Working overseas is mostly classified as a lucky job for others. Due to the higher basic salary offer compare to my country, it’s inevitable for anyone to consider working abroad in order to achieved higher income. Due to the continuous price hike for most basic commodities, everyone thinks that being an OFW will be their best option. It also comes to the point that they take a risk on doing jobs far from what they studied just for them to get an opportunity abroad. Although this is more of a personal choice, just imagine how big sacrifice they made in order to earn more money. In the case of most Filipino’s, you’ll see them mostly working overseas for over a decade and more. Some became a resident of that country while some ended up not having any more choice but to continue to work just to provide for their family.
During my stay here in Qatar, I’d seen a lot of fellow expats who became successful in their life and the opposite for some. The most common reason for them is their obligations are holding them back. That despite of their eagerness to achieve something, they believe that they don’t have any chances to do so. It was already over for them and the only situation that they’re stuck now is to continuously provide for others and forget about their own future. Upon knowing their stories, I used it as a motivation for me to plan ahead my future and make use of the opportunity that I have right now. Regardless of the salary that I earned that time, I make it sure that I will get an investment for myself that will help me to be financially secured in the future. Before doing that, I first let myself be equipped with necessary information on how money grows. By doing this, I was able to:
Every time I get a chance to learn more about different investment options available right now, I feel more inspired to plan out my targets. It became my driving force to pursue something that I thought will just stay as a plan. The journey in getting was pretty hard but in the end, all the efforts are worth it. During the years that I stayed here in this country, it gave me an opportunity to grow in terms of different aspects of my life. Through the years, my confidence soars high and it became my edge in facing every difficulty that happened to my life. It was long process of change. All the ups and downs helped to achieved all of the things that I’ll be sharing in this blog. I aim to inspire others and let them know that time is a valuable thing to us. We should see it as an opportunity to take action in order for us to change our life for the better. If you are looking for a sign, then this blog is the right one for you. Not only it will inspire you but at the same time give you an idea on what you can do today to make your future better. Everything will start from you.
From my personal experience, the factors that helped me achieved all of these are:
From an expat overview, working overseas is a challenging yet one-of-a-kind opportunity. It is our chance to do something for ourselves in order for us to change our life. With countless chances present for everyone, we need to have that proactive approach to move forward. Now, I will be sharing all of the investment that I acquired by working here in this country for more than six years.
Even before I started working, I always keep in mind to prioritized first a long-term investment which will help me to be financially secured in the future. I decided to first work on it because I believe that starting it on my 20’s will helped me to succeed earlier. Also, I know that I am capable of saving up at this age and I want to be very wise on where I’ll put my money. Even having less salary during that time, it didn’t become a hindrance for me to work out on what I planned. Rather, it became my driving force to work hard in order to provide for it. I’d been very transparent in sharing my investment here in this blog. Since I wanted to be an inspiration to the rest, I want to share my story towards financial freedom to everyone.
I got my first insurance when I was 22 years old. I’m already working here in Qatar that time and I acquired it when I went for vacation last 2017. The first insurance is a life term investment which covers a certain amount in any emergency that may happen to me in the future. I decided to have this because even though I’m not a bread winner, I still want my family to be secured in any emergency. The premium payment for this fund cost P25,000.00 and the coverage can cost up to P2,000,000.00 or more. For my second insurance, it comes along a with an investment and the total cost of premium payment is P42,786.67. The coverage of this insurance includes Riders, Life Insurance and Investment. If I’ll be given a chance to have a means to acquire for another insurance, I will surely get another one for me in the future. I believe that the best time to prepare for the future is now. The period that I’d been working in Qatar made me realized that everything is temporary even the job that I have now, that’s why it is very important to be prepared as early as possible. Now, I feel proud and happy that I was able to achieve these investments on my 20’s. Now that I started it, I’m pretty sure that I will have more in the next years that will come. You can simply check my blog titled My 2022 Financial Recap so you can have an idea about my current investments.
