Yes indeed fellows and gals, another post on jobs … jobs in the Philippines, jobs in the US to get you prepared to move to the Philippines or making jobs out of nothing at all.  Just one of the subjects we cover here at PhilFAQS, all the FAQS (Frequently Asked Questions) Philippines but a very important and a so often asked about subject.

Yesterday I talked about why you probably shouldn’t even be thinking about having a job here in the Phuilippines and I touched briefly on how you can make a business that is based … cutomers, banking and percieved location back in the USA … (or in England or Australia or any other country you’re interested in) while you, yourself, live here in the Philippines and let your clients pay your bills and build you kid’s college fund … or pay off your debts.

Here’s just one little example I had thought about mentioning yesterday and kind of ran out of time and space … Teleparenting, or perhaps you might want to call it Telenanny or teletutor service … it’s all the same in principle.  This is an idea suitable for anyone 18 through 80 … there’s no degree or other educational requirements, no licensing, no special software skills, only the same Internet and computer setup you’re using now … in short, almost too good to be true sounding, isn’t it?  Well you’ll have to be the judge of that, what you do with the idea is completely up to you.

There’s actually a lot of different niches and specialties you could tie into this idea but the one that prompted me to write this post is applicable to so many people who write me for help … the folks who feel they have no modern, marketable skills.

You feel you want to move to the Philippines, but your job is something “old tech” like driivng screws into a part on an assembly line or even walking the aisles at Wal*Mart watching the company get richer while your net pay just stagnates or gets even smaller qas the manager cuts back hours in response to decreasing sales.

(Do you know that in the Wal*Mart stores in China the employees get free health care and guranteed hours per week?  But in the US the company can’t “afford it’?  yeah, right)

Maybe you’d retire today and move to the Philippines but you just don’t have enough time in at your current job, or perhaps you’re already retired and you are suffereing from the common retirement malady … month left over at the end of your money.  Or maybe you have a wife, girl friend, other family member here in the Philippines whom you want to set up to earn a decent living, (so they don’t have to go to Saudi to clean some oil sheik’s toilets) but you don’t want to fall for the common, usually disastrous “internet cafe”, “jeepney route” or “Sari-sari store” money sinks.

You do know how to raise and mind children, don’t you?  Most of you reading this have already done it.  Those few reading here who may be new parents or not yet a parent certainly were raised by parents and already know how the job needs to be done.  (In fact if you’re 18 or younger you probably know a lot better thna your parents how t’s supposed to be done ;-)).  Well, this Bud’s for you.

In the US there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of “latchkey kids”.  Children of school age who come home every day to an empty house because both mom and dad have t work to make ends meet.  Parents have a tough choice in this area.  To provide proper, licensed day care for these kids often means that there’s no profit at all left from one or both parent’s jobs after they pay for day care … why work every day just to transfer the money to the day care center that is getting richer?

Of course in many cases it’s ok just to let the kids come home on their own … but you never know … what might they get up to, and what might happen while there is no adult supervision in the house?

That’s your work from the Philippines (or any other location on earth) opportunity for today.

• You list yourself in free directories in the areas you wish to provide your service.  It’s free on huge resources like Craigslist.  Investment?  Zero.
• You get yourself a completely free or extremely cheap US phone number for them to call … Skype, MagicJack, etc.  I’ve writtne plenty about VOIP already.
• The parent/client tells you the rules they want followed and gives you contact numbers so you can report any trouble to them and coordinate as required.
• The parent/client (if they don’t already own one) installs one or more cheap, simple web cams in their home where the children are supposed to be spending their after school time and gives you password protected aceess … built into most free web cam software.
• As an optional service the parent can furnich “Net nanny” software for the same hme computer that gives you access to the web cams, so you can supervise the children’s online activities as well as making sure they aren’t destroying the house.
• You set up a free PayPal account to be able to receive their money in their home country currency and draw it out, in cash here in the Philippines with an ATM card.
• You’re now in business. (In the Philippines but not of the Philippines)

Talk about getting paid to surf schemes … this one is a no-brainer.  Every night you check that the client children got home when they were told to, you check that thier activities are appropriate, you help with homework if desired (an extra cost option in my view), you make sure their online messaging is safe and that they aren’t chattng with some online pervert, and if nayhting goes wrong you call the parent (or 911 if the house is on fire) and let the client deal with the actual problem.

