A few months ago, I decided to quit my job, because I have enough. I felt unappreciated and it is already toxic at work, I am not feeling happy with what I am doing already. Those who know me, know what I mean.

Anyway, quitting made me my niece’s caregiver which isn’t a problem at all, but when I quit working, my father lost his carpentry job, and his employer went to Manila for personal matters. With this, my younger sister worked alone to support the family of five, it was not too burdensome at first, but as the day went by, our finances were going down the drain, and whatever small savings we had were slowly deteriorating. My mother started to show signs of stress, was short of patience, and was always nagging and angry at everything, maybe because of the problem of budgeting.

One of my immediate supervisors at work, encouraged me to return to the office by applying through the boss, with the problem arising at home, I did and to cut the story short I can work in the office with different responsibilities and a bit different environment.

Working was great, there were few overtimes, but it was good. Fast forward, the election came and a lot of changes happened, the office had a budget shortage for wages of job orders, don’t ask me the reason and how the budgeting is done because I don’t know either.

Being good at your job doesn’t matter, all job orders were lay-off and only a few or a handful were asked to return first, those who hold a special place at work. Right now, we are still waiting if we will be called/hired again and in the meantime I am jobless, I found a time to write again.

The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating. It  affected so many lives,  many mourned the loss of loved ones to COVID-19, lots of people struggled with the effect of the virus, some people developed depression and anxiety.

It was around mid-August when I already felt very toxic at work, I was so tired and it was really hard for me to start moving in the morning, I loss a little bit of weight due to anxiety and I became sickly and had aches everywhere.  I wasn’t happy anymore, working became a burden and not anymore an enjoyment.  Then, one day I realized that enough is enough and I can’t do it anymore so I left my job to baby sit my niece, one month after, our whole family was quarantined.

Some of my officemates went worried about me, quitting at work while there is a pandemic, but they knew my decision was for the better.  Maybe because I am a little survivor I started selling facemask online among my Facebook friends, I started with $20 capital which is I loaned from a coworker for my mother’s medical certificate, from the rotating savings among the employees. Yep, instead of returning the money before the one moth deadline, I have used it as a capital.

Selling facemask was the only option I have to earn money at home while looking after my little niece, at first I felt so embarrassed posting my items on my personal Facebook account, because there are a lot of thoughts and what ifs, what would be my teachers, friends, classmates reaction if they found me selling online?  When, I started earning a little and some friends started buying, I lost all of my inhibition and posted my mask publicly instead of privately.

Well, with the pandemic almost ending I know that I have to sell other items soon, as wearing facemask will surely be not be mandatory anymore.

The month of January, is the most expensive month for me and maybe for many business owners.   It is the month where I have to renew my motorcycle license, business permit and license, pay the last quarter of percentage tax and pay the income tax.  My mother had told me not to renew the business license anymore, because it isn’t doing well after all the dealers failed to pay their dues, my biggest dealer had lost it.   I told her I can’t because it will be a lot of work to close it in the tax office.

My aunt and the other people who owned small stores in the neighborhood have been busy getting business permits these days, while the others are wondering how to get it since their business income isn’t sufficient, it turns out the store owners were asked to get licenses, register at tax office and get business certificates after they were called in the barangay a few weeks ago for a meeting, my mother had not told me about the meeting, because she said I already have complete permits.

[Photo courtesy of jarmoluk/pixabay.com]

Today, even a small store needs a permit to do a business. Well,  I am not yet working with the renewals, maybe next week when I collected all my shackles, I have asked payment from a dealer the other day, but she just waved her hand, saying that she has no money to pay (epic). The other one had promised to pay before Christmas, but New Year had passed I am not seeing her shadow yet,  the other dealer I brought to barangay court didn’t show up anymore after paying partially, with this problems, I stopped transacting with dealers and just let my mother accept orders from our neighbors, I will do business again when everything is settled.

Owning a business isn’t easy like one, two, three. It was been a year since I officially started my own business at home, registering it to the municipal hall and pay my due taxes. It started well, but there are really some people who are abusive and you couldn’t trust when it comes to money.  I have more than 13  dealers and one by one they started becoming a headache, they don’t return items on time, they didn’t pay on time and much worst they didn’t pay at all unless you complain them to barangay court.  I visited two different barangay court so I could get my money back, one settled her account after a few days, but one is still unsettled until today when she was given more than a month to pay and the others they are paying bit by bit.