Other than my current insurance and passive income investment, I also decided to activate two government security savings which is SSS (pension) and Pag-Ibig (real estate). I believe that as an OFW, it is very important to at least have these accounts if ever you don’t have any other investment. During my years working here, I actually neglected this and because of that, my payments are not consistent. I actually see this as a liability and would rather choose to get an insurance than this. During the pandemic, I realized that there’s actually perks in having these accounts. It will not only protect us in the future but at the same time it can also help us in any emergency that may happen in the present. There’s actually a lot of coverage just by having these accounts, and if we will jut carefully review it, it is really worth considering to invest on this. Also, this is governed by the country and we can rest assured that it is protected.
If I will look back to my past encounters with other OFW here in Qatar, some of them has an active account while others totally don’t have any savings and even active account from any of these. Upon hearing their stories, it actually makes me feel worried about their own future. They most have their own family but yet they failed to secured their own selves in the future. That’s why their usual set-up is that they rely on their salary alone and most of it goes to their families. With that kind of set-up, of course anyone will be pressured by any expense that will be out of their budget. Their experiences in life inspired me to prepare myself in the future. Their current situation became my sign to plan ahead and save as much as I can. This is the reason why I decided to activate account these savings account in order for me not to rely solely on my insurance. As of 2022, the total payments that I have for my SSS account is P66,480.00 which covers a total of 36 months and P9254.60 which covers a total of 27 months for my Pag-ibig account. Since I just restart it recently, I still have more years to complete all the payments so I can somehow receive its benefits. I planned to increase my payments soon once I will be adjusted on my new job in another country.
Investing in real estate has been one of my targets even before I started working. My parents inspired me to invest on this since they started rental business on their own. The three houses that they put on rent help us to go through during our college years and it helps us to provide means for our family. Because of this, I became more motivated to have my own rental business which will help me to achieve the rest of my goals. Unlike other investment, real estate requires big capital. If you’ll compare it to a business which you can start at P10,000.00, you need to have at least P50,000.00 and more before you can start investing on it. Not only that, the usual payment will be 5-30 years depending on the income that you have and your capacity to pay for it. Although you have a lot of options such as condominium, lot, agriculture, pre-selling, foreclosed, “pasalo” and many more, you need to ready your finances which can cover your payment period. Due to the amount of real estate nowadays, there’s actually a lot of cases where most individuals failed to pay for it and their property ends up taking by the bank/government. That’s why there’s a lot of foreclosed properties which sold at a lower price on order for the bank to liquidate it. The only challenge is that, there’s a lot of occupied foreclosed properties and it will be very challenging for the new owners to take it. I’d been reading of same cases like that, and because of it, I’m a bit skeptical to invest on foreclosed properties.
With that in mind, as soon as I secured two insurances, I started saving up for real estate business. First, I decided to make use of our existing house rental and improve it so we can double the price for it. The total investment that I did is P345,000.00 which covers two rental properties that generates a total of P12,000.00 monthly. This investment is very timely because my dad decided to retire at 56. Now, with this income every month, it helped them to pay up for some of our current expense. Because of that as well, I was able to have a portion of income from it which helps me to pay up for my insurance and SSS. I believe that this step would be my learning ground for my next investment in real estate. Since I already got an idea from this experience, I’m planning to invest more for this year and expand my passive income investment. Like what I watched about apartment business in the Philippines, I like to have at least 50 door apartments so I can finally retire in the near future. In God’s will, I hope I can make it happen.
Not only I was able to get a job overseas, I am happy that I became part of different companies that gave me a competitive edge in this industry. I acquired skills, knowledge, experiences and met a lot of professionals in this field. If I’ll compare the first time that I come here in this country, I can say that I tremendously changed a lot. My confidence soars high and I learn t present myself professionally. I believe that being in an environment with different cultures will help anyone to be a better version of themselves. Not only you’ll be forced to know their way of living, you will also learn to adjust yourself according to their practices. Anyone wo started young here will surely become mature after spending years in this country. Especially for those who aims career growth, this country will easily allow you to freely apply in any company (within the country) just by following simple steps they required. That’s the reason why I gained a total of three experiences in three companies within six years of working here. I started from an entry level and now I climbed high and became a supervisor right at this moment.
These blessings that I have right now, didn’t happened overnight. A lot of hardships experienced a lot of challenges during that period. Looking back, it made me realized that all of those challenges are the key that helped me to become stronger. I learned to be more confident about myself and use it to look for a better opportunity that I deserve. When it comes to my career, I know that I am continuously progressing and on my way to my dream job which is to be a manager. Few years from now, I hope that by being consistent on what I started, I’ll be able to reach that target. With all the things that I acquired here in Qatar, I will use it as an inspiration to strive more and be the person that I want to become. I will keep all the memories here in my heart as I start another chapter of my life in another country.
