Average Filipino Family Income About 20,000 Pesos A Month

[Mike S]

Yeah, getting the kids passports was a big mess-around between us in Canada, the DFA and the DSWD in the Philippines. I wish I could say they were all helpful and gave us good advice, but all of them gave us wasteful and conflicting advice at different points. That's for another topic. Now we're in the clear and all will be applied for this week. I mentioned it as "immigration" related because the Canadian government wants to see copies of their passports before continuing with the wife's permanent resident application. As of Typhoon Yolanda, when we amended the application, they didn't have passports. That $1200 number is just an average. It might be $800 but I'll slap on a few hundred Philippine related expenses, like a box we might have sent in the mail, or a document that we had to fed-ex. My wife has a pretty lame life here in Canada and I wouldn't be happy either. We live in a small town with nothing to do and practically no taxi service. This past winter was among the coldest in recorded history, with many days in the sub-40 degree Celsius range. She came on a visitor visa, so wasn't able to apply for work or a driver's license for the first year. All this after having spent two years in the Philippines with her best friends, family, nannies, and stuff to do. I'd wanna go back, too. Part of me wishes I left them there for one more year as I would've saved more money this year. When they were there, my wife, two daughters and two step-kids, I would send about $1500~2000 a month, and still have lots to pay my debts. Once they came here, our spending in Canada became astronomical, and though I did pay off some debts, not nearly as much as I could have. Basically, I can't blame her for being depressed: she's a woman. I also can't throw too much blame around for money because our track record in Canada is pretty bad, too. We used to only send 20,000 pesos to the Philippines when the step-kids were living with a nanny in Marikina, near Manila. They were a lot younger then, and every month seemed like they had no money left. The nanny had been skimming and was only feeding them pancit. As they've gotten older, we've sent more money, but the last two years when we were apart is when it took off. At first we had a pig farm that was very "needy" and from that we never recovered. Even my own kids had constant health problems when they were there. I saw it with my own eyes. Every time I traveled to the Philippines with a budget in mind, I'd spend it in half the time. I'm bad with money, and now my whole family is bad with money. That being said, we haven't had a normal day to day existence to work with in a very long time. Not with all the moving around, typhoon, health and "immigration" stuff. That's why I'm toughing it out to the end. I love my daughters and wanna keep the family together. Wouldn't put up with it otherwise. My wife and I talk about it but it's always a fight. We both have bad track records with that, too. Right now I just plan to keep my mouth shut, let it play out, and let life do the talking. Maybe in the end I'll be a miserable divorcee crying over all the money I lost, or a happily married man, glad I toughed through it. I could also be a happy divorcee, teaching English in Vietnam or Thailand. Who knows?

 

Thanks for explaining the above Mike .... for me it made a lot of difference ..... I can somewhat understand you predicament a bit better know but I know of no advise I can share from my own experiences that could help you .....  with kids involved it can be a very trying and difficult situation BUT I can say that you work in a very dangerous occupation many guys have been killed or crippled while working in the oil fields ..... you need to keep focused all the time on your job and surroundings and not have to have your mind on serious problems in your family life ....

 

I worked for 12 years as an industrial mechanic in a high speed machine environment where a hydraulic chain conveyor belt could take off a leg or arm in a heartbeat .... or you could get caught up in a high speed caser and loose you life ..... while I have no real answers for you I can just tell you to please be careful and keep your mind on your work .... I have 4 scars on my right hand to show me what happens when your mind wonders and your hand is squeezed between the sides of a downward loading hydraulic caser ..... but I'm lucky I didn't loose my hand .... 

 

Take care Mike ..... your still young ,,,, :thumbsup:

:cheersty:

[ekimswish]

The other problem I would comment on is that being young, working in the oilfield, it's a common problem to live not above your means, but at your maximum. I see it in almost all of my coworkers, because even when you have a poor month, you know that you have a few monster months coming up. It's tough to say "no," when you actually do have the money. While I'm spending all this money on the Philippines, my coworkers are spending it on every luxury rednecks in the prairies dream of. Their wives aren't much easier to deal with. 

 

I sometimes wish I had worked in a field with less pay for a year when the wife first got here, just so we would have been forced to spend responsibly. I'm not saying oilfield workers are the richest around, but it's the best most guys can do without an education. I, on the other hand, have an education, but it's in a field (journalism) that's pretty useless for making money. When we see these big checks, we got sloppy.