North to Alaska (and way west too)

Well, this is going to be an interesting year for me, and I think for readers of this site as well.

I have some plans for this site, Ways to Make a Living, and today I want to share one of those plans with you!

Last year, 2016, was a tough year for us.  I had a heart attack in June, and needed to have a heart bypass operation in November. The costs of that were tremendous.  I was lucky, I have a very large network of friends and through GoFundMe, I was able to raise a lot of money to help with the costs involved for the health issues. However there are ongoing costs that we have to cover.  It seems like I am going to several doctors each week, lots of lab tests and such.  It all adds up, you can be sure.

To help defray the costs and to  build up our financial situation a bit, we have a plan.  It all started about a year ago when a friend of mine, Dave Starr, told me about a friend that he had met.  Like me, Dave lives in the Philippines, although he lives in the northern part of the country and I live in the south.  We stay in touch daily, though, by email.  Anyway, Dave told me about another American that he had met who lives near him.  This guy, along with is wife, goes each year to Alaska and works in the fish processing business.  The money is really good, and there is plenty of work available.

When Dave first told me about this opportunity, I talked to my wife about it, and she was really gung ho to go do it!  My wife, Feyma, is a Dual Citizen (US and Philippines) and thus she can easily go work in the USA.  I thought about going and doing the fish processing work myself as well, but  for a few reasons I decided not to do it:

1. Because of the health problems that I later encountered, I am unable to do that kind of work right now.
2. My businesses here in the Philippines would suffer if I were to go for a few months to a place where I did not even have Internet.
3. One of us needs to be here to “mind the store” so to speak.

With these reasons, Feyma said that she would go for 3 months or so, during the fishing season, and work at one of the fish processing factories.  After talking about it, my 2nd son, Aaron (who is 20 years old) also decided that he wants to take advantage of the opportunity as well.  My 3rd son, Jared, wants to do it as well, but he will be only 17 this year, and you have to be 18 to do that kind of work.  He is definitely up for it next year, though.

So, Feyma will be leaving me and leaving the Philippines for about 3 to 4 months this year, pretty soon in fact.  Feyma is a hard worker and I know she will do well, and I hope Aaron will too, although this will be his first “real job”.  I am sure he will work hard, though.

For people who live in a country like the Philippines, this is a real viable way to make some good money, though.  You have to be a US citizen to get the work, or at least have a green card and permission to work in the USA.  Most of these companies start beginners at $10 per hour, and the overtime is virtually any amount you want.  It is fairly easy, I am told to get 16 hours of work per day, 7 days per week during the season.  At a $10/hr salary, if you work those hours that would be $1480 per week, or $6,402 per month.  Figure 3 months of that and you could come back to the Philippines with $15,000 to $20,000 in your pocket.  Room and Board are paid for the workers in most cases.

With $20,000 in earnings for 3 months work, you could live a pretty nice life in the Philippines for the rest of the year.

Feyma is still looking for a job in Alaska, so if you have connections there, and they are looking for a couple of intelligent and hard workers, please let me know!  We would appreciate it greatly.

We are not really looking to make this permanent and we don’t need to have the income to pay our bills.  We need it to build up our reserves and we have plans to possibly buy a house as well.  Figure 3 or 4 years of this, and it could really add up!

I will be reporting on this from time to time on this site, because it really is a “Way to Make a Living”.