Splashing The Cash......

[i am bob]

Saving is great for us from other countries... But what about those in the Philippines who don't have enough to save?

[ironmaiden]

 

  How can the woman who lives in a cardboard box on the side of the road get out of that situation, she can't get a job as she has no clean clothes and perhaps no education and also who will take care of little Bobby if she did get a job?

 

For some people, like the ones you describe here there might indeed not be a way out. What I was saying is that there are a lot of people out there who do have a job and thus a salary and could, even if it was only 500 P a month, save something. For example, I just build a house and had the parents of my wife working here as carpenters for 11 weeks. Salary and free food. They normally don't have a job, so in those 11 weeks they had sudden "extra money". At the end of the 11 weeks they had nothing left. Maybe they had so much debt already? But that would mean they are living above their standard. If you don't have money you can't send all your children to college, but that's what they are doing. As a parent you have to make important decisions in life but you can only make the right decisions if you plan ahead. Start counting, can we afford this or that? None of that is happening.

People get sick, go to the doctor and then buy half of the prescribed medicine (antibiotics) because it's expensive. Of course, later they get sick again, have to buy meds again and in the end, it costs more this way and you are sick longer... No planning, nobody's thinking...

As for having babies, birth control pills are readily available and cheap (15 years ago they cost 40 pesos). You can also come outside and that costs nothing. One might still get pregnant this way but at least not every year. I just see a general unwillingness to look ahead in ones life and think about the consequences of what one is doing. People just do whatever they like to do and worry later. So yes, some people are in a hopeless situation but many could lead better lives if they would think first and do later.

[Dave Hounddriver]

But what about those in the Philippines who don't have enough to save?

 

Why not?  I know of filipino people who survive as tricycle drivers on 2,000 - 4000 pesos a month and I know some who live on a professional wage of 10 times that.  So if they can survive, like the tricycle driver, on 2,000 a month then anything above that has the potential to be saved or invested.

[Gerald Glatt]

 So if they can survive, like the tricycle driver, on 2,000 a month then anything above that has the potential to be saved or invested.

 

LOL We live here in Florida on about $3000 per month,  butt with my first wife we had trouble making it on $8000 in Ohio.

here we save a bit each month so we may go to Fil, it just goes to show why divorce in the US is so expensive.......because it is worth it. 

[Thomas]

 

 

It's very hard to earn money, if not having start capital.

But how do you get that? In all honesty, I still have to come across the first Filipino family that saves money. All of the families I have seen so far, if they do have money (no matter somebody gave it or they worked for it) they spend it immediately, even if they know they have important bills to pay at the end of that month (for example school for their children). When asked why they didn't save some money, they got agitated?? Asking around for money is so embedded in the culture here it seems to me it has become a complete normal thing. So the poor will always stay poor and I don't think I'm gonna here about a success story of some poor fellow who made it by working hard...

Well.  Yes, very hard to find FAMILIES who save  (but I have written in other topic about a few families I know, who has managed to get the kids high education, although they started very poor.

Some less hard to find INDIVIDUALS* who try.  But for them, who try it's very hard to keep money, because of family and friends asking them for money if they know of savings or earnings... :unsure: :1 (103):

 

*E g

/one poor widow has managed to save to start capical to small businesses two times, and managed to make them some profitable, but both times she lost both the profit and the start capital by pressure from family. So recently she said she will not try to start any new business at least as long as she live to close to family.

/But an other seem to succeed. 

Step 1.   Managed to save 9000 from salaries.  Bought 2 piglets and fodder for them.   Sold for 17 000p.

Step 2.  During the pigs grew, she managed to save some more from salary.  Recently she put this new saving, the 17 000, plus a 20 000 expensive loan in mainly FINANCING mango growing, and give extra work income to family members and herself.  (The owner couldn't afford spraying  :bash: s o he didn't got any harvest at all earlier.)  She expect the value of the harvest will be 300 000, but I don't know how big part she will get.     But she has done one IMPORTANT thing to get possibility to save money  =DON'T GET CHILDREN   :lol:    before you can afford them.

[Thomas]

 

 

Perhaps not today, but there is always Henry Sy:

If I'm not mistaken, he is from Chinese descent, not? They always seem to be more industrious, those Chinese.

I'm terrible at names, but the guy, who among other things started Globe and Cebu Passific, was poor when his father died when he was around 13. He is half chinese.

 

An other success story - no idea if she has chinese ancestors or not - is a woman from north of Manila. She started a very small baking business, now it's BIG in several places.

[Methersgate]

If I look around at my actually quite numerous middle class Filipino friends - people whom I like a lot - there is a common characteristic - most of them have a Chinese ancestor. This even applies to the  Muslims  amongst my friends.