Without exageration you could monitor four ot five household’s worth of children while still providing good service and not driving yourself crazy.  How much can you charge?  I haven;’t hired a sitter in the US for years but you can use Craigslist and/or online newspapers and a Google search to find out what the rate is where you want to have your clients … I think after school programs where the parents have to drop off and pick up students easily cost $40 or $50 a week, per child … and you would be saving the parent the drop off/pick up hassles.

Providing a useful, even badly needed service, to honest folks, for an honest pay check … evrything run online is certainly not a scam … and as I said in the lead-in, there is hardly a person reading these words who is not qualified for this job.  If you raised children, are raising them or have been raised, you’re qualified.

Are you still in the US and don’t know when you’ll move to the Philippines?  Easy, start the business while US based.  It will move with you when the time is right.

You can also work in Filipino helpers, for pay or or family opportunity as you go.  When you do make the move, the business moves with you, absolutely seemlessly.

Want to go back to the US on vacation?  Or maybe share your time between the home coutry and the Philippines>  Again, the business follows your location, it doesn’t tie you down to any particular place.

Just one of many. many ways you can supplement your income or earn an hobnest living on line right now, today with virtually no investment ot special education.  So what’s your excuse now?

(for those who want to know wven more about earning while staying at home. this is a great resoucrce .. well worth the price and 100% money back guranteed … Click Here!”

Also I almost forgot.  I have so much working on line, working from home information … honest opportunites not the scam stuff, that I have started anew blog, just for the telecommuting subject. Feel free to visit as it grows from scratch.

I get a lot of questions and searches here at PhilFAQs, the source for Living In The Philippines information, about jobs for foreigners in the Philippines.

Well, they do exist, although decent ones, especially ones that yu can find from within thePhilippines are few and far between.  At the same time, though, I think the Philippines can be a great place to earn a living … for those astute enough to realize you don’y have to be singed up with a company, commuting an dpunching a time clock to earn.

For those of you who haven’t looked at my overall “job philosophy”, rather thna re-invent the wheel I let my fellow blogger Steve Pavlina say it, because he explains so well why you probably should never have a job.

So if you don’t have a job, what else can you do to earn aliving?  Well I recommend this book, by my freind Bob Martin who has been living very well here in the Philippines for more than 8 years now.  Bob doesn’t have a job and doesn’t need one.  He also doesn’t get any checks from the government or any outside support … Bob’s far from the only guy earning a living here, so it is certainly not impossible.

Today I read a post on another blog reviewing a service, run by some folks in China, offering “virtual assistants” to offices in the US and other countries who need office help and don’t want to go in for the overhead of hiring a live assistant in their home city.  The bottom line is, they offer a full-time (40 hour a week) assistant service for as low as $900 USD per month, which is about one fifth the total cost of providing office space, computers, and even minimum mandated employee benefits for equivilent service in the States.  Read the review and see if it doesn’t awake thoughts in your mind as it did mine….

Outsourcing All of Your Professional Needs

Conventional thought would lead you to believe that you should get yourself a brick-and-mortar office and populate it with full-time employees. That may be well and good for certain kinds of businesses, but it may not be the most cost-effective solution. The single greatest selling point that BPOVIA uses in selling its virtual assistant service is that you are able to save a lot of money by taking the virtual route rather than the in-person route. … full article here.

If you took the time to read the review you’ll see that the company, in my view, doesn’t really have it together so far as a service I would want to buy … but they are on the right track.

A person liivng in the Philippines who can provide basic office assitant services, or who can hire and supervise folks here who have those skills ought to be able to put together a similarr service here in the Philippines and do much better.  The costs to provide a place to work here are minimal, a computer, the Open Office package, an Internet connection and maybe a 1-800 number in the US which rings at your deak here in the Philippines is about all you would need.  $900 USD a month is more than 3 times what an average office worker is getting here, so you could hire talented people, pay them well and still be making a very nice profit.  When I worked for defense contractors in the US who provided workers to replace government workers as if they were part of the government agencies themselves, (a body shop)  we always tried to get a price double the salary we were going to pay the worker and made out very well at that 100% markup.  Marking up 200% gives a pretty significant profit margin.

Food for thought.  There’s a Lot of ways to make mney in the Philippines.