Sunday – 22 Aug 2010

[smartads] I was trying to figure out the best way to make sure that y’all don’t miss anything that happens to me here.  This is what I came up with.  As things happen around here I will type them up and then publish at the end of each week.  That’s probably how it is supposed to be done, but as you know, I’m new at this and I have to start my mind from scratch.  I will try to update every Saturday, Philippines time.  That being said, this week and next week I will publish on Wednesday.  I will not be around my computer this Saturday and next Wednesday I will just be coming back from an adventure in Southern Leyte (which is one of my links).  I will take some pictures and hopefully a short video or two to post to the site.

Today we found another way to make money.  A Filipino guy pawned his tricycle to us for 4,000 pesos.  A tricycle is a 3 wheel bicycle with a side car that is widely used for transportation here in the Philippines.  I will try to remember to get a picture of one to post here.  Anyway he pawned it to us for a duration of 5 months (150 days), and he will pay us 50 pesos per day for that period.  So 150 days times 50 pesos equals 7500 pesos.  A nice tidy profit for us.  Seems this happens here because the average Filipino is so poor that they like to get one lump sum of money to be able to buy larger items for their home and themselves that they would have to save money for otherwise.  It’s hard to save money here when you make so little everyday.  I guess that is true in a lot of cultures though.  I know in the US that a lot of people do the same thing when they get their income tax return.  They don’t care how much it cost them during the year, a little at a time, but that one lump sum at the beginning of each year allows them to buy things they really want.

In addition to this tricycle, we bought another tricycle that someone is renting from us daily.  The tricycle is ours and he just pays us 60 pesos per day, and he keeps whatever he makes over that.  That is for the hours of 6am to 6pm each day.  Plus the same guys son will use the same tricycle from 6pm until midnight for an additional 30 pesos per day for us.  So we will be receiving 140 pesos per day for at least 5 months.  My wife informs me that this is plenty of money for her to do her daily shopping.  We have plans to buy additional tricycles that the person that is using it will pay us 60 pesos per day for 1 year and at that time the tricycle will be transferred into his name.  Rent to own is what it is.  That would be 21,900 pesos he pays for a tricycle that cost us only 10,000, plus about 1000 or 2000 to fix up.   So basically an 8000 to 9000 peso ($175-$200) profit for us.

Also I’ve decided to have a new Filipino word on here each week and give you the meaning of it.  This week’s word is: maganda. Ma-gan-da means beautiful or lovely.

I just read somewhere that before I apply for a sponsor for my blog, I should have around 15 entries.  Well I already applied and I’ve only got 1 entry so I’m going to be adding entries on a daily basis as much as I can for the next few weeks.

Salamat, Paalam