Other than work, I’d been very into on different ways on uplifting my career position. For me, certifications are one of the things that we should consider not only the company that we work with. We need to be very particular on this because this is our opportunity to be exposed in different trends in the society which is timely and essential to our job. This is not merely because of acquiring credentials, but it is a chance for everyone to learn more. This is one of the aspects in which I check in every company that I want to apply with. If ever they don’t offer trainings/seminars, I personally check online all the certifications I can enroll. For me, I have this mindset which is, “If there’s no opportunity, you can always make one.” I believe that, it is ok to wait for the right time, but we also need to keep in mind that we are making use of our time wisely while doing it. Since I was given more time to do something for myself, I used that to look for something that will help me to build my foundation in terms of my career. That’s when I started to take diplomas and certifications online which helped me to gain certifications. Here are the following:
By means of carefully planning out my days, I was able to finished different trainings that I know would greatly help me to achieve my career goals. Since I still can’t do my Master’s degree due to the limited budget I have, I decided to look for other options that I can do for now. That’s when I started to look for different online websites which offers free trainings with digital certification. It all began there and the rest is history. Another factor also that helped to achieved this is my working hours which allowed me to allot a certain time to do trainings. Of course, everything requires an effort. If I didn’t push myself and understand the importance of this, then I will surely fail on obtaining everything that I have right now.
Other than doing great on my career, another success story that I experience here in this country is when I got an opportunity to have a platform in which I can influence a lot of people. Everything was actually unexpected and never in my wildest dream that I’ll be an influencer. With an introvert personality, I’m actually quite aloof to mingle with anyone and I actually prefer to have my personal time all alone. One thing that makes me feel happy is every time I discover different places around me and share my whole experience using my social media accounts. That’s how everything started. As an avid traveler, people started to follow my footprints and be inspired in every story I shared. It is just a hobby for me but little did I know is that someone out there is getting inspired by it. Last March 2022 when I started to get a lot of engagements in one of my posts, after that, my followers grow overtime and started to get invitation in different events.
The first event that I’d been invited is the launch of a new F&B digital application here in Qatar. It was held in Sheraton Grand Doha and I all I can say is that it was a very unforgettable event for me. I was able to meet a lot of content creators, talked about their influencer journey and a lot more fun experience. That experience made me realized that there’s actually a lot of opportunities that anyone can venture on. As long as there are open to change, eager to learn and most of all is willing to make an effort, anything can be possible. Like what I encountered before I became a content creator, I really work hard to deliver quality content for everything that I post online. For all of my social media account, I always make sure that I’ll deliver an engaging and inspiring content for all of my followers.
Here below are my current updates for my social media accounts:
With this opportunity, I planned to make use of it in this year and share more stories for my followers. I aim to influence more people in this platform and share good vibes anywhere they are in the world. With my story about reaching my goals in life, all my social media accounts will be my digital diary for every experience I will have in my journey.
Time is limited so we need to manage it efficiently.
For six years that I’d been working here in this country, some may say that it’s too long while others may tell that it’s too short. For me, regardless of the years you work, the most important factor that you everyone needs to look is the changes that happened throughout that journey. Only us can tell if it is worth it, or not.
Having a goal even before I started working helped me to focus on the path I need to work on. It became my guide to pursue all of these investments that I acquired here in Qatar. With these achievements, I decided to keep moving forward while inspiring others.
This journey has been a challenging yet wonderful period for me. As I look forward to another adventure in a new place far from what I’d been used to, I believe that this will help me to be the person that I want to become. I will continue what I started and make more investment in this new chapter that I’m about to take.
“Invest for the long haul. Don’t get too greedy and don’t get too scared.”
Shelby M.C. Davis
Working employee wherein blogging became my side hobby.
Creator of Living Her Own Life which aims to touch people’s heart and inspire them to achieve their own goals in life.
Writing has been my passion for almost 15 years. Last 2020, I made my very own website where I can share all of my thoughts and stories in life.