PhilFAQS

I get tons of searches here at PhilFAQS, home of the answers to frequently asked questions about living in the Philippines and many emails all on the subject of finding a job here in the Philippines.  Most of these are from people with a lot more “wishful thinking” than “gas in their tank”.  They are having a tough time getting along money-wise or relationship-wise in their current job, or they don’t have a current job, and they heard that the cost of living here is low, so they are willing to trade a low-satisfaction job at home for perhaps an even lower one here.

Well more power to them, if they can swing it … but I’m warning you, it isn’t easy.  There are few jobs for foreigners here, and in general they pay really low … a private English as a Second Language teacher might make PhP 1,000 a day (most make much less) and it’s 5 1/2 or six days a week, solid, to earn even that kind of money.  Very few Filipinos are going to be students in these schools … Filipinos fall into two general classes so far as English goes … the ones who went to private schools are are perfectly adequate with English and the ones who don’t have much English at all, and either won’t pay or can’t pay to learn it now.  This means the students at these schools are usually Koreans and people from other Asian countries who come here to learn English for one reason … it’s cheap, and they demand a lot of bang for their buck.  After all they cold just as easily go to school in their own countries, if they wanted to pay a living wage type tuition.

I just went on one of my walks this morning and to occupy my time I took careful note of the businesses I passed.  By far the most common business in these parts is a sari-sari (variety) store in a private house.  Usually it’s nothing more than a burglar grill over a window that faces the street with a “Load na dito” (Buy cell phone load here) flapping in the breeze.  Cigarettes, “junk food” in tiny packs, beer and soda pop make up most of the rest of the stock.  Typically these little stores are pen 12 or 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it’s a rare one that clears $5,000 pesos a week.

On my 2.7 kilo march today I passed a dozen “water shops” …. distilled and filtered water usually sold in 5 gallon plastic jugs.  The going rate for a jug is 25 pesos if you lug it to the shop for a refill and then lug it home, or PhP 30 delivered.  We use 2 jugs every 8 days or so, so that means my vendor makes a whopping PhP 400 or so per month off us, gross, and I have no idea of his net.  The filtering machine, the electric bill, the raw water itself, the jugs, caps, seals, labels, delivery van, etc. all add up.

At the corner of Peso Street and Franc Street is my favorite car wash.  They were busy as they almost always are.  It’s a private house on a busy corner with a “butt ugly” roofed over concrete pad attached, big enough to hold three cars.  A full service wash is 80 Pesos which includes taking the mats out and beating them, vacuuming the inside, blacking the tires and even washing the soot out of the inside of your exhaust pipe.  It take 20 minutes or more per car and all three bays aren’t always full, but he still rakes in quite a few pesos per day.  But water, electric (he uses a lot because the water pressure here isn’t enough for a decent car wash, he has to run a honking big electric pump every time water is flowing), soap, rags and salaries for at least 6 people make me wonder just how good his net profit could be also.

And then at least a dozen barbeque shops of different sizes, selling grilled chicken, grilled pork, grilled beef and grilled squid.  A whole BBQ chicken is now about 100 Pesos retail and they sell in the store uncooked for 65 pesos, so I doubt there’s much profit there.

And “Junk Shops”.  OMG we have “junk shops”.  These are folks who eke out a living buying anything scrap and reselling the scrap[ up the chain.  You can sell anything from a handful of nails to a jeepney load of old rusted fence sections.  Profit and growth potential seem small.  There are lots of pawn shops too, one step above a”junk shop”.  The pawn shop business in the Philippines is tightly controlled by both government rules and several big, powerful companies.  It’s not the sort of thing I would care to get into at all.  Tony Soprano would do well in the pawn shop business here, I’d likely wind up dead or in jail.

I saw a couple hamburger paces.  One which wasn’t open yet offered a 20 Peso burger with a BOGO special.  buy one, take two.  That would make the burgers about 20 cents US each, where McDonalds broke into the market when I was a teen, 50 years ago.

And barber shops and beauty parlors.  A haircut is about 30 or 40 Pesos.  I’ve never been to a barber her, my wife buzzes me with our own electric clipper.  I don’t know what the beauty shop rates are either, Mita gets her hair, nails, etc done by a lady who comes to our house when you want her … a few hundred pesos max.

Where I turned the corner onto Pandayan Road across from the barangay center there is a news paper shop that sells lottery tickets.  This seems profitable, a legal government franchise costs only PhP 50,000 and when the prizes go up high the line get long … but I would think you’d need other income.

Anyway that’s enough for my somewhat bleak picture.  there’s plenty ways to make money in the Philippines, but you better get used to the idea you will make it online.  I don’t see much in the “conventional” arena of business I would be interested in.

How does this post relate to the title?  Well although you can make good money here in the Philippines via online methods … I’m not that good at it but I’m already sweating taxes … taxes are ok really, they are proof you actually did make money … if you let your one line enterprises take over your life as I so often do then even one of those low-pay jobs that’s available here in the Philippines might be a good thing.  Forty to sixty hours a week I could just let someone else do all the decision making )  (can you tell I worked for the US government nearly 40 years? )

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