000 doesn’t cover jack.  If you have more work that need to be done, it can be done cheaper in the P.I.  Your plan at work deducts a specific amount (that YOU specify) from your paycheck (and you pay ZERO income tax on that amount).  Those expenses can include travel & lodging, plus of course the cost of treatments.

There ARE three major caveats however.

1.  Finding a full-service medical practitioner…Google is your friend.
2.  If for any reason you do not use your “reserved” funds…THEY”RE GONE.  So be sure of what you want to do.
3.  You have to pay up front, and you only have a year.  Then wait for reimbursement.  Reimbursement is quick though...only about a month.

As an aside, I decided a few months ago that I was going to do this adventure.  One morning I got out of the shower to shave.  After my shave I looked at my body in the mirror.

OMG!  I never realized that I’d been putting on the weight.  I always had a decent body, but in the mirror I looked like crap.  Starting Man-boobs and the whole nine yards.

“Denial…it’s more than a river in Egypt.”
 
So I went to my old buddy, craigslist and bought a used P90X program.  I have NO vested interest in this company.  I changed my diet (well at least 80% of it) and hit the program on the DVD player EVERY DAY.  Only takes about an hour, and I’ve been doing it for almost 2 months.

I’ve lost almost FIFTY POUNDS.  And I needed to lose it, too.  A sedentary lifestyle combined with POS eating habits (and my fondness for Beer) all conspired to set me up and lead me down the proverbial bunny trail to being a fat-ass, borderline slovenly “old man”.

To be honest, the program IS hard, but not impossible…in the early stages it reminded me of when I was young, working out so hard that I had a stomach ache.

If money’s going to an issue, get moving tomorrow.
If you’re worried about your appearance, get moving tomorrow.

Vince Lombardi, the football coach is credited with the following quote:

“Plan Your Work, And Work Your Plan.”

I practice that motto every day in the markets.  I know my entry and I know my exit.

For you fellows who are chatting with foreign women via social network, don’t forget, you’re only addressing a single dimension of this journey.  Make the best, and the most of every opportunity you have.

Good Luck to us all.

[robert angel]

DLG,

There's some good points in there and I think the three trip plan sounds great if you're able to work it. Unfortunately, most of us can't. For us, at best we can really afford to visit every other year. You're right about setting 'priorities'-almost anything is possible when you do that. And eating out and entertainment costs, can really, really 'eat' your income up.

We're guilty of enjoy a nice meal out maybe a dinner out once every week to ten day, but we order from the menu with value and taste in mind, look for specials, coupons and almost always order ice water with lemon with our meals and skip the pricey deserts. Sometimes, we'll enjoy a nice meal at a good restaurant and note that if we bought all the ingredients required to make it at home, it'd cost more and we'd end up wasting things like fresh ingredients we couldn't use in other dishes, throwing them away.

Losing weight is something most of us really should do to one extent or another, but it really requires discipline and usually additional exercise. My wife encourages both for us, and cooks pretty healthy. She's even willing to forgo white rice for healthier brown, but we still usually 'go white'...

Re: >>If you have a Health Reimbursement Plan @ work, make sure you utilize it to your advantage.  Look @ your Dental Insurance.  Most plans have a $1000 yearly limit.  $1000 doesn’t cover jack.  If you have more work that need to be done, it can be done cheaper in the P.I.<<

Boy, doesn't that hit close to home! Just this week my wife found out that her occasional ear aches and jaw pain are due to TMJ and orthodontics may be one course of treatment--we're still 'looking into it' and considering options. You'd never know to look at her--her figure, skin, hair and teeth look great. She has a healthy 'glow'--in fact, we were somewhere last weekend where it was dark and there were UV black lights and her lovely white teeth actually were 'lit up' by the black light. The other Filipina in our party had nice teeth too, but for some reason, only my wife's caught the ultraviolet light--a little weird--her light tan skin, sparkling black diamond eyes and teeth glowing in the dark!.

My dentist is great, if a little expensive. That said, he's not the kind of fellow who looks for country club membership fees when he looks in my mouth. He's been saying for close to ten years now that eventually I'd need about five crowns and I have yet to meet that day.