My sister had told me to learn how to say no and just don’t let them get items when they have past due accounts, but the dork me doesn’t listen because I just can’t say no and I just don’t know how to be tough. In this regard, I stopped ordering and getting new products so I will not have  a problem saying no, or they don’t have new items to get at my store.

Anyway, the outlet operator in town called for a meeting yesterday, but I wasn’t able to go because I am expecting a dealer to pay that day as we agreed in the barangay court. So it was only my mother and sister attended the meeting for me, where they told me I was one of the top seller and in top 4. Maybe if, I didn’t stop I can be in top 3 or 2 and I received more expensive gift than a stand fan. Aside from the fan, my name was picked randomly for the advance payments, I got a new blender and some small things.

Well the dealer came late in the afternoon, but she wasn’t able to pay fully and requested if I can give her another month to pay, so I agreed.

Living in Korea through independent visa a few years back means I am not allowed to work and without source income it means I can’t send money home.  My family is my sole responsibility with the help of J’s laptop which I am allowed to use when he is at work I searched for ways to work and earn money at home. I found several blogs that teach me how to earn money online, I tried paid to click sites but the earning isn’t promising and then I found out that it is possible to earn money online by only writing about myself and my daily life and this thing was called blogging. I created my first blog at blogger.com, a free blogging platform and was able to buy my first domain a year after.

Mentioning about it, my very first domain will bid goodbye soon since I am not planning not to renew it anymore. It’s very regretting because the blog I have to let go has traffic, ranking and thousands of its pages has been indexed by Google. It’s very saddening too but I have to let go of it since maintaining a lot of blogs today isn’t a great idea when I can’t update them all. I have already planned to republished the article in my other blogs according to niche, I have already moved some personal post about living in Korea (2009-2014) over here, so if you’ll notice my archives here there are old posts added in them. I have a lot of personal posts on that blog since it was my first ever domain and my first ever blog in the web, that’s where I post everything about daily living in Korea before this blog came.

Nothing much happening over here after my aunt’s burial, the water supply is becoming more scarce and the water pumps are drying. The nearby water station can’t supply enough water anymore to their customers so some people are running towards us to buy drinking water, my mother didn’t stop getting purified water in town because we use it for drinking too.

The printer I have bought last year for my family was broken, the paper suddenly jammed and it stopped printing after it prints more than one hundred pieces of program for clan reunion. My family brought it to the repair shop but was told that the printer has 50% chance to be repaired, the repair man could open it and try to fix but we have to pay ₱500 either it is fix or not for his labor so my mother brought home the printer unfix. The repairman suspected that the sensor was broken and if a sensor was need to changed he advised  my family just to buy a new printer because the broken part will cost a brand new printer, he also added that Brother printers are good but they sucks in some aspects, most of the Brother printer brought in his shop has the same issue.

We accept program making and printing and the program for the grand reunion was the first one this year, it wasn’t that profitable but a little something is better than nothing.  We earned ₱1,000 for this transaction but I didn’t get hold any of it since we have bills to pay, it was summer time and the fields are dry so my father can’t plant rice grains in the small field he is minding.

So today, our one source of income at home is dead and it will only resume when we buy a new printer. I have told my family that I can’t shoulder the cost of a new printer again since I have bought the previous one, it is going to be their turn to buy a new one this time which I think is just fair since they’re the one who collect the earnings from printing and program making.

Attending event isn’t really cup of my tea I preferred staying home to watch movie or read online but my mother and sister persisted that I should come with them when a direct selling group they were affiliated hosted an annual event. My father has prior engagement too at the same time so I ended up going with them then I won’t be left alone at home doing nothing while everyone is enjoying and eating good food.

The annual event was held in beach resort but not everyone could just go there unannounced since you must buy a ticket before the event. The ticket cost ₱200 ($4.33) and it covers food stub for the catered food and the ticket too will give a participants a chance to win a Samsung smartphone in a raffle.

The event was divided in two parts, the first part was Personality Development with Ms. Odiongan Candidates, the candidates ramp one by one and they were included during makeup tutorial and demonstration hosted by Ever Bilena’s representatives headed by Ms. Angelique Marañon the direct sales supervisor for South Luzon, the second part was the proper program, games, giving of gifts and freebies, raffles and announcing of the top sellers, I won a bag as consolation prize in the raffle and few make up freebies from games and answering a question that was asked.

