Manage Your Money Wisely

[jadegil6]

I read that the minimum daily wage for a filipina worker is 286 pesos for an eight hour workday. In addition to this pay the worker is supposed to be provided with Philhealth, SSS, and 13th month pay which is supposed to be paid out monthly. But the truth is that many businesses pay less that this minimum wage. Many workers earn closer to 200 pesos for a ten hour workday with no additional benefits.

There are agencies that serve as a middleman to find and hire workers for many of the businesses in the Philippines. When a filipina is hired through one of these agencies, then they don't get any of the additional benefits plus they have to pay the agency 56 pesos per day out of their 286 pesos earned. This saves the business money because they don't have to pay for the benefits, but it is very unfair to the workers. Most of the businesses in the malls as well as Robinsons, one of the largest supermarkets in the PI, use these agencies to hire their workers.

[Edwin]

With such a low minimum wage, and then the agencies taking a cut out of their pay, they don't take much home. 200 pesos for a 10 hour day is not much at all. When the filipina worker has to pay the agency, and then they get no benefits it is a double loss when the wage is not very much in the first place. When I was a big kid I worked for very little with no benefits. Then I got a job breaking rocks with hammers for $2.00 and hour, and I thought I was getting rich. The minimum wage continued to increase with all other costs increasing, making the wages less money even though they were increasing. Many of businesses hire part time, so that they won't have to pay benefits. The concessionaire that we worked for, for 10 years payed the minimum wage, but the position I was in, I got tips, and people were very generous, so I actually did fairly well. This guy gave us one month off each year without pay, so that he wouldn't have to pay us benefits. Not only did I get generous tips, but my supervisor didn't want to work very hard, and I was happy to do the work, so I got lots of overtime at time and a half wages. So getting tips, working overtime, and living in a place where it was inconvinient to spend money helped us to do well. Most of the time we lived there we had our mid-day lunch provided as well as housing, and our trips out to civilization on the boats. So it is a good thing.

My friend was asking his brother-in-law why his filipina daughter didn't get a job working at this bakery we stopped and ate snacks at on our walks, and he told my friend that his daughter could not make enough money to make it pay, once she paid her transportation to and from this place, plus what she needed to eat to make it through her day.

[jadegil6]

You are right Sir Edwin, it is not much money at all. To put that into better perspective for some readers, I will break it down.

The current rate of exchange for the peso to the US dollar is 43.175 pesos per dollar.

So the wage of 286 pesos per 8 hour work day would be 286/8= 35.75 pesos per hour. 35.75 pesos is equal to $.83 cents per hour, or $6.62 for an 8 hour day.

But if the worker is hired from an agency, which the majority of the workers in the Philippines are, then that wage drops to 200 to 232 pesos per day for 10 hour shifts. That would be 232/10 = 23.2 pesos per hour, which is $.54 cents per hour, or $5.40 per 10 hour work day.

Out of the paltry wages earned, the worker also needs to pay for transportation costs, and their daily food, as Sir Edwin said, and the current cost of a jeepney ride in Cebu City is 9 pesos. If the worker needs to ride two jeepneys to get to their destination, then that transportation fare adds up quickly since they also have to return to their homes after the workday ends. Food costs are also high, and a person has to eat during the day, and the workers propbably spend a large portion of their daily wages on food costs.

The cheapest rooms I saw while I have been in the Philippines was 2500 pesos per month, and those are not rooms that most foreigners would stay in. Those rooms are usually found in boarding houses that have one cr (bathroom) that is shared by all of the other occupants of the house, and to take a bath in the majority of these cr's is using the dip and pour method...no showers or hot water. There are one or two 5 gallon plastic buckets, and one dips a smaller pot into the 5 gallon bucket of cold water, and pours it over one's head and body. This is not something that most foreigners have ever done, or would ever choose to do.

Life in the Philippines is not such an easy life for the majority of it's citizens.

[Edwin]

