Hello Fellow Philippine Dreamers!

I am Jerry Worthington, 62, from Phoenix, Az. I just retired Sept 1 and, due to a spotted work history and early retirement, my SS income will be in the lower range of the generally considered “required to live income” for a foreigner in the Philippines. ($600. per month). On September 13, 2006, I left from Dallas Airport on the trip I had planned for more than a year. My quest was to relocate for a time to Cebu City and to enjoy the company of my Honey Ko, whom I had visited one time for a week and chatted with nearly daily for the last 2 years.

Arrival

I arrived in Cebu City on Cathay Pacific from L.A. on schedule, September 14 about noon. I cleared customs and the visa process, which went very smoothly, if not rapidly. (The facility in Cebu City is not geared to very large flights.) However, in less than an hour, I was outside, looking for that radiant smile and those sparkling brown eyes of my Filipina Princess. The reunion was again not swift but accomplished after the short delay required for her to fight the crowds and get to my location. Step 1 was complete: I was now safely encircled in the loving arms and care of my Honey Ko.

We had reservations at the Fuente Pensione House ($20-$40.per night, walking distance from Robinsons mall), so we hurried off because I was now 36 hours without the benefit of shower and other facilities. We rested and took a light dinner in the upstairs restaurant and bar.

The next day was fully scheduled for visiting some Internet cafes I had been associated with because of my website. My schedule was shortly useless, as the travel time was much greater than the allotted times for the visits. (A very short distance on the map can take 30 minutes.) The first day was enjoyable, but frustrating, because I had planned my first few days to be fruitful and financially productive. They were neither—they were just frustrating and exhausting. After a couple days of this we rested a day and begin to search out a less expensive, more permanent home.

Permanent Lodgings

An associate pointed out a subdivision on Mectan Island where reportedly a house could be purchased for $150. per month. We spent a day with the realtor, only to discover that a new house there is bare walls and floors and nothing more. The down payment was ridiculous, and the agreement would have required a Philadelphia lawyer a month to untangle. This was also aggravated by the fact I was a “kano” and my Honey Ko hadn’t been gainfully employed for the last 5 years.

Next we chose the rental route. She had noted a house for rent near her home in Talisey City. We checked it out, and from the street it appeared to be suitable. With a phone call we were able to make contact with the owners and could meet them the next day to view the house. We met and viewed it. The house was primitive but adequate. They wanted a one-year lease and a three-month deposit. I offered first month plus a one-month deposit and a six-month lease. I think the $200 American cash present turned the tables. We had rented a 2 bedroom, half bath house for $100 per month with occupancy in 2 days. (Perhaps the delay was for cleanup?)

The House

The house sits halfway up the side of a mountain, but there are paved streets. From what I could see it was roughly 500+ sq ft., with two small bedrooms, a larger living room/dining area, a “dirty” kitchen and a separate shower facility. One bedroom had an air conditioner (an absolute requirement). The front porch is an area roughly the same size as the house with a high steel roof and what was once a cement floor.

Then there were the things I couldn’t see. The plumbing for the shower, commode, and sink were not operable—and the water is available only 1 or 2 hours per day. The first day we were able to get a plumber to “Filipino rig” a shower, which cost about $50. A bucket in the commode accommodated flushing. Add a cheap toilet seat from the mall and a roll of tissue—voila, a fully functioning comfort room! (My girlfriend had lived her life with a “thunder hole” and a hand pump. We are living large!)

Kano Education

Pros:

• My neighbor (two doors down) is Paul Boling. He is a retired navy chief and a very nice guy. He, his very lovely wife, Anna, and Baby Geneva have become fast friends and valued companions. I am confident Anna and Stella have already exchanged all intimate details of the breeding and care of the ensnared “kano” pets in their possession.
• The people here smile constantly. When passing a scene which makes me cringe with anxiety because of the obvious poverty, the children will be laughing and playing with a rock and a stick, and the adults in residence will be laughing and smiling and in general apparently oblivious to their plight.

Con:

• The only exception to the everybody smiling rule is the beggars. They have chosen their profession because of how pathetic and sad they can appear upon demand.
• Public transportation requires a lot of walking. I have arthritis and this presents some obstacles.
• Lizards are horny creatures and make weird noises, day and night, trying to attract their next lover.
• Cats and dogs are sorely mistreated as are the children and the “more poor”.
• Hubel - Hubels are just as dangerous as they appear and even noisier in the middle of the night.
• Horns are incessant. They are sounded when approaching any corner as a warning to other travelers or at any animal or obstacle in the roadway ahead. They are sometimes sounded to attract the attention of “cute” pedestrians or for no apparent reason at all. The only time a taxi driver stops sounding his horn is while passing a catholic church or shrine. He then removes both hands from the steering wheel, bows his head and crosses himself. I guess this is to obtain absolution for his many transgressions committed since the last church or shrine some 100 yards before.
• The discovery that the term “out of stock” may only mean “these are the only English words I know and I must save face.”
• That a microwave in the Philippines is a luxury item, and the most stripped down model will set you back $125.

