PhilFAQS

There are two main cataegories of people reading this blog who are interested in Living in the Philippines.

Thos who are not yet retirement age but would probably make the move as soon as they can, if they could find enough income to support themsleves and their family in the Philippines.  And those who are already retired but are worried that their retiement “fixed income” won’t support them comfortably and safely if the make the move.

Here’s an article I wrote on one of my other sites about seniors and retirees making money. real money, online that addresses both these problems … or opportunities, depending on how you chose to look at them:

Recently I had the pleasure of some emails and phone calls with a lady named Sara Wilson, a free-lance writer earning online.  Hmm, that’s not very unique in the way of news, now is it?

Well let me focus the narrative a little more on our theme, here, being a resource for Seniors and Retirees making Money On Line.  You see, Sara contacted me as part of her research for an article she was writing on assignment to find just what the subject line is here, People over 60 earning On Line.  I’m sure she put a lot of work into the article, I recommend you read it , but it does turn out she didn’t have too much problem finding multiple success stories.  If you are coming up on retirement soon, or you’ve already retired and think that the rest of your life will be spent in wishing and hoping that whomever is president will toss you the bone of 2% COLA increases, then take heart.  It’s not just this 60 plus ‘voice in the wilderness’ writing here with the message, there are plenty other seniors who are empowered in their retirement for as long as they want to be active.

For those who don’t chose to read the full article, I’ll summarize it here, it even opened my eyes to a few things.  Sara’s client, the folks who commissioned the article have a pretty interesting and useful web site that is worth a visit as well.

1. 64 yo Woman earning from AdSense: Many folks have heard of Darren Rowse who first became known for making a six-figure income from blogging.  many more, though, don’t realize that Darren’s famous ProBlogger.net website is not where he earns most of his money.  The ‘star’ of his portfolio are sites that review and give tutorials on digital cameras, exactly as this lady does.  Think AdSense and other Pay Per Click services are dead?  No way.
2. 64 and 62 yo Couple teaching via a Membership site: One eBusiness model many of us don’t pay enough attention to is loosely defined as a membership site.  You offer content or a service that people want and then charge them, typically a monthly fee, for access.  Think no one would pay to ‘belong’ to something you create?  Here’s a couple with paying members from 31 countries that proves they will if you get it right.
3. 64 yo Woman selling on eBay: eBay, I can here some of you saying, that can’t make money.  Well, there are 27 billion dollars a year changing hands there that will prove you wrong.  Selling on eBay is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to start today and see dollars flow into you account in  a week or less.  Here’s a lady making $30K plus per year to prove it.
4. 76 yo Woman Coaches for Profit: 76!  Aren’t you all washed up by then?  Can a 76yo actually make money?  Well the straight answer is, yes.  I loved this example because it showed exactly what I have often preached.  No matter what you original skills, play to your strengths … and it’s easy to convince seniors they will learn better from another senior … $30K plus for this lady proves my theory.
5. 62 and 65 yo Men Selling an Online Service: It’s easy to find a dozen different ways to earn commissions or otherwise profit from the products of other people, but most Internet gurus will tell you, the most successful path is to create and sell you own product.  “I can’t do that” you are saying as you read this.  Well, no doubt theseguys thought that too until they decided to solve a problem that plagued millions of people.  These guys are now making over six figures per year and it’s cute, the “taske away’ I got was their original intenet was to sell ‘conventionally” i.e., “brick and mortar” storefront and all the normal timmings (and overhead).  They started online becuas eit was cheap and quick and now find there was never any need to think about rea-world real estate, investment and hassles.

OK, there you go.  read the article for some more details, visit these folks online to see what they are doing, but most importanly, your take awy is: Do not tell me you can’t make money online.

We’ve talked a number of time here on PhilFAQS about saving energy and living self-efficiently.  It’s no secret I’m a big fan of The Mother Earth News, Home Power magazine and other ‘green’ (both ecologically and economically green in today’s $5 gas days).

Most ‘Green Schemes" though seem to focus on families living out in the countryside on a farm or something along those lines.  I posted once about some friends of mine in Colorado who were living completely off the grid, making a good living, raising their kids … and at the same time making the world a better place.  I had some gratifying interest in that story, but let’s face it … 80 acres (32.37 hectares) is not the size of property most of us are going to wind up on.

  But just because the majority of us are going to be living on a small lot doesn’t mean  self-sufficiency is only for the countryside.  I came across this great book recently.  The folks who authored the book also write a splendid blog that is well worth putting on your blog subscription list, it’s chock full of great information and written in an educated but practical style.

Many of you still believe that alternative energy and living lightly on the environment are "too expensive" or "too impractical" … these are concepts that will come into their own in the future.

Well, it’s fine if you believe that, but I am here to tell you that the future is now ladies and gentlemen.  You can’t say I didn’t warn you.  Enjoy.

There’s been a lot of talk about food prices and rice shortages lately.  It’s easy for us expats to sit back and say, "well, of course, the Philippine government ought to provide more leadership" … "or work smarter … or "clean up their act" … take your pick.

