Updated: October 10, 2020
First of all, congratulations on your new job, and that fat paycheck that comes along with it.
But before you leave the country, and make your millions abroad as an OFW, please bring with you these 50 pieces of advice.
Some of them you’ll recognize from our talk over coffee yesterday, but a good number are additional tips that I hope you’ll find useful as you begin a new chapter in your life and career.
Before you leave
1. Have a haircut, visit a dentist, and get a facial, manicure, and pedicure. These services are expensive abroad.
2. Learn how to do your own laundry and iron clothes.
3. Have a list of important contact numbers – family members, friends, your employer, colleagues, and emergency numbers.
4. Open a bank account where you can remit your personal savings, untouchable by your family.
5. Open a UITF or mutual fund account that will allow you to invest while you’re abroad.
6. Talk to your family and manage their expectations on how much you’ll send every month.
7. Know your options on how you’ll remit money to your family, learn their rates and fees.
9. Teach your family how to use Skype or Google Hangouts.
10. Buy a durable organizer or briefcase where you can keep all your important documents.
11. Bring mementos of your loved ones.
12. Eat your favorite Filipino dishes and chirchirya before you leave.
During your first three months
13. Call your family as soon as you get settled in. Post a status on Facebook to say you arrived safe and sound.
14. Learn the bus and train routes and their schedule.
15. Look for the nearest and most affordable market where you can buy groceries.
16. Look for the Filipino store in the neighborhood.
17. Find and network with the local OFW community.
18. Ask where you can get an affordable haircut.
19. Learn how to speak and write in the local language fluently. Don’t just learn the basics.
20. Open a savings account in a local bank.
21. Always pay yourself first. Immediately save 30% of your income, yes that’s 30%.
22. Put 20% of that savings into your personal bank account in the Philippines, the other 10% in a local savings bank.
23. Save up for an emergency fund equal to your monthly living expenses plus your monthly remittance to your family, multiplied by six.
24. Know your cash flow, track your expenses, and determine how much your cost of living will be.
25. Even if you can afford it, don’t send more than what your family regularly receives from you. Stick to a fixed amount and follow it.
26. Look for a route where you can jog daily. Exercise.
27. Discover good but inexpensive dining places.
28. Learn how to cook your own food. Youtube has a lot of tutorial videos.
29. Don’t drink too much. Avoid starting a new vice.
30. Stop comparing your new salary to your old one. It’s useless to convert it to Philippine Pesos in your head because your cost of living is more expensive there anyway.
31. Stay updated with the news and what’s happening in the Philippines.
32. Stay safe and follow the rules and culture of the country. Don’t do anything illegal.
During your fourth month and beyond
33. Work hard, but always get enough rest and sleep.
34. Read more books, watch fewer DVDs.
35. Buy yourself a good laptop and quality speakers, not a big-screen LCD TV and a home entertainment system.
36. Buy only what’s essential for you to live comfortably.
37. Call and talk to your family (over Skype or Google Hangout) at least once a week, at a set time and day.
38. Look for low-risk investments that are available to you there as an OFW.
39. Don’t just lend money to other OFWs, help them financially if you must, but only with an amount you can afford to lose.
40. Avoid borrowing money from fellow OFWs, you don’t want to owe them.
41. Get involved in some productive local activities. Be a volunteer if you can.
42. Learn a team sport and play with the local community.
43. Go out and travel on weekends and experience the local culture.
44. Post photos of you working on social networks, rather than your new gadgets or weekend travels. Don’t give your family, friends, and relatives the impression that you’re just having fun there.
45. Read OFW blogs and maybe start your own blog, it’s a great therapy for homesickness, plus you can earn additional income.
46. When your family asks for more money, don’t – unless it’s a matter of life or death. Never give in to the guilt and practice tough love.
47. Tell your family to open a time deposit account where they should save a portion of what you remit to them.
48. Encourage your family to look for good real estate investments such as rental properties. Delay buying your dream house, do that when you’re finally back home.
49. Save and invest so you can come back home in five years or less and start your own business in the Philippines.
50. Reserved for your advice… add it as a comment below.
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Photo credits: kunel, danielygo, thecoolquest and mythoto
*Be friends with financially savvy people. Avoid the spendthrift ones.
*If you are looking for a house and lot back home, don’t buy your dream house just yet, buy a starter home and invest the rest. You can buy your ultimate house and lot later on.
