Can anyone advise me on how much money would mr average send home to the phils each month, to support the family??? After the wife arrives and lives in the uk.
Sorry if this is an old question, i searched and couldnt find anything. But seems an important consideration.
Thanks
neil
This should be interestingVery good question Neil
Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again. But life goes on.
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It's the passion that she shows to the outside world.
Have you read the sticky thread cost of a relationship?
But as for your question.. I'm curious too
Better just say I know someone who's marriage has just gone up the swanee because his wife sent 10's of 1000's of pounds back without him knowing
Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again. But life goes on.
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It's the passion that she shows to the outside world.
However much you send is never enough,my mate was in pieces,once you do start sending a regular amount you better tack on a few extra thousand for "Family problems" which arise normally around christmas,easter etc
Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again. But life goes on.
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It's the passion that she shows to the outside world.
We only send money in emergency,ie medical, collage fees,etc.
So what's the damage?Originally Posted by jimeve
We only send money in emergency,ie medical, collage fees,etc.
all i will say if you want to do that is ---dont start what you cant carry on
a simple question was your wife working and supporting her family before you wisked her off to the uk ????
Nothing is the best answer. They survived before you without your money.
Keith - Administrator
Too right! You don't want to be seen as a soft touch.
Unfortunately they tend to think we are extremely rich, so they usually expect a lot more than they would really need for mere support.
Iain.
That's so true! Folks back home in the Philippines tend to think foreigners have very deep pockets and they have no qualms asking for more than what's needed.
If you're determined to send money as an "allowance", I'd say start with a little less than half of what you can handle. It may seem small to you, but in the Philippines, £1 is more than the cost of a person's meal, even in Manila. If they're not in Manila, even better! Your money should last even longer. If it doesn't, check if they suddenly have new entertainment systems or something.
Now thats the bit that would bother me! "Asking or more than whats needed"
Sounds like people pay about £200 per month, but then get hit with "Extras" for this that and the kitchen sink. So probably more like £400 per month if your a good boy.
Hmmm sounds like wifeypoos needs a part time job.
I moved around a lot in the Philippines before coming to the US to study, and I noticed that there were places where the young-Filipina-older-foreigner relationships were more prevalent. These were usually places where even a degree from the good universities couldn't land you a decent job in Manila (I'm not naming provinces, but you'll know where they are once you've been there). So you're basically dealing with women who are looking for Prince Charming, not his pauper look-alike.
Because most Filipinos can't provide for a housewife and children, the women in these places look outside the country for men with money. In a lot of cases, their families won't like it. But in many more, the families actually encourage it. Especially when the foreigner with the money (good exchange rate) has white skin. Filipinos tend to think white-skinned people are wealthy. Even my sister gets inflated prices at the farmer's market just because she has fairer skin than everyone else there. Poor thing!
Best thing to do is start small and watch the inflation. Also, ask that whatever extra they have, they invest. Too many families in the Philippines spend their "allowances"on luho (aka luxuries) because they can't afford the things themselves so when they do have money, they go overboard.
P5,000 a month is enough, especially in the provinces. That much is a living wage out there. If you give more it only encourages dependency and they will never even try to do anything for themselves.Now thats the bit that would bother me! "Asking or more than whats needed"
Sounds like people pay about £200 per month, but then get hit with "Extras" for this that and the kitchen sink. So probably more like £400 per month if your a good boy.
Hmmm sounds like wifeypoos needs a part time job.
I firmly believe that you should try to equate it to being on the dole in this country without all the extras that many people in the UK get. If the government here gave you more than you need to live on and enough for luxuries as well while you were on the dole, you'd never even try to find a job.
As far as the extras/emergencies go, question everything and check them out as thoroughly as you can before you send more money. Just make sure you don't fall into an expectation "they ask, you send" relationship with them.
Iain.
Iain.
The thing is, the english pound is usually very strong in the Philippines and goes a long way. What filipinos may not realise is that the pound does not go a long way here in England.
I would say only in real emergency
I can imagine a lot depends on your wife, and how she handles here family back home when they make requests for money. If she stands firm with them and sends only what is reasonable and can be well afforded then i am sure things would work out fine.
Just working out what is reasonable i guess is where the problems are!
It usually depends how many jobs I need done...
If I have none then they make none...A bit like a no work no pay deal.
how much to send?
that really depends on you and your wifes family,how much money do you have or spare to give and do you really need too?
think of yourself and wife first then her family and agree a set amount because you may find it becoming a bottomless pit?
i have learnt to do what my wife says!
i am glad i am not married to any of you guys
God grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people i had to kill because they pissed me off.
i am glad i am not married to any of you guys
maybe they are glad they are not married to you
Hi neil, is your wife the breadwinner of the family?
