Dave Grant's Philippines Playbook

I. The problem this book is actually about

It was never really about finding a woman.

Every man who ends up here has a version of the same story. He's tired, not of women, of a dating market back home that stopped rewarding basic kindness and consistency. He's not looking for a fantasy. He's looking for something that used to be ordinary, before dating turned into a marketplace where everybody's holding out for a better offer that never comes.

That tiredness is real. So is what happens next: a first trip that feels like relief mistaken for love, a relationship built too fast on that relief, and, for a lot of men, a version of the disaster stories you've already half-heard about: the retirement savings, the house that never got finished, the family that turned out to be one-directional.

"My mother is in the hospital. I need it today."

Two weeks of sweet messages, then the first crisis, then the next one. You want to help, and you have no way of telling a real emergency from a script. Part 1 shows you how, before it costs you.

Son-in-law or ATM?

Her family welcomed you like a son. Now every visit comes with a list: the roof, the tuition, the tricycle. Say no and you're the bad guy; say yes and it never ends. There's a way to set the line once, calmly, and keep the family on your side.

Your savings are all you've got left

You've heard the endings: the house in her name, the pension gone in three years, the man who can't afford the flight home. I'll show you exactly where the money goes wrong, and what I did differently the second time.

Your kids think you've lost your mind

My son didn't speak to me for a long time. Nobody tells you how the family back home reacts, or how to bring them around. I lived it, and there's a whole chapter on it.

The paperwork nobody explains

Visas, the K-1, the green card, where to live and what it really costs. Step by step, without a lawyer's price tag for the parts you can do yourself.

"You don't need a shortcut. You need to know where the line actually is between something real and something that only looks real. That line is what this whole book is."

II. What's actually inside

27 chapters. Four parts. No filler.

Every chapter carries the same honest shape: a short entry in my own voice, What I've seen (a real pattern, never a specific woman's name), What to do with every step labeled by cost, and, in most chapters, The honest part: the contrarian, unflattering truth most of the advice out there skips.

Part 1 · Finding her (8 chapters)

Why the Philippines and why now, the apps and sites that actually work, meeting a good woman beyond the apps, the myth of "the most faithful province," the stereotype that's dead wrong, the age gap conversation, spotting a gold digger before it costs you, and her side of the story.

Part 2 · Living there (5 chapters)

Where to live and the real cost of living, visas and paperwork without a lawyer's price tag, stretching a pension without looking like a target, the boots-on-the-ground hacks, and how the Philippines compares to Thailand, Vietnam and Colombia.

Part 3 · The relationship (10 chapters)

Why her family isn't optional, the money conversation, son-in-law or ATM, courtship customs, the K-1 visa and green card step by step, when she comes home, two households one family, if you just want to have fun honestly, the red flags that aren't hers, and the tone that gets you nowhere.

Part 4 · The long game (4 chapters)

What critics get right and what they don't, when it works and when it doesn't, the bar you don't want to become, and fifteen years later, what I'd tell my younger self.

III. What this book is not

No catalog. No tour. No guarantee.

Not a mail-order bride catalog, not a sex tourism guide, not a substitute for a real immigration lawyer, and not a promise that any specific relationship will work out. It's what I'd tell a friend at my own kitchen table in Cebu, the good parts and the bad ones, in that order when the order matters.

The version that fails

Moving fast on a two-week trip
Never setting a money boundary
Treating her family as an obstacle
The "women are replaceable" crowd

The version in this book

Months of patience before anything serious
A boundary set once, calmly, and held
Her family understood, not just tolerated
Respect goes both ways, or none of it works

IV. Who wrote this

Fifteen years, one failed relationship, one that lasted.

I'm seventy years old. I ran an HVAC business for thirty years before I ever got on a plane. Divorced from my first wife after twenty-two years, I went back and forth to the Philippines for a decade and a half, got it wrong once with a relationship I call Elena, and got it right with a woman named Grace, who I've been with for seven years now. My son Kevin didn't speak to me for almost a year when I told him I was serious about someone. He calls to ask about her by name now.

Every chapter in this book is built on that, on my own mistakes and on what friends here have lived through, not on secondhand assumptions, not on a matchmaking tour's marketing copy.

V. Get the book

One payment. Every future update, yours.

$49.99$27

$49.99 is the regular price. $27 is the launch price while the book keeps growing.

27 chapters, four parts, PDF + EPUB
Delivered by email the moment you pay
No copy protection, yours on every device
Pay once. No subscription.

Get the book: $27

VI. Questions

Before you ask

Is this a guide to buying a wife?

No. It's a guide to dating and living honestly in the Philippines, including an entire chapter on why the "leverage and replaceable" mindset fails on its own terms. There's no catalog, no matchmaking service, and no promise attached.

Do I need to already be planning to move?

No. Part 1 is written for a man who's still deciding whether any of this is for him. The whole book is built to be read before you go, not after you've already made the expensive mistakes.

What format do I get?

A PDF laid out like a printed book, and an EPUB for e-readers, tablets and phones. Both arrive by email within a minute or two of paying. No copy protection.

Is there a refund policy?

Reach out through the contact link on the Gumroad product page and I'll sort it out directly.