Other than Ever Bilena’s representatives, representatives from MSE were also present to introduce their new line of cosmetics which is San san makeup and one person also gives information how to use Maxi Peel properly, then afterwards they offered over 40% discount in San San’s makeup with a chance to win prizes, the makeups can only be bought in cash. We bought one set and when my mother is already getting ready to left since there is only one prize left to be given and people are already leaving, her name was called for the last prize which is single burner stove.

The event was very successful and I learn proper makeup application from Ever Bilena representatives, I will  write about it in a separate post.

The other day someone came to our house for CI process, it was from a cooperative.  My mother loaned an amount so we could pay some bills, it wasn’t a great idea but that’s the only way to get emergency money. The CI person happened to be my father’s batch mate in school and he asked how many children my parents has, then he mistaken me as the youngest daughter and was surprised when my mother told him I am already married so he blurted out why I married early and married first before my sister so I told him I am almost thirty and I am the eldest daughter which I think shocked him that he has to asked my age twice to confirm if I am not joking about my age. LOL

[Photo courtesy of Picsues/pixabay.com]

Anyway, my mother was an old member of the cooperative but it was been almost two years since the last time she loaned from them after I told her to stop borrowing and my father lost his job subsequently but just recently she applied for a new loan but the cooperative subtracted the debt that my mother made from their grocery store a few years back as well as the gallons that were used in retailing water so she only received half of the money she loaned.

The loan is payable in six months but you have to pay installments weekly. If you are an old member a CI process is still needed if it was been a long time since your last loan from the cooperative, they have to investigate if the member is able to pay the loan within allotted time. Their policy changes, since the cooperative is now asking for a collateral items maybe many of the members were not able to pay their loan on time.

If there is one email that will make you fell in your chair that is an email from your credit/debit card company that your account has been compromised and blocked. I was shocked today when I received an email from Payoneer Customer support that my card has been temporarily blocked because of an attempt to charge my card from large online supermarket in the UK. Maybe the hacker purchased a huge amount of items or groceries but since my card has only a measly one hundred dollars in it, it maybe alerted the system.

Payoneer is a financial services business that provides online money transfer and e-commerce payment services. Payoneer is a registered Member Service Provider (MSP) of MasterCard worldwide. The company is headquartered in New York City with R&D offices in Tel Aviv, Israel. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payoneer

Living in Korea in independent visa a few years ago I never had a chance to work nor open my own bank account, and since there’s isn’t a way for me to withdraw my online earnings in Paypal to a Korean bank account and it has been disturbing to J to send money to his paypal account and to his bank account, I have searched method how can I withdraw and used some of my earnings in Paypal. That’s how I found out about Payoneer, and since then Payoneer became a big help to me, I was able to buy things and gadgets from my own money and I have never had a problem using Payoneer card abroad, I can use it to shop online or withdraw money in ATM machines worldwide with Mastercard logo in them.

Well, I have no idea how the hacker stole my card number and other details stored in it, the last time I have used it online was to renew domains in Godaddy last month. My Payoneer card is near on expiring in a few months and it should be renew soon but with my situation right now, financially and emotionally unstable I am .

More of my blogs will bid goodbye before the year ends. It’s sad not to renew them since they have page ranks but I have no choice I can’t pay the renewal fee anymore, it is getting expensive to renew the domains and blog opportunities are getting scarce these days. I have only earned about $20 for the month of November and it isn’t even enough for my internet load expenses, how much more domains renewals?

Upon updating the site metrics I have found that most blogs and websites went down, the domain authority dropped tremendously which is not a good sign for bloggers since it is a very important measurement in websites popularity after updates on page ranking was stopped by Google.

Well, I don’t know what I should do now since I can’t design blog themes anymore, the internet speed isn’t good enough to constantly reload a website while designing it, it requires a strong internet connection to upload images repetitively, and there isn’t an order for new theme designs anyway since earning through blogging is very slow making the bloggers can’t afford to buy personalized theme for their blogs.  It’s true that a lot of my blogger friends quit blogging and look for regular job; I guess I must do the same but with the number of unemployed graduates in our town my chance of finding a work without a connection is slim. I guess I should start accepting laundry task from neighbors or learn carpentry skills huh?

Maybe in a few months, or a year I’ll be gone in blogging world and the internet and I’ll be just at home looking at the ceiling and counting lizards. Even so, all I pray is to have food in our table enable us to survive living.