How desperate do you think her family needs help? I think you put that into consideration before sending money....
You don't want to encourage them to be lazy and be a free loader all the time,
specially the sibblings, if they are all grown up and adults....or even married and with kids already,
they should learn to fend for themselves - financial dependency may become a habit...
The parents, you could probably send some money specially if they are old and weak and needs medical maintenance.....
Just my opinion though, no ofence meant to anyone......
"10% of life is made up of what happens to you, 90% is decided by how you react"
"The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost"
Hi neil, is your wife the breadwinner of the family?
How desperate do you think her family needs help?
Hi Sophie, yes i see your points here, every situation is a little different, i am just looking at the pros and cons before i set down that long road to looking for a Philippina
n
Oh ok lol, i thought you're with a filipina wife already, i forgot your other thread, saying you're open to the idea of a filipina wife....
Anyway, it's good you're trying to get as much information as you can,
so in case you finally meet one, you're fully aware and prepared of the pros and cons
"10% of life is made up of what happens to you, 90% is decided by how you react"
"The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost"
my wife use to say, it's just money when i had to send money to the phils, it's easy to spend and waste someone elses money.
funny since my wife has been working, and now we send some of her wages back to the phils, its not longer just money, but money she has had to earnand we dont send as much as we use to
only send what you can easily afford, dont get your self in debt or let it get out of hand
Joblogs, thats a great storey, ahahaha now your wife is working and sending her own wages its no longer "Just Money" and now the family get less
n
LOL, I actually am at uni. I'm a grad student. I currently am in debt and cannot buy health insurance because that money will have to be given to the hospital and doctors for their services renderd when I had tendinitis that was aggravated by a project that my GIS professor assigned to me. My family is not rich, but we work hard. Things aren't as rosy as they may seem. But I still want to figure this out on my own and I don't want a handout.but what would happen if she needed it for an emergency, or she lost her job, was at uni studying, her family were poor, you still wouldn't help
if your parents didn't have much would you help them out ? or let them struggle ??
As much as I'd like to agre with you, the culture in Asia is for family members to help each other, not for families to ask for money from foreigners. Unfortunately, I've also seen the growing number of families that raise their daughters to believe that they are the saviors of the family and must find rich foreigners (this is true even for the native tribes in Bicol).Dont feel insulted Matt,its asian culture,totally different from ours,though this system of dependancy looks set to continue for a long time in the future as pinas has a 3% population growth and is reliant on foreign remittances
While it is admirable for those women to be helping their parents, you make it sound like pregnancy was forced on them and they had no control over their circumstances. Condoms are very cheap and are sold everywhere in the Philippines. They could have had better circumstances and better lives had they made the right choice and had protected sex instead of unprotected sex. Yes, Philippine culture dictates that women be demure and chaste and they would've been given dirty looks by a couple people at the 7-Eleven, but was that really worth the decades of extra costs and two more mouths to feed? I myself have had to face strangers with their dirty looks. I have had to use contraceptive pills for years now because of my ovarian cysts. Those people don't have a right to judge me by the products I buy. Sorry, sweetie, a lot of people in the Phlippines have babies to add to their sob story (Try talking to the DSWD folks in CDO who've been trying to convince the beggar lady with seven kids to stop getting pregnant. She refuses and runs away whenever they take her to the center because she says it's a lot easier to earn money by begging and she says she needs the children because people give more money when she has babies.). If you want more informationBoth were girls and got degrees,ones never used hers despite her promises to her mum and dad(her mum is dying at the moment,terminal illness)because she got pregnant and married to a guy in Manila,the other one An is working in a call center,computer wizz-kid but well,I learnt a few weeks ago she is also pregnant but cant marry her boyfriend because of religious issues
I know it sounds like I'm lucky and I'm from a wealthy family, but I'm not. I'm from a broken family. I started earning my own money at 7y/o. My siblings did the same. I had my first official job at 13. My salary paid for my expenses. I didn't earn enough to send home to my family. At the time, I was in Manila on a scholarship while my family was in CDO. I hated being away but my mother had begged me to take the scholarship as that was the only way I could afford to go to school. My sister had to leave uni to work so my younger brother could go to school. No, my family isn't rich. At uni, I worked five jobs all at the same time while I was a full-time student. Anywhere I ended up, i found ways to earn money because I still remembered the time when my family couldn't even afford to buy rice (I know you ladies know about eating rice with just soy sauce or salt. we couldn't even afford that). I also found ways to help. I had many friends in the slums in Manila because my high school was across the street from one. And at uni, I catechised at different slums and made friends with the children. Found out that many of them were part of begging syndicates and most of the money they received were taken by the adults that managed them. Before I left for grad school, I lived in Makati. Even the children begging near the Mandarin Oriental are part of syndicates (have you noticed the adults hiding in the bushes beneath the statues at the crosswalks?).
