Another HappierAbroad veteran member has apparantly passed away

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

But she is gonna squander all of it... Because you know.. Filipinos are "Not Good at Saving money" and you mentioned that in another thread that only the "Upper Class" Filipinos knows how to save money and spend it on investments. In addition, her deadbeat relatives and neighbors would flock to her and ask her to borrow money or help them.

Look, all I know about Dave and Janet (and other satellite characters) is what they let transpire through the blog. If we want to be cynical at all costs, considering what @gsjackson said, it might even be that "the family" pressed Janet to have a kid knowing that it was the only way for her/them to get some handouts from the US government.

We will never know reality. We know that Filipinos are masters of disguise. Behind all those friendly smiles and inclusive, welcoming behaviour, any of them is capable of plotting a "kill the golden goose" kind of act. Again, that is, being cynical.

I prefer to be less cynical, especially towards what sounded (again, blog be witness) a wonderful couple with a good supporting extended family in Dumaguete, and especially considering we talking about someone who just died.

I'm just pointing out what you have said on one of Winston's thread on the Philippines. Filipinos likes to squander their money and spend all of it on shopping in shopping malls. You don't have to be Warren Buffet to save money and buy investments.. you just need a little bit of "discipline" and self control.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10614&start=30

Quote from publicduende

Yes, many Filipinos are dirt poor and base their subsistence on what nature has to offer, like mangoes and saging (native bananas) found in the little remaining public or abandoned land, occasional labour, more often handouts and "loans" from the more fortunate neighbours.

You will agree that, while these people will nevere starve, they also have no means to improve their meager existence. They might be able to send some of their kids to public school but won't have money to buy books and supplies. Without a big jump in cultural level, they are ensuring their family will continue in the poverty trajectory. Sometimes a son or daughter is brave enough to venture in the city and start their own life, only to realise that, once they have finally built a half-comfortable existence, they will have to share the majority of their earnings with their parents and siblings, often even the deadbeat brothers and sisters in law.

During my time here, I have seen so many of these situation, it's not even a point of debate for me.

What happens is that the Philippines is also a developing nation of 114 million people where a majority lives in urbanised areas, have access to public and private sector jobs, often succeeds in building self-sustaining businesses, and have some sort of income. Millions and millions of Filipinos more every year transition from low-income to lower-middle-income, or from lower-middle-income to higher-middle-income. A family of two, living in the city, where both parents work in the vast service industry, has a combined income of at least P50,000 a month. Such income allows a family to grow, send kids to public school and on to a public or cheap college. The potential for socio-economic mobility is not huge, but present.

What also happens is that Filipinos, unless extremely well-educated, are not very good at financial planning. Those with significant saving power are the well educated ones, often with inherited status and wealth, who will learn how to invest in stocks, funds, or businesses. The vast majority don't have much saving power, they can only afford to live day by day, and so they choose to live.

So you see every other Fridays, when it's payday, the massive traffic in Metro Manila, Cebu, Davao, practically every city, as every Pinoy old and young wants to go out for drinks and spend a significant portion of their wages in a single night. It's not uncommon at all that, after that night of excesses, they realise they can't support themselves until the next payday and they start asking for little "loans" from family and coworkers.

All in all, what sustains the Filipino economy is the continuous improvement in income levels and their consumerist mentality of "spend now what you have now". That's why we see the countless malls thrive, all the Jollibees and McDo's always full at every hours of the day and evening. Let's add that there is army of millions of BPO (call center) workers who work night shifts and you have consumerism that's 24/7.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

But she is gonna squander all of it... Because you know.. Filipinos are "Not Good at Saving money" and you mentioned that in another thread that only the "Upper Class" Filipinos knows how to save money and spend it on investments. In addition, her deadbeat relatives and neighbors would flock to her and ask her to borrow money or help them.

In Dave's widow Janet's defense, she actually lived with him in America for several years. She has a degree, in what I do not know, but she held a job for a few years in America. So she's not exactly a full-on country bumpkin with zero life experience. I'm not going to accuse her of being some sort of grand financial wizard but she's far from stupid, from what I heard of the lady.

I understand that and I bet they are nice people.
You don't have to be Warren Buffet to save money and buy investments.. you just need a little bit of "discipline" and self control.
However, Public duende said Filippinos like to squander money on shopping on fridays.