Warning! Warning! Warning!

Your taxi driver has a twin cousin or brother who drives this same taxi. Any deal previously made is null and void with this driver. Confirm any requirements and expectations with this driver at the time you get into the taxi. Drivers can become very animated and angry over even 25 or 30p.

Don’t do this! I met an American—we will call him Dean. He is bright, thirtyish, and married to a Filipina with a baby. He came here with a one-way ticket and a small savings, expecting to be able to support himself, wife, and baby here with his wit, cunning, and small capital. He invested his capital in some TVs to sell and rent. He is now broke, penniless, and desperate.

He now lives, very primitively, in one room without convenience. He tries to survive off the generosity of foreigners he is able to find and whatever work he can find at any pay rate. He must compete with Filipinos who are also broke, penniless, and desperate.

If you can’t afford a return ticket before you come here, how will you buy one after you get here? If you don’t have some sort of perpetual income source or a large capital base you are doomed. Love is blind, but true poverty when it involves someone you love is a hard smash in the face that brings you to the blinding light of reality. Dean’s plight tugs my heartstrings, but I must responsibly preserve what safety net I have and keep my already meager budget for my own needs.

Again I caution, don’t do this, no matter the degree of wit or cunning you may possess. You are no longer in Kansas, Toto!

My first month here has included finding and losing a job. A break in my generally good health requiring a visit to the hospital, a subsequent upper GI, and numerous expenditures for prescriptions and other unexpected expenses.

Unforgettable, Never-exchangeable Adventure

I have found my first month here an adventure and truly the most enjoyable of my life. I may return to the U.S. to better prepare myself to live here. But don’t be mistaken, I shall return. I have not even touched on the joy I receive from my Filipina or the utter satisfaction in the day to day dealing with the Filipino people. I can’t explain the contentment I feel here. I can only say, “I have been smitten by the Philippines”.

I agree with Mark Twain that, “Years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did!” Therefore I believe I will have one less disappointment to ponder in my times of reminiscing. I will forever be able to say, “While I was living in the Philippines I witnessed…”

This was written by myself after my first month in Cebu City.

Jerry

 

SHOESTRING LIVING- IS IT WORTH IT?
A Brief Look At How Little You Can Live Off, But Why Would You?

There is living on a shoestring budget, and then there is the "frayed" shoestring and the "broken" shoestring. Most Filipino families live on the latter, but is it something foreigners can copy and is it worth doing so?

What exactly is a "shoestring" budget? I would say that, living in a city such as Cebu, Davao or even Manila, a decent budget would be US$1000 a month. A shoestring budget would be less than that, say US$750 while a frayed shoestring would be US$500. A broken shoestring, (you know the type where the lace has rubbed so hard it snaps and you have to adjust the rest of the lace and end up with really short bits?) is anything less than US$500 per month. I'm talking at least a foreigner and a Filipina living on this, not just a foreigner by himself. Why would you live here on bugger all money and no honey-ko?

I know many who could not survive on even a grand a month, but perhaps they have never had to. For them the ability to buy western luxury items such as decent ham or steaks from The Tinder Box is to be taken for granted or else go home. I can understand that mentality, why suffer if you don't need to? The truth of the matter is that sometimes circumstances find you having to do more with less than you ever planned on having to do it with!

Those who live the high life, or spend a lot of their free time supporting the local expat girlie go-go bar may find US$1000 a month hardly covers their bar fines. Half your luck mate but this article is aimed at the bloke who has a wife or girlfriend, doesn't have the funds to hang out in bars and wants to get a few clues about getting by on as little as possible.

The great news is that you can get by, and often live well, for very little here. How can Filipino's earn a few thousand pesos a month and still raise large families on a single income? Many earn less than P10,000 a month, that's about US$200, approximately although actually less than that at current rates.

Lets look first at the gorilla, the grand, the US$1000 a month. I earned that for several months working at Bigfoot as a writer of online English Dialogue and drivel. It allowed us to live well enough in Cebu but didn't leave much left over for saving. Especially as it coincided with major repairs to the car and other unusual expenses. We moved down from the province where we had been living well for a monkey (half a gorilla or US$500 a month) to the big smoke where twice as much didn't make much difference! Lesson number one would probably be, if you are on a shoestring budget, to avoid the city and all its' temptations!