I'm not as lucky as people think, but I was raised to not be part of the problem. As poor as we were, when we did have food, we shared it. Every month when I was young, my dad made it a point to bring us to the orphanage to donate food. And every Christmas, we went and donated clothes and toys. Not that we had too many, but we had more than they did. I still love going to orphanages to spend my time with the children and give them something money can't buy. But I've learned from talking to them and the orphanage directors (in several different provinces) that toys, expecially expensive ones, are sold at school and the money is usually wasted on petty gambling and vices. It's not the directors that do this but the children (they admitted to doing it). Also, I've seen how children pretend they're hungry and thirsty but as soon as they turn the corner, they buy Rugby (a brand of rubber cement) and sniff that (this was in Bicol). I've had children yell at me for giving them food when they wanted money. I've had beggars brag to me about how they had just run away from the center again because the manager wanted them to study and learn crafts, but they preferred to beg and they earn more doing it anyway too. DSWD is understaffed and getting tired of rounding up homeless people every month only to have them run away again so they can beg.
I know this thread is about something else, but from everyone's comments, it doesn't seem like you all have spent enough time to really get to know the people you're "helping". I've been there and done that (heck, I've even dated a guy whose single mother couldn't afford to let him stay in the slum in Baguio with his half-siblings so she gave him to an orphanage).
I guess my point is that attitude is not based on how much money you have but on what values you were taught. I do come from a broken family living paycheck to paycheck. But I wasn't raised to ask for money. I was raised to earn it myself. It's incredibly touching to find genuinely appreciative people (like the boy that used to money he was given to buy food, drinks and flowers). I've loved so many people in the slums and felt that I wanted to take them away from there. But as the saying goes, give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime. Don't send money for every little thing, but find ways to help people learn skills that would help them earn their own money.
I'm not trying to insult anyone, just trying to help you see better.
Dang, this is long!
--Denise
respect to you, but if you had no money, and your family couldn't help you, and you told your b/f this, would you expect him to offer you help ?, even thou you might or would refuse it, its the offering i'm talking about, or would you drop out of uni ??
in my misses case, most of her family live on palawan, her mom and father managed to get all their 4 kids thru uni, no they are not rich, but worked long hours to do it, and they gave up alot to do this. my misses wanted to be a doc since she was a kid, but she never gave up her dream, first the biology degree, then the med degree, all in nearly 10yrs at uni, sure they all took turns to work and help pay for the others to go to uni, but still a big burden for her family. also there is no med school on palwan, so her father and my misses had to move to Laguna to do med there, again sacrifices,also my misses had a son she would have to leave behind on palawan.
heres were i came in, after months of chatting to her, she told me in a panic she would have to quit med school because her sister had not sent the money for her fees, looked like she spent it, and she would go and find a job, i offered her to give her the money, she wouldn't take it, but after days of me offering she said she would see it as a loan, and then i get an email off her mom telling me nicely to
.
Hi Joe,
Yes, I did see that film. It was beautiful, and I'm sure my parents taught us to help for the same reasons.
I commend your missus for working so hard to be a doctor. I don't think she scammed you. Honestly, women don't always tell you problems so you can offer to help. A lot of the time, all we need is someone to listen and commiserate with us. I have no doubt that with as much as her family's done in the past to solve similar problems, they would have found a way without your help. And that kinda brings me to pride, which could be the reason her mother told you to
To answer your question, If I REALLY had no choice, I'd have accepted Matt's help but dragged my feet doing it. And I'd have paid him back as soon as I could. Haha! My family's not supporting me right now and I'm still trying to get my former insurance company to pay for the medical costs (the scammers!). But I've already found two more sources of income in the last week. I'm no stranger to doing jobs that noone else wants, and I don't mind scrimping for a long time. It just makes my achievements that much sweeter.
Hi Joe,
Yes, I did see that film. It was beautiful, and I'm sure my parents taught us to help for the same reasons.
. And that kinda brings me to pride, which could be the reason her mother told you to
To answer your question, If I REALLY had no choice, I'd have accepted Matt's help but dragged my feet doing it. And I'd have paid him back as soon as I could. Haha!
i know my misses mom told me to
then you would accept his help, so your just the same as many of us on here
good luck with your studies
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