Well, this week, he said one of my molars with a root canal had 'gone south', had an infection, he showed me the  X ray and that explained that he really doubted if a root canal restoration was advisable, as it probably wouldn't last and that what he recommended was probably inevitable. He told me to think about it.

And THAT he was talking about is a tooth implant--basically involving bone grafts securing a screwed in artificial tooth 'shank' on which they place a crown. It can take 4 to 6 months. The cost? Up to four thousand dollars. Four grand for ONE tooth!. And specialists doing the work-not him. He could do the work and make even more, but he'd rather not do anything even just 95% right. What do we have--26 teeth? Imagine a a mouthful! I'd be the bionic mouth!

Well, like you said, my dental will reimburse me up to a thousand a year, matching me up that amount, dollar for dollar, as is common. Even my dentist and his staff says it's unusual for anyone to get more back from these dental plans than they pay to have them. It takes a weird, unusual combination of circumstances to actually come out ahead. That's why the insurance companies are still in business and advertising during Superbowls, I guess....

I'm very lucky implants are even covered (for this year anyway) and I'll space out my remaining $800 for that this year and another $1000 next year. I have some pretax deductions for this kind of thing and I was worried I wouldn't incur enough expenses because my new health care insurance program is better (for now) and my Rx's and routine medical stuff is actually costing me less--again, this year anyway--and my premiums have gone up a bit. Oh well, I'll leave my pretax health care deductions 'as is' for a while!

A buddy of mine had a root canal in Thailand last summer and it didn't last long. Having it redone here was about $1200. I think for dental care overseas, even for medical care in general, we have to be very careful. I am sure there are some good providers, it's just the challenge of finding them.

It seems like every year, my dentist has some new, state of the art, uber expensive device and I must say, they really do a fine job. He doesn't spend money lightly on technology--he came from a little farm town called Nahunta, Georgia and he's smart, but still 'corn pone' and common sensical.

I read somewhere a while back that some US based insurance companies are actually covering some operations, like hip and knee replacements, in places like Thailand and Singapore and that the care is excellent in certain facilities, with high sanitation marks and an excellent staff to patient ratio at a fraction of the USA cost. The cost calculation is INCLUDING the cost of airfare and hotel for recuperation time over there. Once again, an informed decision on provider quality is essential, but more and more people are having all kinds of medical work done and enjoying vacation time at the same time, overseas.

[Dave H]

DLG,


Boy, doesn't that hit close to home! Just this week my wife found out that her occasional ear aches and jaw pain are due to TMJ and orthodontics may be one course of treatment--we're still 'looking into it' and considering options.

Hey Rob,

I know this sounds stupid...but does she chew gum? Accessive chewing (gum, etc), jaw clenching and teeth grinding at night can contribute to TMJ pain. Sure your dentist may not have a country club membership and drive an old Chevy Astro Van like my dentist...but is he a pilot who is wishing to upgrade his aircraft like my DMD?    My non-professional, cheap solution is:

1. No gum chewing
2. Teeth grinding guard for sleeping
3. Sex  before bedtime 

Whether it works or not, I prefer step 3! 

Dave

[piglett]

Hey Robert i know what your saying about the dental costs.
at the start of the year i got to pay for two $575 crowns out of my pocket.  
The dentist that i go to just loves spending money on all the best dental toys too.
he made both of my crowns rite there on a $140k CNC machine.
it did do a fine job making the crowns though, now i know why he charges so dam much money. I think last time i talked to him he wanted about 3k for one of those inplants & i decided to pass for now. Maybe once Marily gets here & she has dental insurance through her work i MITE look into it.


piglett    

[piglett]

Hey Rob,

I know this sounds stupid...but does she chew gum? Accessive chewing (gum, etc), jaw clenching and teeth grinding at night can contribute to TMJ pain. Sure your dentist may not have a country club membership and drive an old Chevy Astro Van like my dentist...but is he a pilot who is wishing to upgrade his aircraft like my DMD?    My non-professional, cheap solution is:

1. No gum chewing
2. Teeth grinding guard for sleeping
3. Sex  before bedtime 

Whether it works or not, I prefer step 3! 

Dave

Just to be on the safe side i think we should all try to follow Dave's advice with step 3

keep up the good work Dave
your the man
piglett

[robert angel]

Hey Dr. Dave!

