Exit Strategy

After mentioning to the whole world of our plan to move back home next year, I received several comments and questions from friends and family members too.

  • Totoo na ba yan?
  • Sure ka na ba?
  • Handa ka na ba sa mga problema ng Pilipinas?
  • Anong pagkakaabalahan mo dun?
  • Hindi madali mag negosyo.
  • Mahirap ang buhay dun.
  • I don’t think matutuloy kayo
  • At madami pang iba…

8 out of 10 is doubtful of our move. If I’m still the old me, I would have doubt myself too. Are we really ready? Am I doing a mistake? Do I really know what I’m facing.

But I’m now Lyn Joy 2.0 like Ate Korina.

More than ever, I am determined to just take action.

As I was telling Gibson the other night, I am not used to wait for several months to spring into action mode. My motto is seize the opportunity and don’t lose the momentum. Waiting for more than a year to start moving feels like forever to me. I JUST CAN’T WAIT!!!

But my ever supportive, logical and grounded husband is requesting me to take it slow. Moving back for good is something that can’t be taken lightly and I tend to agree. But knowing myself, I want to do something NOW.
And that’s why I created an 18-month exit strategy. That’s the number of months before we fly back home.

How does this exit plan looks like? I’ll share it with you later once I have something concrete and sensible to show.
But what we are doing now is considering the following points:

  1. What will be our main source/sources of income?
  2. How much money should we save?
  3. Where will the kids study?
  4. Where will we live?

This list is just the high-level major points we are considering. If you drill down each point, there would be dozens of questions to answer.

What will be our main source of income?

Yes, we do have our nail salon, but it’s pretty new and the income we generate from that won’t be enough to sustain our lifestyle.
So where else can we get the money? For myself, I am planning to start several businesses that won’t require much capital except my confidence, thick face and charm. Gibson will go into food business.

Next question is how much do we really need to sustain our lifestyle? After considering several factors I came up with an amount that feels right to me. So the question next is how much income should our businesses generate to achieve our monthly budget?

As I figured out the amount, I listed where should I get the money.
I’m asking this question to myself – what can I do monthly to prepare myself to succeed in my business venture?
What are the actions I need to take every month starting now to plan for the BIG MOVE?
You might notice that I keep on saying ‘I’ and not ‘WE’ because I don’t want to wait for my husband (or somebody else) to tell me what should I do. I don’t want to ask for anyone’s approval. Of course I need support but I won’t wait for that support to spring into action. You should read my post on The Wealthy Pinay about this topic.

I have started using a different notebook which I now call my “Power Couple notebook” wherein I list down all the plans, action steps, finances, and anything I can think of related to our move next year.


I created a calendar of things to do and some milestones I need to achieve every month. I then break it down to actions that I need to take weekly.

I’m treating this relocation as a project and for a project to succeed you need to have a concrete plan and do whatever it takes to succeed.
Side note: Register on The Wealthy Pinay Bootcamp to know everything you need to learn and develop on achieving your ideal life. Join other fellow Pinays who are taking this journey with me. Because if not now, when? There is no perfect time to start except today. 

Where will we live?

This is a question that I thought have been decided by us already but it turned out that Gibson and I have different opinions on it. Now the latest plan is to build our own home. Because even after spending more than a decade as an OFW, the very basic thing that we should have prioritized never happened. So warning to you my fellow OFWs – focus on your goal and use your hard earned money to settle the things that are most important to you. Don’t bother about your son requesting for new Air Jordan or your daughter asking for a Mac laptop as graduation gift. Prioritize.

Good thing about an exit strategy is we now have understood that a house of our own is important to us and we should make it happen. Having an 18-month exit strategy gave us ample time to figure out where and how will we get the funds to start our construction. We can adjust our monthly budget and savings to put into the building our home.

To be honest, I don’t think this house will be a priority if not we decided to go home. I hope you won’t make the same mistake as we did.

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So many things to consider and so many planning and actions we need to take and I’m SOOOO excited. I’ll try to update you of our journey from time to time. Follow Filipina Expat on Facebook and get to know the latest happening.

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Have a good day peeps!

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