Retirement in Uncertainty: Staying in the USA or Returning to the Philippines After the 2024 Election
Our retirement journey has been anything but conventional. After retiring early in 2019, we sold everything and made the journey to start a new chapter in the Philippines, settling in Butuan City, Mindanao. Life there was simple and affordable, but when COVID-19 hit, we found ourselves stuck. For over a year, we navigated pandemic restrictions in a foreign country far from our friends and family. By May 2021, we returned to the USA, hoping to rebuild our lives. We rented a small one-bedroom apartment, but as inflation and the high cost of living quickly caught up with us, we decided to return to the Philippines in June 2022. Living in Southeast Asia was once again a financial relief, but we weren’t ready to give up on the idea of the American Dream. So, we returned to the U.S. once more under the Biden administration. Initially, things seemed fine. The first couple of months were manageable, but as the months passed, the financial strain began to wear on us. Our savings dwindled ...