Re:


>>
I know this sounds stupid...but does she chew gum? Excessive chewing (gum, etc), jaw clenching and teeth grinding at night can contribute to TMJ pain. Sure your dentist may not have a country club membership and drive an old Chevy Astro Van like my dentist...but is he a pilot who is wishing to upgrade his aircraft like my DMD?    My non-professional, cheap solution is:

1. No gum chewing
2. Teeth grinding guard for sleeping
3. Sex  before bedtime  

Whether it works or not, I prefer step 3!  


As usual, you're 'spot on' here. And I will go with solutions 1 and 3, thank you very much!

She still chews gum too much. Before she had her tonsils out last summer at this time, she was very conscious of her breath and she discreetly (unlike many cow cud chewing AW's) chewed sugarless gum quite a bit to make 100% certain that her breath wasn't even one percent off. In fact, my sons were always hitting her up for gum, knowing she was and actually still is, 'carrying' said gum, at all times...

She'll kill me for writing this, but she must still privately take me aside 4-5 times a day and say 'is my breath OK?' And it ALWAYS is! Honest--even after eating ribs, chicken and in the morning! I try not to get too upset, but I forget how much the whole tonsil thing was--maybe $25,000---and I tell her that for the  kind of money those little buggers cost to cut out, her breath should be and IS perfect.

It's sooo ironic that she always smells great, like she just got out of the shower. I can be soaking wet with sweat and she's as dry as uncooked rice. She even takes a tooth brush and paste to work, doesn't need deodorant or to shave her legs and she's still almost obsessing over hygiene.

I start to worry when I begin to glow in the dark, my shoes have smoke emanating from them, as mongrels  begin to follow me intently, the buzzards flying over head in a slow, death spiral and I hear spaghetti western music in my head...I know then, that it's time for my monthly shower and delousing.....

But she still does chew gum--old ways die hard. I'm going to have to get on her about it--because the teeth grinding guard and some of the other things the insurance companies will surely insist on torturing her with first, before they'll convene a panel of experts to decide against expensive surgery anyways, would be awful.

Plus I had major (general anesthesia) operations for hemorrhoids and snoring (can we talk? ) about 15 years ago and both problems have come back!!  So surgery isn't as good as it seems a lot of the time. My back Dr., a top flight neuro surgeon, charges me a minimum of $400 for less than 15 minutes and looks me in the eye and says 'Robert--if you REALLY want, I'll go ahead and operate on those two lower vertebrae, but you might get better OR it might end up WORSE as a result!

I told him I wanted a second opinion. He said--"No problem--I can give you one here and now and save you the trouble"----"You're ugly too!"


Anyways--my dentist may get up to a $170 for one 'three unit dental filling' (amalgam?), but although he does have a nice home,I don't think I've bought anything pricey for him out of my mouth, especially since he quit tennis and doesn't need those pricey rackets and snazzy white tennis outfits anymore. If he was a pilot, I know he'd go with fractional ownership for sure and I'd fly with him a lot faster than I'd go duck hunting with Dick Cheney.

You know the difference between God and a doctor?--> God KNOWS he's not a dr!

 
 

[throwawaydad]

Hey Dr. Dave!

Re:


3. Sex  before bedtime  

Whether it works or not, I prefer step 3!  


As usual, you're 'spot on' here. And I will go with solutions 1 and 3, thank you very much!

Step 3 works just fine with me, Thank You.

"is, 'carrying' said gum, at all times..."

In Chicago, if you're carrying, which is the same as being strapped up it usually means you're armed with a gun, not gum!


I start to worry when I begin to glow in the dark, my shoes have smoke emanating from them, as mongrels  begin to follow me intently, the buzzards flying over head in a slow, death spiral and I hear spaghetti western music in my head...I know then, that it's time for my monthly shower and delousing.....

The ONE of the positive things about being married.  Married men generally enjoy an overall better Quality Of Life (QOL)

Corn Pone?
I've NEVER heard that term before...Never, EVER.

I hope you guys understand that I wasn't trying to get all "preachey" here.  That's not my place, but I do hope that the younger (and not-so-young, like myself) members amongst us understand that there are things they can to prepare the behind the scenes issues before they visit.  If they live in a decent sized city, a part-time after work bar tending gig can bring in an extra 200-250 a week, cash.