Public Duende

So you see every other Fridays, when it's payday, the massive traffic in Metro Manila, Cebu, Davao, practically every city, as every Pinoy old and young wants to go out for drinks and spend a significant portion of their wages in a single night. It's not uncommon at all that, after that night of excesses, they realise they can't support themselves until the next payday and they start asking for little "loans" from family and coworkers.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

it might even be that "the family" pressed Janet to have a kid knowing that it was the only way for her/them to get some handouts from the US government.

How many 35-year-old rural Filipinas married to a foreigner (of any age) have to be 'pressed' into having a child? I'd wager 99.9% of them willingly have a child, because they want the "tall-nosed mestizo kid" and are quite eager to get one at any cost. They'd feel rather bummed out NOT to have a kid, if anything. No family pressure required at all. A non-upperclass Filipina who is 'childfree' is a unicorn, a mythological creature which may exist but I haven't yet encountered...

Exactly. I was being cynical.

Cynical or not, It is quite realistic assessment. Janet gets to taste the "upper middle class" life style in her own country thanks to Dave.
However, her neighbors and the deadbeat relatives will get the hint and flock to her for loans and other financial help. Her neighbors will not let
her keep all the 2k a month.. I bet her neighbors would spend the loan on shopping for bling bling and Jolibee's everyday. You have said yourself,
Filipinos are notorious for not saving their money.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

Jolibee's every single day for Janet and her free loading neighbors and relatives! Hurray!

https://www.jollibeefoods.com/collections

[publicduende]

I'm just pointing out what you have said on one of Winston's thread on the Philippines. Filipinos likes to squander their money and spend all of it on shopping in shopping malls. You don't have to be Warren Buffet to save money and buy investments.. you just need a little bit of "discipline" and self control.

I know, I am not recusing what you said, or what I said in the past. I just believe that, being in her thirties, being relatively well educated, and having lived for a few years in the US, Janet is not the kind of Filipina who will deliberately squander her late husband's benefits on Joliibee and smartphones. My bet are that she will continue a modest "life as usual", perhaps saving as much as possible to send the kid to the kinds of schools Dave would have loved to send him.

Now, whether her (extended) family will brainwash her into doing something completely different, or not, that remains to be seen. The psychological pressure put on a family member by other family members, whether or not their requests are reasonable or totally out of order, is very, very hard to dodge. It's hard to dodge for OFW, Filipinos abroad, who live tens of thousands of miles away, imagine how hard for someone still living under in the same area.

I hope Janet will be stronger than any family BS who will come her way. Otherwise I see a broken family, like I have seen millions of times here, and trouble ahead even for the baby.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

I'm just pointing out what you have said on one of Winston's thread on the Philippines. Filipinos likes to squander their money and spend all of it on shopping in shopping malls. You don't have to be Warren Buffet to save money and buy investments.. you just need a little bit of "discipline" and self control.

I know, I am not recusing what you said, or what I said in the past. I just believe that, being in her thirties, being relatively well educated, and having lived for a few years in the US, Janet is not the kind of Filipina who will deliberately squander her late husband's benefits on Joliibee and smartphones. My bet are that she will continue a modest "life as usual", perhaps saving as much as possible to send the kid to the kinds of schools Dave would have loved to send him.

Now, whether her (extended) family will brainwash her into doing something completely different, or not, that remains to be seen. The psychological pressure put on a family member by other family members, whether or not their requests are reasonable or totally out of order, is very, very hard to dodge. It's hard to dodge for OFW, Filipinos abroad, who live tens of thousands of miles away, imagine how hard for someone still living under in the same area.

I hope Janet will be stronger than any family BS who will come her way. Otherwise I see a broken family, like I have seen millions of times here, and trouble ahead even for the baby.

I hope your right. However we don't know the extended family's personality and their perspective. To them Janet is just a walking "lottery ticket" similar to the guy that won the "euro million". Her extended family and neighbors will eventually get the whiff of Janet's wealth and try to freeload as much as they can. I don't think Janet's education and worldliness will save her from that. She might have to stand her ground and say hard "No! piss off" to everything her family asks. She might be outcasted and ostracized by her family, but she will keep her money.
That's why the Chinese, Jews and others are called "Cheap bastards" because they prefer wealth over family or their fellow men.