Our rent went from P2000 a month to P6000 a month, an increase of three times the money for maybe twice the house. If we had rented in Cebu City itself, then we could expect to pay twice that for a similar size dwelling. Of course, the extra rent would be offset by the savings in traveling expenses, getting to and from work in the city every day. If you aren't having to work for a living, then the tip is to live out of the city where the rents are a lot less than downtown.

Living where there is bugger all to do also means you spend bugger all doing it! In Bogo a big night out was riding down to the pubic wharf and sitting there in the moonlight for an hour or so. Maybe getting some BBQ on the way home! Thrilling! In Cebu we can go out every night of the week and eat out, go dancing etc but the cost would drive us up the wall if we always attended western standard venues.

Entertaining yourself Filipino style is a lot cheaper, of course, although you might get sick of KTV (Karaoke TV bars). Mind you, it costs very little to have a few friends around, drink a few San Miguel's or Beer Na Beers or my tipple of choice, Tanduay and coke! Chew the fat, let the asawas chismis amongst themselves and just soak in the Philippines. Which brings us to Lesson number two, try to live like a Filipino!

A lot of the expense we foreigner's shoulder is for food. We are so used to our style of food that we do actually suffer when we can't get it. Changing a diet, especially the diet of a lifetime for a middle-aged person, is not an easy thing. You will crave certain tastes and foods. Your body will know instinctively what it needs and it will tell you! It will probably not be buwad and rice! You can live for a month on P30 worth of Buwad (dried fish) and a few pesos worth of rice. Many of us crave vegetables after being incountry a few weeks as we begin to realise the Filipino isn't big on adding vegetables to the shopping list. You might be lucky and get some camotes thrown in the pot from time to time!

The closer you can come to eating Filipino style, and that usually means chicken and pork reserved for fiestas and weddings, the cheaper you can live here. Most of our budget is spent on food and most of that on western food items I love like dairy products and meat. We budget P8000 a month for food and spend every centavo. If I were to miss out on meat every second evening meal, we might be able to halve our food bill! On top of these staples, there is also the high cost of condiments, spices, sauces and so on that we really take for granted when we don't have to count every item as it hits the basket.

With food and shelter taken care of, we can look to other items. Education can be very cheap, if you send the kids to the public school where P100 a month equates, often enough, to 60 or 70 per class! Our eldest daughter goes to a decent private school in Talisay and that costs about P1000 per month, say US$20.

Medical expenses can be high if you don't have the money, but health insurance is hardly something I would recommend unless you are elderly or have an existing condition. I can get decent health insurance for about P30,000 a year to cover me and my whole family. You would need a major illness or hospitalization to soak up that kind of money and make the insurance worthwhile.

I spent three days in hospital with kidney stones and the entire bill, with all treatment, medication, meals and so on, was P16,000. Every month we spend around P1000 at the pediatrician for the baby. We could get the inoculations for free or close to it at the rural health clinic but I prefer to pay for our own doctor at the best hospital in Cebu, simply because I can and I don't want to take an inoculation away from a poor baby.

Clothing is cheap here, very cheap. Unless you are Kano sized and then you probably can't get anything to fit unless you have it made. Luckily that can be cheap, too! Even shoes can be made for you at very low cost here.

Utilities can get to be expensive, especially electricity if you have an aircon unit. If you stick to fans and a fridge, you could pay P750 a month whereas using the aircon might triple that bill easily. We also buy bottled gas for the stove and bottled water to drink even though the tap water is allegedly safe.

Cooking gas is about P350 and we use the cylinder up every two months or so lately. Bottled water is about P50 delivered and we go through three "gallons" a week. A gallon is the name of a large container, in our case it holds twenty liters or more yet it is still called a "gallon".

You can live on a few hundred dollars a month here, especially if you own your own shack and eat local food. That is the secret, the more Filipino you can go, the less it will cost you. I look at them and see happy people living on a fraction of the cash and resources we feel we need to sustain life and happiness.

Perhaps taking a leaf from the Filipino book and living on a shoestring budget for a month or two might be an educational experience worth far more than the money you will save.

For me, life in the Philippines is about far more than mere material wealth or comfort and lifestyle. It is about being truly happy, inside, regardless of what your world is like, outside.

Two people could live on this budget below:

Rent P 2000
Food P 4000
Utilities, Elect, Water etc P 1000
Transport, public P 500
Clothing P 1000
Entertainment P 2000
Total P10,000

It really depends on what you want to do in your spare time, how much extra cash you really need. Just to live here, you need bugger all and lots of families exist on less than even that! Still, why travel half way across the world to be miserable when you can be just as cheesed off trying to scrape by on a meager pension or salary back home?

I would advise anyone to look at US$1000 a month as the comfortable minimum but rest assured you can live here on a lot less. It is, as they say here, up to you!