Corn Pone.
I swear when I look at those words I SEE:

Cone Porn!  And I not really into p0rn, I don't want to WATCH, I want to DO.

Isn't it odd the tricks our minds play on us?  Like this:

What color is this word?

RED

[bcc_1_2]

Where is the shocking info?

Get engaged on the first trip is a bad idea. Duh.

Dating AW is a complete rip off. No crap.

Excerising and and the removal of garbage from your diet aids in weight loss. Yep

Let me toss one out there... The sky is blue 

Seriously just because folks do crazy [snip] like blow loads of cash on nagging AW or get engaged within the first week of landing in whatever country they went to... doesn't mean you should do it too. Sure plenty of people on this board use the $$$ or lack of time off excuse to justify it. But it is still a bad idea.

[robert angel]

DLG:

Straight out of Webster's Dictionary:

>>Main Entry: corn·pone
Pronunciation: \ˈkȯrn-ˌpōn\
Function: adjective
Date: 1972
: down-home, countrified <cornpone humor<<

It's also a noun--for corn bread, fried, made w/o eggs or milk that dates back to at least 1859, while it's use as an adjective goes back to only 1972. Pretty new for a word. I had no idea, so I 'looked it up'.


Yea, Dr. Graham is smart and nice, but he's also 'corn pone', a bit of a country bumpkin.

I tend to make words up that don't really 'exist' and sometimes forget that--like 'demonsplain' and 'confusement', but corn pone's not one of them. There are a lot of funny words and expressions used in every day life here in the south. For instance to put something (usually household) away, they'll say 'put it up' and if some one is funny, they'll say 'he's a hoot' and on and on...

[Dave H]

Hey Rob,

Sometimes I just don't understand Filipinas! How do they eat dried fish, ginamos, and all kinds of nasty stuff...yet their breath and bodies always smell great!   I'm usually a stinky, hairy, monster with bad breath...even after 3 showers a day and brushing my teeth.  

How do they walk around on wet, muddy ground and still keep their white shoes and clothes clean. I am always amazed at how clean the nurses in white outfits and schoolgirls stay...hey stop that you dirty minds!

I once told my ENT of an amazing technique that I invented (turns out some guy named "Lowry" discovered it before me) to stretch Eustachian tubes and equalize inner ear pressure. For some reason I thought that he would be exited that my discovery would help to reduce the millions of tubes placed in peoples' ears each year. I forgot that he gets paid big bucks to place those tubes in ears! I told him that using "my" technique, I had cleared my inner ear pressure and no longer needed surgery to restore my hearing. He totally ignored me and spoke out loud "Act of God" and wrote it on my chart.

"You know the difference between God and a doctor?--> God KNOWS he's not a dr!"
 

[jm21-2]

Three trips and your budget sound about right to me. I made my decision that I want to marry my girlfriend on my second trip, but will probably be taking a few more before she's ready and then probably one while the visa is being approved. So maybe up to 5 trips total.

I would plan around $3k for a two-week trip to have a fun vacation.

[throwawaydad]

Hey Dr. Dave!

She'll kill me for writing this, but she must still privately take me aside 4-5 times a day and say 'is my breath OK?'

It's sooo ironic that she always smells great, like she just got out of the shower. I can be soaking wet with sweat and she's as dry as uncooked rice. She even takes a tooth brush and paste to work, doesn't need deodorant or to shave her legs and she's still almost obsessing over hygiene.

I told him I wanted a second opinion. He said--"No problem--I can give you one here and now and save you the trouble"----"You're ugly too!"

Damn dude!

DAYUM!

You have a charmed life.

Buy me a few Lottery tickets tomorrow...I wanna quit "watching the tape".

[robert angel]

Yea DLG,

Thanks for the nice comments. I am fortunate and even so, I need to remind myself not to get complacent and take things for granted. I am sometimes cynical and will tell myself 'nothing lasts forever--don't be disappointed if it all goes south', but I don't think I could do this well if I had to do it all over again. She's a good, moral young lady and delicious to look at as well. She's always there for me in every way, except for brief periods where I piss her off royally and then it's 98% my fault those times anyways and she gets over it pretty fast. I might find someone as cute, but almost certainly not as good. Hell-she's even the best back scratcher on earth!