[publicduende]

I hope your right. However we don't know the extended family's personality and their perspective. To them Janet is just a walking "lottery ticket" similar to the guy that won the "euro million". Her extended family and neighbors will eventually get the whiff of Janet's wealth and try to freeload as much as they can. I don't think Janet's education and worldliness will save her from that. She might have to stand her ground and say hard "No! piss off" to everything her family asks. She might be outcasted and ostracized by her family, but she will keep her money.
That's why the Chinese, Jews and others are called "Cheap bastards" because they prefer wealth over family or their fellow men.

That's exactly the problem, and the difference between Chinese (or Thai, or Malaysian) people and the Filipino. For a Filipino, having let down their family to the point of being ostracized by them, is something literally one notch above death. Now she won't have any obligation towards the foreign husband, she might become easy prey of her family, maybe a new "boyfriend".

I, too, have a feeling she won't be spared. She will be eaten alive. But I hope that won't be the case, if anything for Dave's good memory.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

I hope your right. However we don't know the extended family's personality and their perspective. To them Janet is just a walking "lottery ticket" similar to the guy that won the "euro million". Her extended family and neighbors will eventually get the whiff of Janet's wealth and try to freeload as much as they can. I don't think Janet's education and worldliness will save her from that. She might have to stand her ground and say hard "No! piss off" to everything her family asks. She might be outcasted and ostracized by her family, but she will keep her money.
That's why the Chinese, Jews and others are called "Cheap bastards" because they prefer wealth over family or their fellow men.

That's exactly the problem, and the difference between Chinese (or Thai, or Malaysian) people and the Filipino. For a Filipino, having let down their family to the point of being ostracized by them, is something literally one notch above death. Now she won't have any obligation towards the foreign husband, she might become easy prey of her family, maybe a new "boyfriend".

I, too, have a feeling she won't be spared. She will be eaten alive. But I hope that won't be the case, if anything for Dave's good memory.

I hope Janet muster up the courage to reject her family and move some where else for her sake. If she has "Balls of Steel" or else she is going to be "cannibalized". She is a walking Euro million ticket for her family and neighbors.

In America, you see millionaires pretending to be poor to maintain their wealth and stave off the freeloaders. You get to keep your money but you will loss your friends..

[MrPeabody]

He has left his son to be raised in a very toxic environment by another man who may be evil. That's the problem with having a child when you are old.

[Cornfed]

He has left his son to be raised in a very toxic environment by another man who may be evil. That's the problem with having a child when your old.

Or indeed the problem with having children at any age in the West.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

He has left his son to be raised in a very toxic environment by another man who may be evil. That's the problem with having a child when your old.

Or indeed the problem with having children at any age in the West.

Children are nothing but ZOG fodders.

[MrPeabody]

He has left his son to be raised in a very toxic environment by another man who may be evil. That's the problem with having a child when your old.

Or indeed the problem with having children at any age in the West.

But this situation is particularly nasty. Whatever wealth he left his defenseless son will be devoured by monkeys who just see him as a meal ticket. There is a small hope that the father had the intelligence to make a will and put money in a trust fund that can’t be touched. This is a cautionary tale for any man foolish enough to be thinking of going to the Philippines.

[publicduende]

But this situation is particularly nasty. Whatever wealth he left his defenseless son will be devoured by monkeys who just see him as a meal ticket. There is a small hope that the father had the intelligence to make a will and put money in a trust fund that can’t be touched. This is a cautionary tale for any man foolish enough to be thinking of going to the Philippines.

I think it all revolves around Janet, Dave's surviving wife, and how smart and respected she is in the family. There are boundaries to be placed.

[publicduende]

I hope Janet muster up the courage to reject her family and move some where else for her sake. If she has "Balls of Steel" or else she is going to be "cannibalized". She is a walking Euro million ticket for her family and neighbors.

In America, you see millionaires pretending to be poor to maintain their wealth and stave off the freeloaders. You get to keep your money but you will loss your friends..

Agree. Not an easy situation... Maybe she could try and move back to the US.

[gsjackson]

I hope Janet muster up the courage to reject her family and move some where else for her sake. If she has "Balls of Steel" or else she is going to be "cannibalized". She is a walking Euro million ticket for her family and neighbors.

In America, you see millionaires pretending to be poor to maintain their wealth and stave off the freeloaders. You get to keep your money but you will loss your friends..

Agree. Not an easy situation... Maybe she could try and move back to the US.

In which case $2K/mo. for two people wouldn't go very far at all. She'd have to take a job.