2009 March | Frugal Pinoy

Do you charge enough for your freelance services? (Part 1)

Posted by FrugalPinoy on Mar 17, 2009 in Earning and Income | 9 comments

When I started freelancing 5 years ago, my hourly rate as a writer was $5 to $10 per hour. Looking at the current rates many local online freelancers charge their foreign clients, this may seem like a huge amount. Every time I visit Pinoy forums, I see local freelancers charging $1 to $5 per hour – sometimes even less.

Well, what can one do? Sometimes people can be desperate about having extra income that we’re willing to take any amount of money, no matter how small.

But let’s take a look at the average hourly rates of freelancers who took part in a survey by FreelanceSwitch.com:

Source: Freelance Switch Survey

If you can’t believe your eyes, I’m telling you that I know from personal experience that these rates (and higher) are possible. Even for us Filipinos.

In fact, especially for us Filipinos. The freelancers among us are generally well educated and have above average English skills. We can deliver quality work. At the same time, we don’t pay at least $500 on rent alone like our “First World” counterparts. Living here is much cheaper.

If you don’t want to start charging $50 per hour, you can at least charge something a little lower than what the freelancers from developed countries are charging, but aren’t slave wages either. Why not start charging $20 or $30? Then, adjust accordingly as your expertise becomes more in demand and you’ve proved your work to be worth those rates.

But you’re the first and most important person who has to believe that your work is worth more. If you don’t believe it, there’s no way you can convince your clients to believe it themselves.

So how do you convince yourself and your clients that you’re worth the higher rates? Stay tuned for the second part of this post tomorrow, where I’ll address that question.

7 Ways to Save on Groceries

Posted by FrugalPinoy on Mar 16, 2009 in Budgeting, Frugal Tips | 1 comment

Don’t buy everything from one grocery. For my family, I usually buy from a nearby SaveMore supermarket, a Parco supermarket, and Makro. Since I visit these places regularly, I have an idea about which items are cheaper when bought at a specific grocery.

Of course, this only makes sense if all the supermarkets you buy from aren’t out of the way. Otherwise, transportation costs might make your overall grocery expenses the same, or even more expensive, than if you shopped at the grocery nearest your home.

Go on fewer grocery trips. Since I visit 3 groceries, it might sound like I do my grocery shopping too often. The truth is, I only make 2 major grocery trips each month, and probably an additional 2 trips if I want to cook something special that I didn’t plan for. But for these additional trips, I only buy the ingredients I need. Generally, though, I prefer to plan for everything ahead of time so I can visit the grocery less often.

How will this save you money? If you go to the grocery less, there’s less temptation for you to buy unnecessary items that you weren’t planning to buy in the first place. Also, your transportation costs will be lower.

Compare and test different brands. Since I want to choose the brands that give me the best value for my money, I test different brands until I find “the one”. Sometimes “the one” turns out to be the cheapest brand or a generic product (such as the Savepak dishwashing liquid), sometimes it’s the most expensive brand, and sometimes it’s somewhere in the middle. But you can never know which brands give you the best value unless you try them out.

Buy in bulk, if it makes sense. In a previous post, I wrote about how to buy in bulk wisely (click here to read it). Usually, if you buy items in bulk you can save a bit of money – but only if you maintain your usual consumption rate of the bulk products you buy. See, some people tend to overuse items that they bought in bulk because “Marami pa naman eh”. Know your own habits and do the math to ensure that bulk purchases really save you money.

Stick to your list. It helps to have a list of items to buy before you go to the grocery, and to stick to buying only the items that are on your list. This prevents you from buying unexpected items on a whim. But if you find yourself looking at an item that isn’t in your list…

…apply the 10-second rule. This means that before you buy an item that isn’t on your list, think about it for 10 solid seconds before deciding to put it in your shopping cart. This will allow you to evaluate your purchase more thoroughly, rather than automatically chucking items in your cart without thought.

Use a rewards card. This is for those groceries that you’re often visiting. Savemore, Parco, Shopwise, and Rustan’s all offer their own rewards cards to customers. The rewards card will allow you to earn points for your purchases, which you can redeem in the future.