But it is certainly not a Philippine-only problem.  And CNN and especially US news agencies have been taking little notice … Katie Couric feels that unlike her, the story has no legs.

In the US, still in many ways the world’s breadbasket … or rice bowl, you can buy California rice in SM … less than 2% of the population earns their living producing food, and they all live in "fly over" country.  McCain is too old to care, Hillary couldn’t care less and Obama is still looking at a map to find out how many states there are.

A lot of the world’s food now comes from Australia … you can find many Australian and New Zealand products in SM or even your local sari-sari store.  This article is well worth a read … it certainly opened my eyes to some of the factors that have been going on behind the scenes.

DENILIQUIN, Australia — Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. “It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety,” he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, “and now it has stopped.”… Full, eye-opening article here

Aside from oxygen and water food is one of most critical needs … no need to worry about "global warming’ if we are going to starve to death anyway …and news media, world-wide have not been doing much of a job to highlight what is going on.

It’s big news and certainly a personal/family tragedy if a family is having their house foreclosed, but going without a roof over your head is less traumatic than starving.

I was reminded this morning of my wife’s post a few months back, My Two Fat Ladies.  That’s because just a few minutes ago we heard the ladies calling and went out to see what they had for us today … Mmmm, some lovely pork loin … my wife (and my mother-in-law) make a delicious treat by slicing the loin thin and pan braising with onions, garlic and some calamansi seasoning … with some home fries or mashed potatoes and peas these little loin medallions will just make your lips smack, no kidding.

These two ladies, who aren’t really fat, are better known in the family as the "Gulai Girls" (Gulai is a generic Tagalog word for vegetables).  the ladies provide a lot more than vegetables … you can order most any kind of meat, fresh fish, many prepared Filipino delicacies and even clothes and other items you’ll find in a country palengke (market).  If it’s available, for the right price, they’ll be out in the street calling the next day they come by … pretty much every day, Monday through Saturday.  Thyme know what’s fair, and if something isn’t good that day or the price is to high, they won’t bother brining it … they aren’t out to cook us or to get a certain number of sales per week … we’re their ’sukis’, a term for regular favored customers, and in the Philippines,  merchants, at least from the countryside know and take care of their sukis.

The reason I brought them up today is that I’ve been introducing you to ‘real’ Filipinos as I know them, and these ladies are as real as it gets.  They are sisters-in-law from a tiny town in Nueva Ecija, almost a whole province away from us … at least an hour’s jeepney ride, one way, probably closer to two hours counting connection times.

% or 6 days a week they leave their houses at "oh dark-thirty" ride all that way on several jeepnies, their wares for the day in baskets and sacks, fetch their little three-wheel bicycle cart and ply the streets in our ‘urban bedroom" community.  Unlike other peddlers, they don’t go up and down the streets crying "Gulai" they just go to the houses of their ’sukis" …you have to ask one of their existing customers to get put on their list of addresses to visit.

Just the other day I had a very good example of their business sense.  They came by at the usual time and in the corner of the bin with all their standard vegetable offerings was a huge, fresh-looking stalk of broccoli.  They must have known how my eyes would light up.  I love broccoli, haven had it in more than a year.  I bought what they had, and it was fresh and good … I was only disappointed that they didn’t have more.

Unlike what I’ve heard from locals who "know", broccoli is readily available in provinces nearby … but shops and peddlers don’t carry it, because ‘no one eats it’.  This not only shows you a little insight into the business brain of these two ladies, but gives an important lesson about doing business in the Philippines.  Find a need and fill it … an often, Filipinos themselves are the worst source of information and advice.  The actual investment these ladies have in their business is virtually nothing … most everyone reading this column has enough in their pocket at the moment to start a business like this … but what a great majority of people, both Filipinos and foreigners do not have is imagination and the entrepreneurial spirit strong enough to risk 30 pesos or so to see if there really is a market for something.

Thank you, dear ladies, for this simple course in Philippine Business 101 … don’t listen to what ‘they’ say, because ‘they’ are frequently just repeating a belief with no foundation in fact.  As Nike is famous for saying, "Just Do It".

I promised I’d write more about self-sufficiency in the Philippines.  even if you don’t give a care about Global Warming or you personal Carbon Footprint and IMO you should), a big part of living costs in the Philippines will involve energy costs, so whatever you can do to cut back on what you hand over to the electric company or the gas man will help balance your personal living equation.

Petroleum-based energy costs, including LPG (the most common source of cooking heat here) are of course, spiraling upward as they are in virtually every country.  Commercial gas supplies, as in pipes in the street, are virtually unknown in the Philippines … Manila once had a city gas main system but it is now just a scrap metal relic.

Electricity, in populated areas, works pretty much as most of you are used to in the US, but many considering a move here don’t realize that electricity, per kilowatt hour, is second only to Japan to the most expensive in the world.  Whatever you are paying in the US… figure 2 to 4 times as much for your electric bill here .. unless you practice a little difference in how you consume.