 

Copied elsewhere and can't remember where:

SALARIES IN THE PHILIPPINES

(Poll Taken March 2006)

This is a range of salaries provided by employers and people who have either worked in the location or have had acquaintances who have worked there. Salaries vary widely depending on location in the Philippines (i.e., Manila is much higher than Leyte).

a.. President of the Philippines 57,000 pesos per month
b.. Vice President of the Philippines Approx. 50,000 pesos per month
c.. Congressman 40,000 – 48,000 pesos per month
d.. Major General in the Military 37,000 pesos per month
e.. Governor 25,000 – 35,000 pesos per month
f.. Head of Customs Region IV 25,000 - 30,000 pesos per month
g.. District Engineer 22,000 – 28,000 pesos per month
h.. Government Mechanic 7,000 – 12,000 pesos per month
i.. Mason 6,000 – 9,000 pesos per month
j.. Mail Man 8,000 – 12,000 pesos per month
k.. Postal Teller 8,000 – 11,000 pesos per month
l.. Municipal Trial Court Judge 23,000 – 30,000 pesos per month
m.. Police Chief 22,000 – 30,000 pesos per month
n.. Policeman 7,000 – 12,000 pesos per month
o.. Prison Guard 8,000 – 15,000 pesos per month
p.. Security Guard (Cebu) 190 pesos per day
q.. Security Guard General 240 pesos per day (see additional info below)
r.. Industrial Factory Worker (Laguna) 360 pesos per day
s.. Cabinet Maker (Naga) 350 pesos per day
t.. Department Head at Bigfoot 50,000 pesos per month
u.. Filipino Manager at Bigfoot 25,000 pesos per month
v.. Accountant 12,000 – 26,000 pesos per month
w.. Customs Worker 12,000 – 25,000 pesos per month
x.. Senior Computer Programmer (Cebu) 25,000 – 30,000 pesos per month
y.. Customer Service Rep. (Cebu) 12,000 – 15,000 pesos per month
z.. Domestic Helper (Cebu) 1,800 – 2,500 pesos per month
aa.. Call Center (Cebu) 12,000 start – 30,000 supervisor
ab.. Call Center (Manila) 500 pesos per day to start
ac.. Gardner (Davao City) 1.320 pesos per week
ad.. MEPS (Cebu) 200 – 250 pesos per day
ae.. SM Mall Dept. Store Sales Clerk 4,000 pesos per month
af.. Ayala Mall Rustans (Cebu) 208 pesos per day
ag.. Jeepney Driver 200 – 400 per day after expenses
ah.. Jeepney Driver (Manila) 600 pesos per day
ai.. Tricycle Owner 3,500 month (after expenses)
aj.. Waiter / Waitress 100 – 150 pesos per day plus tips
ak.. Waitress good Restaurant (Cebu) 8,000 pesos per month + tips
al.. Agriculture ` 175 – 208 (minimum wage)
am.. Bar Girl (exotic dancer) 200 per shift, 50 per ladies drink,
500 – 2000 in bar find tips

a.. GRO 150 per shift and 30 – 75 per ladies drink
b.. Massage Therapists (Cebu) 250 pesos per day
c.. Internet Café Worker 200 pesos per day
d.. Elementary School Principal 15,000 – 22,000 pesos per month
e.. School Teacher (Leyte) 12,000 pesos per month
f.. School Librarian 10.000 – 15,000 pesos per month
g.. Carpenter (Pangasinan) 250 per day
h.. Carpenter Foreman 350 per day
i.. Cabinet Maker (Pangasinan) 350 per day
j.. Molding Cement Finisher 300 per day
k.. Cement Mixer Operator 250 per day
l.. General Laborer 180 per day
m.. Welder (Cebu) 235 per day
n.. Human Resources 5,500 per month
o.. Doctor (Public Hospital) 10,000 per month starting – 20,000
p.. Optometrist 7,000 – 8,000 pesos per month
q.. Hotel Maid (Cebu) 208 pesos per day
r.. Front Desk Clerks 6,000 per month (over 15 years experience)
s.. Pension House (front desk) 175 pesos per day
t.. Systems Eng at Container Terminal (Manila) 30,000 pesos a month
u.. San Miguel Executive Assistant (Manila) 22,000 pesos a month
v.. Billing Dept. Worker (Manila) 18,000 pesos per month
w.. T- shirt sales lady in mall 5,000 pesos per month
· Taxi Driver Lease the taxi and don't get paid wages. Last year, the standard lease was P800 per day with maintenance being the responsibility of the owner. Once the driver covered P800 plus fuel, the rest was their profit for the day. Average pay around 8,000 pesos per month---