Making Money Online, Living in the Philippines and Easy?

One reason I love comments here at the PhilFAQS blog, where I try to answer the questions people have about living in the Philippines, is that so many comments are just plain good enough to make a whole blog article out of.  Thanks to this reader and thanks to all the rest of you who contribute to making this place a success.  I appreciate it.

I make about 2400-3000 a month now in Canada (but it is done through long hours) …

Well rest assured that anything I propose requires hours of dedication and commitment too.  reader’s ‘round here know I am a big advocate of working for your self rather than getting a conventional J*O*B, but the idea that working for yourself is easy?

That’s a misconception that needs to be dispelled “forthwith”.  Working for yourself requires total commitment to a boss you may or may not feel comfortable with … you.  Some of you are way better off “working for the man”.

Now $2400 to $3000 a month is actually quite a bit of variation, compared to most people’s monthly income.  For simplicity, let’s take the average, $2700 a month and kind of analyze your “dilemma” as stated next:

… am interested in your comment though of, “Why don’t you ‘make’ a job” and it got me thinking, is there a work at home job that you know of that costs nothing to start, can earn you some good profits that would one day allow you to solely just be and enjoy life? If so I would love to know of any links to check these out, because of my new dilemma….

Making money online

Let me make a couple assumptions and also clarify what “I” mean with certain terms here.  others may see them differently, and that’s OK too, but in my view you do not want a “work at home” job”.

In the majority of cases these “work at home job” schemes are nothing more thna ways to part fools of their money.

Stuffing envelopes, “data entry”, making up thousands of scummy ads for Google and then having them rejected, and even out-and-out cold calling or “cold emailing” is what many of these offers are.  Don’t buy into things which are scams or distinctly resemble scams.

This is a fact to remember that I have mentioned here before but seems to “breeze past’ a lot of people.

As a general rule of thumb as taught in some business schools, to be ‘worth” has/her salary a person should generate about 3 times their salary for the business’s bottom line.

Less that triple and it’s cheaper to pay overtime and/or hire part-time temps or “off shore” the work.

So let’s say you come across so “work at home” job that will pay you $2700 a month, and unlike many ‘scammy’ sort of offers, everything with this one checks out as forthright and above board.

Should you jump into it?

My opinio0n is NO.  Why get paid $2700 a month if you are generating more than $8000 a month in profit for your ‘boss”?  In the words of the near-infallible Mr. Spock, “Does not compute, Jim.”

be you own boss and make the $8000 a month for yourself.

Or work half as many hours and make $4,000 for yourself, or ….  You get the drift.

You can indeed start online, at home for virtually nothing and build a living for yourself.  In fact my advice to you is don’t spend anything.

Don’t buy eBook. don’t by “shiny objects” … “tools” that will make you a million at the push of a button, invest in nothing except FREEE education for yourself and practice, practice, practice.

The usual response I get here in face-to-face conversations is, “But I don’t know how.”  My usual response is, “Well, learn”

Man’s lot in life is not to grad high school at 18 or college at 22 and then stop learning, but many people seem handicapped in their life because they have adopted that path.  You might like to read “Coal Mining’s All I Know” just for fun.

Find a need that people have and fill it.  That’s all the formula you need.

Something to consider along these lines too, is, if you are meeting your needs on $2700 in Canada, you certainly can live decently on less than that in the Philippines.  Another ‘rule of thumb” is the cost of living here is 30% or 40% less than cost of living in US cities … likely not a lot different than Canada.  You won’t “Live Like a King” in the Philippines on that sort of money, but you don’t “Live Like a King” in Canada on $2700 a month, either.

In fact, check this Philippine cost of living comparison tool and also this tool for cost of living in the Philippines comparison site and do some thinking for yourself. I can offer opinion and advice, but only you can accurately advise your own self … no one else is you.

.. Recently I got divorced and found myself wanting change, soon after this I meet a wonderful lady online 6 months ago and we have hit it off smashingly We have covered all the bases of getting to know each other and covered the major hurdle of trust and loyalty; now my problem is this: I am getting sick of living in Canada and I want to start over some where new, but I also don’t want to take jobs away from the local people. Where is the equal balance in this equation. …

OK here’s a straight philosophical piece of advice, aside from anything to do with earning an income.

Beware of the mindset that moving to the Philippines will make you happy.

If you re unhappy in your present life (and I’ve been there where you are today, recipient of the wrong end of the stick in a nasty divorce, etc), but keep in mind that wherever you go, there you are.

You really need to clarify your motives in your mind and realize what exactly you need for true happiness.  A LOT of guys in your position move to the Philippines and a huge percentage of them go home after a year or two, even more broke and bitterly unhappy.  In particular, to pout it bluntly but truthfully,  you need to make sure you are thinking with the right head.

Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment here.

You are a Canadian citizen, living free and gainfully employed in Canada, one of of the finest countries on Erath, in anybody’s book.  You are in a place millions and millions of Filipinos would give their “left you-know-what” for the chance to trade places with.  You already have a life which is like a fairy tale dream to millions of Filipinos.

So why don’t you bring this wonderful new life partner of yours there to Canada to rebuild a life together?  And along the way she can become a Canadian citizen, learn new skills, get medical attention like nothing close to what you’ll find in the Philippines … and so forth.

Why is moving to the Philippines going to cure your ‘sickness’ about where you are living?

My Filipina/American  wife and I have been in the Philippines for nearly six years now.  We’re happy here.  And very little chance we will go back to the US in the foreseeable future.

But we aren’t happy because we are in the Philippines.  We are happy because of the life partnership we have built for ourselves.

We were very happy together in the USA before we moved.  And if we were to move back to the USA tomorrow I have no doubt we’d be happy there again.  (In fact she would LOVE to move back to the US, running a household there is so, so much easier.)

So I didn’t intend to write a homily here, but the point is, moving to the Philippines seldom cures unhappiness.  It frequently exacerbates it.

… I know making money on line is easy but it takes money to make money right? or am I wrong in this lolz. That is why I am asking you what is the best route to go in my new path. I have other skills that include basic book keeping, management, and I have very good communication sills; in a side note to this, the small town I live in almost all my friends are from the Philippines. There was more I wanted to ask about but working nights makes ones brain tired very easy when the sun comes up . …

Well all that’s left for me to say is, again that “it takes money to make money” is another trite saying that is mainly perpetuated by lending institutions and in particular by people who want an excuse for not succeeding.

“It takes money to make money, I have no money, therefore I will just sit back, say it’s too hard, and wait for money to come my way.”

If you want to get started making money for yourself, you can start tomorrow.  Invest nothing except your effort and time.  On this site I have written about how to make money often … it’s shamefully disorganized, but there is a lot of data there and it’s a work in progress.

I would also recommend this article on How to make money online by Seth Godin .  About 450 insightful words that say more than I could in 4,500.  Read it.  Internalize it. Godspeed.

Related posts:

1. Isn’t Making Money Online in the Philippines Kind Of — Sleazy?
2. Making Money In The Philippines With A Phone
3. More on Making Money in the Philippines — Rethink the Phone
4. To Make Money Online in the Philippines — Impress
5. How To Live In The Philippines Without Making A Living From The Philippines