I tell you guys, the Philippines is really the place to find a great woman, but if she's great, or even merely 'good' stick with her soley--'one at a time'--it'll be a lot easier overall.

When a guy marries a younger woman, it's a good idea to sometimes think "Where was MY head at when I was her age--what were WOMEN back THEN interested  in?" There are things she might want to see and do, and just because we've 'been there, done that' doesn't mean she should miss out. Like she says sometimes when I'm caught up in too many things other than her: "I need MY time and attention from you too!"  She's the least 'mecentric" person I've ever met, but most Filipinas need the human touch of attention like a rose needs its water.

I guess that's one sorry ass complaint if it sounds like one--my ex wife was an orphan and was pretty "Americanized' before we married and liked being left alone, pretty much, so the last five years of marriage the 'second time around' and the four or so years we knew each other before we wed, are very different than what I was used to.

When you've been single a while and then marry, it takes adjusting to the realization that every decision you make effects her as well. You can't just walk out the door and go to the mall or disappear for 15 hours to go fishing. You have to tell her, and you'd best give her a kiss before leaving the house. My wife likes to be invited, usually and that's fine. Never ceases to amaze me that coming from a nation of over 7000 islands, she never had fished or learned how to swim until she came here. Now she's pretty good at both.

She gives me a little more room on my hobby of searching for and collecting pre Colombian Indian artifacts and my forays in pursuit of them, though. In a typical, Filipino way, she cannot fathom what gets me even the last bit excited about my crates and boxes of dirty old rocks. After all, they have nothing to do with cooking or cleaning and they don't look 'pretty' to her--just old. I try and explain that some are 12,000 years old and show her how exquisitely by hand they were crafted, usually for survival, but it doesn't register. Maybe if they made rice implements...She's gotten better about not banging up artifacts--I've gotten upset when she's scooped up things like rare, bi beveled 7000 year old projectile points I was identifying and grading, with her throwing them in a box hap hazardly. Oh well-my bad for leaving them laying out, I suppose.

I could write three pages on the various things I have pulled out of the trash that shouldn't have been there--things my wife attempted to throw away because 'we didn't need them' --'they were clutter' -'nobody has used them in a very long time' or 'they were old and ugly'.....Arghhhh...

My wife sends quite a bit of money home, but she works two jobs and that's money she makes. They need that money more than we do, and she's the eldest sister. Her only older sibling, a brother who doesn't have a real great job, has a wife and kids, so my wife is sort of the support pillar. Plus she feels that since we don't have children of our own, her supporting them financially and being involved in her brothers and sisters and any nieces or nephew's lives will help to make sure that her family will take care of her when she's old. That's pretty much how they look at life and I hope they don't lose that mindset. Heck, along with her, they can take care of me too--they can all have my pension then.

I don't ask her for help with the mortgage or for insurance and the cars are paid for and were before she came here, including a rather small mortgage payment, but she's generous on paying for meals out, pays for some utilities and furniture and other things around the house. She is a savvy shopper, but still likes to buy me nice clothes too--hard to beat that.

Irks me a bit to know that her wish of having a second home close to her family is unrealized, but she's putting four siblings through school, pays for medical bills over there. Maybe someday.

Oh well it's been dry here lately and I think I'll scour a dried out river bank for artifacts for a few hours. That's my 'zen time'--concentrating to the point where nothing else registers. The wife's picking up a five hour work shift right now which gives me time, even though we're technically 'vacationing' for a couple of months and working on our marriage. We'll join a two other Fil-Am couples after she gets home for a cookout--pool party with about half a dozen kids including my 13 y/o son--pried from his X Box.  Dried fish, rib eye steaks, sardine paste, chicken, burgers, pancit mangos and leche flan awaits! Love summertime!

[z_k_g]

Robert,

Great post!

I really feel you and hope my sweetie will brings me as much love, understanding and fulfillment as yours!

I will definitely do my damndest to do it for her!   

Zulu

[robert angel]

Thanks Zulu,

While that post was 'from the heart', it was, as is too common for me, 'off topic' to the point of pretty much being a textbook example of being 'off topic'. I guess I was 'on a roll'