Consider It Wellness LLC

Living in the Philippines and the adrenaline of moving is wearing off, but the weight of living in the US is gone.

Im tired from navigating the logistics of the move, but its absolutely nothing compared to our life in the US.

I get asked by people if I can manage without katulong (hired help) here. And in my head I go over all the things i had to do as a working mom on top of the housework.

Truth be told, we dont really miss much of our life in the US.

Its easier to take care of ourselves here

Derp.

Your body recognizes when it’s safe to calm down. Normally it triggers what looks like fatigue and mental fog. But really it’s your body signaling it’s safe to pause.

We moved from WI to the Philippines two months ago and it has been non-stop shopping for furniture and appliances until our moving boxes came. Then it was shopping for storage. Doing all this while waiting in government lines and homeschooling my kids has been a lot to juggle.

I stopped making content to make sure I could be a parent everyday after handling all the official moving business. And trust me there’s a ton of content to be made.

Hopefully this means you’ll hear more from me as I get sick of unpacking. lol

I even bought derpy tiger to bring me some joy lol

The food culture in the USA is one that I made sure to break out of before starting our family.

Before kids, Toni and I shopped at the Lyndale Farmers Market in Minneapolis every weekend. After kids, it wasn’t financially sustainable so we pivoted to learning and working hard to get to homesteading.

We began a family culture of only shopping for what we needed and learning to grow what would feed us for the year. We did this alongside our closest family friends raising our children to be as close to our food as possible. We didn’t want to raise our kids to fill the refrigerator with food that would ultimately be forgotten and tossed in the trash. A common occurrence in a US Household. When you know how hard it is to grow and prepare your food, you’re less likely to just let it go bad to throw in the garbage.

We watched the trends and projected the coming years as our kids got older and decided that for the future of our children we needed to move out of the US to give them their best opportunities.

Moving to the Philippines while earning dollars is a privilege we will never take for granted. Which means, just because we can, doesn’t mean we will. It’s not about living with the convenience of US capitalism in a country that has a lower cost of living.

It’s about teaching our kids to be grateful for what we have in our day to day, as Toni and I optimize what we do save into more opportunities for their growth and development.

We went from a place where we were pinching pennes as a family of 4 at $100-150 a week to living very comfortably getting what we need at $50-$70 a week. The bulk of this cost, is meat.

Focusing on what you need declutters your fridge. But this habit can stretch to your entire life. You don’t need to move across the world to practice this technique.

The pull this mural had on me.

Today was my first event I attended and when I saw this mural in their event space, I was shook.

Absolutely amazing.

Hi, I'm Anna Patricia.
Author of Subtext: A Bookish Bibliotherapy.

I moved back home to the Philippines in March 2026 after 26 years of living in the US.

Im a licensed therapist and school counselor and I create things to help us find ways to see our own stories as important and ultimately find our way back to loving every bit of who we are.

I saw this mural, and it speaks volumes. I recognized the proverb. So many cultures have this one, may it speak to you too.