The bathing thing brought back many memories of all various methods of bathing. When we were little, like before we went to school it seems like we only took a bath once a week, before church time on Saturday evening. We had running water, a hotwater heater, and also pipes that ran through our wood cookstove that helped heat the water, so we could take as many baths as we wanted. Then we moved to where we only had one cold water pipe coming into the kitchen. We often used the dip and pour method, usually washing out of a wash pan with a wash cloth. Then we heated water on the wood cookstove, poured it into a small round galvinized tub. Then Dad bought an oblong galvanized tub, and we used it the same only it gave us a little more room in the tub. We took our baths in the kitchen with just a few inches of water, then we dumped the water out the back after finishing bathing. Dad put of a 55 gallon metal gasoline drum on a framework besided the house, and he put up privacy board. He punched holes in a coffee can to distribute the water. The sun heated the water, and in the late afternoon we had very warm showers in the summer time. After showering we would use the garden/lawn hose to refill the barrel. We used the outhouse out back. When I graduated from high school Dad and my older brother built in a bathroom in the house with running water, a tub, a shower, and the works. Until three years ago we took modern baths or showers, and then we moved here where we have no running water. We can get running water in our house, but I am working on a root cellar to put the water pipes, water tank, pressure tank, and pump in to keep them from freezing in the winter. For a while I took jug showers in our travel trailer, but then we got a bathroom put in with a shower stall and a drain, just no running water, so I was heating water in jugs in front of our pellet stove, but during the summer we have no fire in that stove, so we got started to heating the water on the electric kitchen cookstove, but we heat the water part of the time on the wook cookstove when we have to have a fire in it anyway. I use 3 gallon jugs to take a jug shower. I shave and wash my face with cold water poured out of a jug. We have 5 gallon buckets of water to flush the toilets with, and we use water out of the gallon jugs to drink, wash, and wash dishes with. It works okay for now, but one of these days I will have my root cellar completed, and we will have running water coming through our root cellar and piped into the house!

[edeline]

Planning to budget the money before it comes is so easy to do but when the time comes that the money is there, I don't know why the things that have been planned are not followed. Sometimes I budget a thing to put it into a saving but when I drop by somewhere and I seem to like this thing or that thing, I am into impulse buying which many I guess are doing.

Supposedly a part of the salary is to be saved even just little by little but sometimes what I am earning is not enough on what I need to spend or my expenses. How I wish that it will be equal in terms of salary and the prices of the products. I mean if the products are getting more expensive the companies should also be giving higher wage. The companies are more on their side and not on the welfare of the people.

It is so hard to save money as in very hard. I am glad that now the minimum salary if 305 pesos but the sad thing is not all companies are adopting that. The people in authority hopefully will think of the employees working for them.

Filipinos tend to work abroad to save money. I can never save here in the Philippines knowing how much salary I will; be earning. The only company which is paying high enough is the call centre companies.

[Edwin]

I have never budgeted before. We have a daughter who budgets everything. I have always just tried to spend as little as possible and then hoped that there would be enough money to cover everything. There was a time that the money was really short, and I would pay some bills, and then I would pay others knowing that it would take a while for the money to travel through the mail, which was really dangerous, but mostly it worked. I would hang on to checks I would write that I didn't absolutely have to send, and then send others that I knew had to be there. For a while now we have needed more money than we have coming in, but we do the best we can, and things will get better, and are already a little better. I have a little business adventure that went well for a while, and then it failed me for a while, but I have hopes of it coming back to where I will have enough money again without worrying so much. You are right Edeline in that you see something that you need and there goes the budget, or you don't quite have enough, so the budget doesn't cover it. The cost of things goes up and the money you take in doesn't increase and that makes it difficult.

[red]

I like this topic. As a mother im the one doing the budgeting. I love and enjoy the job but its a headache to budget when you are broke. When i do groceries i stick to what is on the list. I make a list before going to the store and stick to it that way you will know how much money you will need. Hard part is when go shopping with kids tugging along they tend to ruin the budget coz they like to point and pick anything they like.

[edeline]

That is right, kids point on things that they like and then they want parents to buy that for them. If parents don't buy for them they will cry. Parents are trying to pamper kids as much they cann no matter what will be the result. Impulse buying brings so much trouble.

[Edwin]

Yes, impulse buying can cause lots of trouble. In this country anyway recent years it has been too easy to get credit. With easy credit it is too easy to buy things on impulse, and within a short period of time you wonder why you bought the item. This kind of buying can cause a person to accumulate debt that it is impossible to pay back. There are people who get a credit card, charge it to the max, then get another charge it to the max, and before long they have an impossible situation. All their wages go to pay credit card debt and before long they can't even pay all of it. The government and the bank got into the house loan business, and they helped people buy houses, and those people could not make the payments. They should never have been loaned the money to buy those houses. It caused our country a lot of economic trouble. In the grocery stores the store managers put items that little kids will be interested in on the bottom shelves so they can pressure their parents into buying those things, not only groceries, but other items as well. Then some of the little kids learn that if they throw themselves on the floor, and refuse to get up unless the parents buys those items for the little kids, they contribute a lot of pressure. Years ago we had a little guy living with us part of the time, and with his mom part of the time. We love him so much, and still do, even though now he is in his early 20s. He would sit down in the store isle, and you would either have to drag him on the floor, or you would have to pick him up and carry him. I'm not sure where he learned that, but it didn't work with us. We bought what we needed and could afford, and we bought things for him too, but not because he was throwing a fit. He played it like a game with us, in that he did not get mad, screem, or cry if he did not get his way, but he accepted our decision to buy or not to buy. I think his game worked with other people from his home though. We would let him look all through the store, and if there was something he really wanted, and it was not too expensive we would buy it for him, and our other grandkids as well.