Do you have any tips to share about saving money on groceries? Please share them to the other readers via the comments section.

Image by Davide Guglielmo

Online money-making opportunities: March 9 to 14

Posted by FrugalPinoy on Mar 14, 2009 in Online Job Listings | 0 comments

Happy Saturday everyone Below are some online job opportunities this week.

Note: I try to list legitimate job opportunities as much as possible, but some illegitimate ones might fall through the cracks. Please use your best judgment when communicating with prospective clients, and make sure you get a signed contract before doing any work.

Blogging and Online Writing:

Freelance Blogger ($200 per month)
PC System Blogger ($10/post)
Online Dating Stories ($50 to $100 per story)
Blog Comment / Yahoo Answers writers ($300 to $1500/month)
WordPress Bloggers ($5 to $10/post)
eHow needs new writers (revenue share)
Bicycle-related articles needed
Bloggers/Contract writers needed
SEO article writer needed, 10 articles on sports drinks ($50/post)
Parenting articles needed
Golf writer ($100 to $200/week)

Web Design & Development:

Miscellaneous:

Craigslist Marketer (up to $100 per day)

That’s it for this week. Happy online job hunting!

The Most Important Money Lesson I Learned from My Father

Posted by FrugalPinoy on Mar 7, 2009 in Frugality | 6 comments

The following article is a guest post by Jun Sanchez, a Frugal Pinoy reader. If you want to send in your own guest post, use the contact form to submit your ideas.

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Written by: Jun Sanchez

I’m a middle-aged man who was born to a lower middle class family. Although our parents worked very hard, they never earned enough to attain the kind of financial security that many hard working people do. They may not have been successful in making a lot of money, but to me, they are peerless when it comes to making the most of what we had.

Ever since I can remember, my father always reminded me and my sister of the importance of stewardship. This is the most important money lesson I learned from my father; he always told us:

“Whenever we buy something, whether it’s a big ticket item or not, take very good care of it because if we ruin or lose it, chances are, we may never be able to buy another one again.”

Long married and with kids, looking back, I am certain that I have imbibed this credo. Though, obviously we have replaced our TV sets and other household items more than once since my boyhood, most of our belongings outlasted their life expectancy simply because we took very good care of them.

I have a 12-year old stereo that still works almost as well as when I bought it. I’m typing this blog on a personal computer that, many say, has already seen the light days. I own a nine year old car that my friends say looks more pristine than many cars half its age. I can go on but I think I have already made my point.

Although my father never finished high school, I think he unknowingly taught us a very important lesson in Economics, the concept of Opportunity Cost. As defined, opportunity cost is the value or benefit a person foregoes (I’d rather use forfeits) for making a certain economic decision (in many cases, it’s the decision to buy something).

Money, being a scarce resource, always presents us with a challenge on how we should use it.

For example, if a lady spends her money today to buy, let’s say, a new cell phone, she can no longer spend that money to buy a pair of shoes and a handbag. She forfeited the shoes and handbag for choosing the cell phone.

If later, she’s still intent on buying the shoes and handbag that she forfeited in order to buy the cell phone, it’s either she focuses on earning and save for a month or two or… sell (or forfeit) her cell phone as a secondhand unit to buy the shoes and bag.

You see, buying doesn’t only mean acquiring, it has a downside: it also entails forfeiting!

Before spending, especially on something I can probably live without, I always remind myself that money spent, is money gone, and often, I decide against it. Economists love to say that “you can’t eat your cake and keep it too.”

But what if you live by the credo that my father taught us? What if you take care of your essential possessions to make them last twice or even just 1/4 longer than their life expectancy?…

Spending will be delayed at least… avoided at best. And you will have money either to save, pay off debts, invest, acquire other assets or pay off essentials like your kids’ tuition. Otherwise, you will have to forfeit all these options if, say, you are scrambling to save for a new TV set because the one you had lasted only three years when you could have used it for five or six years if you just took good care of it.

Take very good care of your possessions and you will minimize the cycle of spending and forfeiting.

Remember that in creating wealth, earning well is just half of the equation. Need I say more what the other half is?

Image by Vivek Chugh from sxc.hu