The Impact of Rising Peso
Filed Under NetMarketing
After reading Taong Grasa’s post about the effect of the peso-dollar exchange rate, I asked myself how much really is the effect on quest in making money online. For sure, a lot of SEO experts and netpreneurs are feeling the pressure, too. Of course, I don’t make a lot of money through adsense or any affiliate program but I had some dollars in the bank until last week. I shouldn’t be that much affected, right? Well, maybe.
But on my meager income of around $80 a month(take note, that’s a total of all sites I maintain), the difference is becoming more evident. Just a couple of months ago, I get roughly PHP8,000.00 every other month when the peso-dollar exchange rate is at around $50. Small but since this is just a hobby for me, that’s a lot already. It can already pay for my domains and hosting and still have some extra. You cannot get that in the streets even if you walk hundreds of kilometers. But now when $1=PHP41.85, I only get roughly PHP6,600.00. Now, I’m beginning to feel the difference.
It became more evident to me when I decided to close my dollar account. I needed money and had to withdraw every penny I have in the bank. As expected, the value of my dollars are so low already. You see, I got some of my dollars at a exchange rate of PHP56, some at 54 and some at 50. None from below PHP50.00. I got those from my per diem during my trips abroad and some from adsense. If you compute the difference with the current PHP41.85 to a dollar, that’s a whopping average of PHP11.30 for every dollar. So for every thousand, I threw PHP11,300.00. Whew, that’s more than a month’s salary of a daily wage earner here in the Philippines. And that’s just a one time transaction for me. How much more with the beneficiaries of our “Bagong Bayani”, the Overseas Filipino Workers.
We all know that a stronger peso is good for the economy in general but it also comes with caveats. With millions of Filipinos abroad that feed their family here in the Philippines, more and more people are feeling the effect of the rise of the peso. But we must look at the bigger picture instead of our personal grievances brought about by this phenomenon. Our monetary authorities are working overtime to help soften the impact and let’s just hope that they keep doing their jobs.