*Take a loooooong nap while off from work
* Avoid the mall but please give in for few wants. We work to live and not live to work
* Save as much as you can. 70 percent maybe?..so homerun na soon coz there’s no place like home
Goodluch
* if you will be renting or looking for a place to stay choose the area near your workplace.
* buy a decent but durable bicycle if you can and cycle you way to work, its a great stress reliever and can save money in the long run ( and a cheaper plus healthier way to explore ).
*check your contract and employer if you have accidental coverage (insurance) if none get one from the local but reputable provider.
*if you’re planning to fly back home for special occasions book months ahead to get a cheaper airfare (or avail promos from budget airline if they are flying to and from the country of your workplace).
50. Express gratitude and gratefulness for the wonderful blessing and Pray very very hard, even harder when you were at the Philippines.
44. Post photos of you working on social networks, rather than your new gadgets or weekend travels. Don’t give your family, friends and relatives the impression that you’re just having fun there – PRECISELY!!
my advise: PRAY, Ask for Divine Providence.
Hi sir fitz, Good day! My question is with regard to advice no 21 and 22. You mentioned save 20 percent in a personal account and another 10 percent in a local bank, what is the purpose of the distinction? Where should he use the 20 percent? How about the 10 percent? Thank you much. 🙂
@jun
the 20% is for your “coming-back-for-good fund”, which can also be used for spending whenever you visit home (just a portion though), you can also use this to keep the emergency fund for your family (which you can just transfer to their bank account online). Meanwhile, the 10% that you save in a local bank can be your personal emergency fund.
Live a simple but happy lifestyle. Avoid the “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality. So many OFW’s have fallen to this trap, thinking that having many material possessions is the indicator of being rich. Having a high income does not necessarily mean you are wealthy. Read books like “The Millionaire Next Door” to have a better idea of what a true rich person looks like.
#50. Save as much as you can. Yes, 75% is doable.
BUT when sending/remitting money to the Philippines, just write down the amount and recipient on a piece of paper and quietly give to the teller. Don’t cry out the amount “One hundred thousand pesos, ha excluding charges!!!” (Then look around).
Be sensitive to those in the queue who earns less. I’ve seen not a few who sends just few hundred Saudi riyals plus charges.
Doing so could also lead you to embarassment when the guy on the other queue yells “Two hundred thousand pesos!”
Point is, be grateful yet humble. God blessed you for a purpose.
Always pray for guidance.
before u leave, know where u can attend church gatherings near your area.
Join a local church group and nurture your relationship with God.
Be humble esp.if you have a higher post.. in the eyes of our host country we are the same slaves.
let your friends pay their own meals during hangouts, it is ok for sometime but not all the times..
select group of friends with common interests..avoid gossips.
avoid being a womanizer, stick to your wife if your married or one girlfriend at a time if you are single( its really expensive) 🙂
Stock up on your favorite products that only are available in the Philippines.
Have your photos taken in the Philippines, your 2 by 2’s or your 1 by 2’s and bring a stock of your ID photos with you. Photo services abroad are expensive!
50. Read “Ready to be Rich” on your spare time 😉
Having been abroad for a long tme, i could say that these are all sound advice. Come December i will be joining the unemployed as i was terminated in my work here in Saudi. This is my third time to prove , that there is really no security in a job. Local or abroad. Now, i will venture on online jobs, and starting my own online business so i can be with my family, less salary, but im sure will be more satisfying.
Thank you for this article Sir Fitz! Early next year, mag-aabroad po ulit ako.
Dagdagan ko lang po. Study new skill abroad. Much better if you learn how to do haircut, manicure, pedicure, cooking native delicacies etc. It’s an opportunity for growth and for additional income. 🙂
Save and invest wisely. Give yourself a deadline so you’ll have a goal and could go back home soon. Life in abroad is temporary. You’ll always find yourself longing to go home.
Always pray for wisdom, guidance, and discernment from the Lord with the intercession of Mother Mary.
This blog post is worth absolute GOLD!!! We will certainly save and share it with any friends who decide to venture out of the Philippines for employment. I will add, know where your embassy is located and phone contact numbers so you may obtain help if needed. Finally, I will mention my friend Christian who work overseas in several high end restaurants connected to large hotels. He enjoyed free lodging and he ate his own cooking which greatly helped with expenses. Recently, my friend signed on to a cruise ship as a chef, he travels, lives a decent lifestyle and again, he eats his own wonderful cooking. I think he will do well once he comes home to start his own business.