Most will realize that heating a home here is virtually never a consideration.  Only a handful of places, such as Baguio even have rudimentary heat sources, such as fireplaces.  Most of the time people are trying to get cool … and I’ll talk a lot about air conditioning and other forms of cooling some other time.

But one time very few of us want to be cool is when we are taking that much deserved evening shower.  A lot of houses have no form of domestic hot water heating.  In fact, if you have a home like mine, where our water comes from the municipal water main to a holding tank and thence into the house, you may not see a need for much water heating .. the water coming out of the tap is often quite warm.  but for dishwashing and personal hygiene, most of would consider domestic hot water somewhat of a necessity … here in the Philippines the most common way is something like this unit … an electric flash heater in technical terms.  You have one of these in the bathroom and one in the kitchen and when you turn on the water faucet the water (almost) instantly runs hot and it stays hot until you are done using it.  Then the unit goes ‘back to sleep’ until you next decide you want hot water.  Hot water heater tanks, such as most US homes use, are virtually non-existent here.  these flash heaters will set you back around $100 or so, installed, and I have no idea how much they will actually add to your monthly electric bill.  I currently only use the kettle on the stove method, which is not only inefficient, it’s darn inconvenient at times.

My lead photo is also a link to this article … from an old friend of mine, The Mother Earth News … a publication that was extolling energy conservation and self sufficiency long before the ear of the Kyoto protocol and $100 a barrel crude oil.  If you read the article you’ll learn a lot about passive hot water heating … and one thing may strike you as it struck me … it’s much, much easier to do something like this here in the Philippines because so many of the considerations necessary in the US … freezing protection being a number one concern … are just not in the picture here … 9the fact you can hire a competent plumber for $12 or so dollars a day is a factor as well.  So, I ask myself, why isn’t hot water flowing out of the shower?

Here’s some extracts from a comment I made recently on my friend Bob Martin’s Living in the Philippines blog.  It got me thinking … mainly about how few of the things I intended doing after I made the move to the Philippines I have gotten started on doing.

@ –> all thinking in terms of self sufficiency … very few Americans think along these lines … it is certainly more doable in the Philippines than in the US, both by climate and reduced government meddling. Sadly many Filipinos take no advantage of growing their own either, the field is actually quite wide open … and Mindanao is a huge, almost untapped food source. Even here in Luzon, very near Manila, I pass hectare after hectare of rich, vacant ground. … a huge scope for someone who wants to set up something on a family-size scale.

The more I reflect on my words,the more I wonder why things are the way they are today.  Just a few days ago I read a newspaper report which I had to put down and walk away from before I allowed it to make me really angry.  The gist of it was, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (the Philippine president) had gone to see the leader of Vietnam to iron out an agreement which would extract a promise from Vietnam to supply the Philippines with rice in coming years.  I try to stay out of politics, but this is more of a ‘rice bowl’ issue (pun intended) and frankly, just writing about it raises my blood pressure.  The article goes on to mention:

… "I am very confident that in the coming weeks we will have a positive response," (Secretary of Agriculture Arthur) Yap told reporters at a briefing on the global rice situation. “I am fairly confident that we will be able to secure the rice stocks that will be needed to raise our buffer.”… (according to the article the country currently has only an eight-day supply of rice) …

The Philippines is the world’s biggest importer of rice and faces the risk of shortages this year as soaring prices encourage exporters to stockpile the grain…

Aside from a temptation to send Secretary Yap a ‘do it yourself’ manual Seppuku, something Masatoshi Wakabayashi, Minister of Agriculture for Japan would understand well, my productive thoughts on this situation are:

• In 1946, when the Philippines gained independence from the US, it was one of the largest rice exporters in the world.
• Unbridled population growth (the single most critical issue the Philippines faces, IMO) has certainly been a factor, but the Philippines has not even attempted to maintain a place as a significant exporter.
• Among other resources the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos here on Luzon is a world leader in rice production techniques and education.  people from all over the world, most assuredly including Vietnam (a country you might remember recently suffered from a little ‘police action’ and a country which also has a large Catholic population and has growth problems of it’s own learned how to turn themselves from importer to exporter at Los Banos.
• Even here on the outskirts of metro manila there are thousand and thousands of hectares going to waste that could be producing rice.

So what’s the solution?  Darned if I know.  I do know if one waits for a solution from the government, they will wait a darn long time.  As long as we have leadership who hardly seems worried about being down to an week or so supply of perhaps the most important staple food we are unlikely to see anything productive coming out of the capitol.

But a real answer for us foreigners, who have no business taking an active role in governmental affairs anyway, is to make progress on a one-to-one basis.  I know from actual results on farm land my extended family owns that you can make a profit in the Philippines raising rice.  I also know there is plenty demand for other crops (rice culture demands certain conditions which you can’t economically reproduce on every patch of land).  As Americans, steeped in the tradition of a country where only 2% of the country feeds the other 98% as well as much of the rest of the world, we tend to think of home production of food as a hobby or a nicety … but producing, even on a small scale here in the Philippines could make a real difference in the way you, your family and your neighbors live and are nourished.  I’ll certainly be writing more on this subject.