Is this really about your move to the Philippines? You decide.
Another short reading assignment today, gentle readers.
And then a much more important thinking assignment.
Reading is easy, at least if it interests you.
Thinking? Sometimes not so much.
Go see what my blogging colleague Seth wrote:
(go ahead, it’s very short and to the point, I’ll wait for you.)
If you didn’t take the time, here’s the important message in a couple lines:
How much are you paying for the privilege of having someone else tell you what to do?
Example…
If you take a job as a freelancer writer doing short service pieces on assignment to a local paper, you might earn $3 an hour. Which is about 97% less than you’d earn if, like some writers, you dream up amazing pieces, write them on spec and turn them into blogs, books or films. This writer doesn’t wait to get hired. He hires himself.
If you do publicity for an agency, working hard and precisely following the VP’s and the client’s instructions, you might earn $25 an hour. On the other hand, when you do your own PR, when you build a sensation and turn it into a following, you might earn many times that. (And enjoy it more).
We happily give up our freedom and our income in exchange for having someone else take responsibility for telling us what to do next.
How much are you giving up?
Well? How much are you giving up?
I get queries here all the time from people wanting to know if they can live in the Philippines on a certain amount of money per month. The amounts vary, but they are often quite low, and when investigated, they almost always seem to revolve around some particular government allowance the reader has available to him or her.
Well, I get money from the government too … annuities that I earned by years of service. So I am going to be the very last person to knock anyone for taking and allowance they are entitled to. Take it and more power to you.
But, let me give you the thinking assignment I promised you know:
1. Is that all you are worth?
2. Are you sure that you want to “sell yourself” for x amount per month?
To help you out with your thinking (and get a picture of why I am n this little tangent today, review the post about Jon
How to Quit Your Job, Move to the Philippines and Get Paid
Show of hands. How many already read it, and got through to the point about Jon’s illness and adversity overcome?
For those who still haven’t, Jon has SMA Spinal Muscular Atrophy and has already lived 25 years or so past the point the best US medical minds told him and his mom he would die. He just didn’t. Instead, he built himself a life and a business as well … mainly so he wouldn’t be a burden our others.
Jon was born in the USA. So, financially, he didn’t have to worry nearly as much about the devastating costs associated with his disease as some people in other countries would have.
But although he was “alive”, the government programs and allowances that kept him “alive” also took away his ability to “live”. In Jon’s words:
… I added it all up, and the total cost of keeping me alive in the US was $127,000 a year. That’s not rent. That’s not food. That’s just medical expenses.
Granted, I didn’t actually have to pay all that. I had private insurance, Medicaid, other government aid programs, but all that support comes at a price: they control you. The government allotted me only $700 a month to live on, and I had to spend every single cent above that on medical expenses, or they would cut me off.
So for years, that’s what I did. If I made $5,000 one month, I set aside $700 for living expenses, and I spent the other $4,300 on medical bills. Nothing was left. Ever.
And eventually, I got sick of it. …
I don’t wonder that he did get sick of it.
And that’s the reason I get frustrated and frankly a little depressed when I get queries for people that start out, “I am 27 years old, I have a disability and I only get $1,100 USD per month to support me, can I live in the Philippines on that”?
The answer is, you probably can, but the bigger question, by far is, do you want to? At 27 years of age, are you ready to give up the next 50 or 60 years of “Living” you may have in your “lifetime” account, just to cut your price and hold yourself back inside the artificial limits that the government, in their infinite wisdom, has set for you.
Who the hell has the right to say that someone is “worth” $700 USD per month or $1,100 USD per month or any other dollar figure? Who indeed?
The way I see it, there are three things you can do with your life.
- What someone else tells you you can do
- What just “happens to you”, as in staying where your car breaks down.
- Whatever you decide to do
Which way will you chose? Can you move to the Philippines or not?
Hi, Phil—that’s a hard thing to swallow. I thought I could give things up to move there. But now I think of it, I’m not to sure! I love to be with my family there but I’m always thinking of how am I going to support them… and then the kids education and all.. I prefer the education system here where I am!
Jojie » No problem in doing what you chose to do, Jojie. My point, however is not at all about giving up … except giving up the yoke of other people telling you what you can do, how much you are allowed to earn, and where you are allowed to earn it.
My ideas don’t work for everyone, nor do I ever tell anyone what they ought to do. But a huge problem in today’s world is people who sell themselves short and burn up their lives waiting to be “told” that they can excel.
From my perspective too, a huge, shocking, sad disservice to the Filipino has been pushed out from government and education in the Philippines for years … the notion that a Filipino must go abroad in order to succeed. It’s bogus, it’s wrong, and it hurts the country greatly, because it squanders the greatest natural resource of the Philippines … her people.
So, to all, live where you wish to, earn how you want to, I criticize no one (except those who train the Filipino that success is only beyond Philippine shores). But just don’t live your life “where your car broke down”. God made you all for much more than that.
Hi, Dave—I couldn’t agree with you more when you wrote that people are waiting to be told! I lived that life and at 35 am just starting to get off my butt and actually doing something about it. I’ve known long time ago, that if we need to do something, we have to do it ourselves—we need to start it, take initiative and don’t wait for other people. Of course we also have to synergize with others, but it is exactly your point that we can’t wait for others to tell us.
When I said I knew about it long time ago (oh.. give or take just under 10 years)…. I”ve never really done anything about it until less than 8 months ago. I sat on it… and I preach my kids about it but not do anything about it for me! Ha! Now I’m kicking myself on the backside because… I did nothing.. lolz.
My story is a bit complicated. I have kids here, and also have a family over there and this is one of the reasons I’ve gotten up and doing something about this so that I can be with my family—that we could be together. Living in Philippines would be much idea for me (financially, that is if I am still earning dollars)… catch 22 I guess for me.
Good Morning Dave:
Interesting Article!!
I bought Bob’s Book 49 Ways.
Have been working on one of his ways and apparently yours, Writing!! I have been working on 4 books, for the last 8 months.
One pretty much done, just need to get the “Table of Contents” to work!! The other 3 are at various stages. I work on them, when I get frustrated with working on the Table of Contents.
A little plug for for your “Retired Pay World” and Bobs “Virtual Earner”, both very GOOD!!! have them open always on my browser as tabs.