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

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

One of my immediate supervisor at work, encourages 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 am able to work in the office with a different responsibilities and a bit different environment.

Working was great, there are few overtimes, but it was good. Past forward, 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 handful were ask to return first, those who hold a special place errr job. Right now, we are still waiting if we will be called/hired again and for 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.