Best Posts in Thread: Funeral Plans, Pigs, Chickens, Goats, Fruit Trees, Houses, etc...

My late husband had the St. Peter's plan. I honestly cannot tell you how much it was, seems it was pretty pricey. (I could try to go find receipts, if I kept them.) The lady rep we dealt with every month came to the hospital the day we turned off life support, asking for the remaining balance in full (it was still a large amount), before they would take his body to the chapel. I thought that was a very cruel way for them to handle it, especially with the enormous hospital bill (that the hospital wanted paid right away, too). I went to the hospital finance office and made payment arrangements with them (after a large down payment). Anyway, thank goodness for wonderful friends and family here and there that got my daughter and myself through all of it. It all worked out. Life insurance money finally came and we were able to pay the hospital bill and and we were able to pay back the family there that fronted the money for the cemetery plot (another thing that isn't cheap).

 

If you do not mind me asking, what do you pay for the St. Peter's Funeral Plan? A while back my Wife and I tried to work out the monthly rate but went in circles with what seemed to be an expensive way of doing things compared to saving to pay outright.

We managed to speak a little about things last night and I told her I do not want to end up in a coffin in the house for a week with a Chicken eating rice over my face. I would prefer to be either cremated or buried PRONTO without a Church Service so try and do all in-house at the Funeral Home.

Building a house is a good idea I feel, but I do not want to overdo it, if my Wife went back to her old job at the Bakery at 100/150php per day, and the Electricity came to 5,000 pesos per month, then it would be unviable for her to live in and attempt to run such a house, so I am hoping to build something that uses less electricity and is easy to maintain.

Quiet a few of the relatives here raise Pigs, and they make good money from it (at a Filipino level) so we will also be looking at that along with some Goats etc. We have a 4M x 8M Bamboo Chicken Coop and are slowly breeding up, starting from just a few Chickens we now have 30+ and growing. The plan is to end up with meat for us (to save buying at a higher price at the Market) and fresh Eggs where we end up with enough where we can look at selling to locals. Native Chickens fetch a higher price per kilo (and are tastier IMHO) so she is mainly focusing on those which also do not suffer as many illnesses as other breeds. I would also like if she can harvest some of the Pigs and freeze the meat to sell correctly packaged in clip-seal packets along with the better cuts of the Chicken. If she can sell the better cuts of meat for income and eat the less appealing cuts of meat then she can sustain herself and our Daughter. The other idea is to sell the Piglets as soon as they are weaned to avoid expensive Feeds to fatten them up.

We are also planting Fruit Trees, I am trying to raise Lemon and Avocado Trees as the fruit sells well at higher prices, along with local Fruit Trees like Jack Fruit, Apple Mango, Lime, Marang, Custard Apple, Santol, Papaya, Coconut etc and want to also try Passionfruit, Mulberries as something different which will hopefully sell okay locally. We also have a large Sambag Tree which the fruit is used for Sinigang. Apparently you can use that in sweet & sour dishes along with sweets so I hope to further investigate this Tree. I am hoping she will be able to step it up to cooking up dishes using some of our own Fruits and selling to local Eateries or Restaurants.

Once we are living on the Lot I want to try and have above ground gardens beds built using Hollow Block where we can fill with compost and grow vegetables. Papa currently grows vegetables on our Lot while we are not living there and it helps to fund their lives and provides us with fresh vegetables when they are in season. I would also like to have a few small Fish Ponds built as local people are able to acquire free fingerlings if they have their own Fish Ponds so I am hoping that will also go towards helping my Wife and Daughter to become more self sustainable in the future. Now all I have to do is live long enough to see this through!

 

Actually I cannot tell you how much these Funeral plans cost, the reason for that is; my wife worked in a St Peters office and bought them before we met they are not named policy's and can be used for anyone in the family.
At the moment I rent a 3bed hollow block house and my electric bill is around half of what you suggest with one AC running 12 to 16hrs a day, if/when I do build a house it will be modest with small rooms that can be cooled by small AC units and also have a free flow of air passing through them, there is no good reason not to build a very small house for your dependants if you have the land and to consider only the use of a few LED lights a Fridge, Fan and TV, probably P500 a month would cover the cost of electric for these?
Pigs? I hear they are not a good investment on a small scale, unless you have a cheap food source to feed them on? stale bread from a bakery or the waste from a Restaurant, Goats need at least an acre to feed on to sustain 5 or 6 of them, plus there is a need to supplement their diet with some grains to have a better chance of them producing twins, it is also better to get a Boer Goat male (they cost around P30K for an adult and they weight 60kgms) to service some local native ones at least two unrelated females, pay over the odds if you can find one that has triplets or get the offspring from it? the first females bred from them are then put back to the father, the Grandchildren are then paired to each other but only half brother and sister, in time you will breed a faster growing heavier animal, but still sustain the vigour of the native Goats.
On a limited budget I'm sure Chickens are the better prospect for you, a native chicken fed in the same way as a commercial produced bird would just taste much the same, again just like the Goat breeding get a cockerel of a breed like Kabir and breed that into the flock, you will get a faster growing heavier chicken and still keep the disease resistance of the native bird. To improve any animal breed you must be very selective and only keep the best to breed from, examples of that would be the hen that lays the most eggs and the birds that grow to a killing weight in the shortest time.

 

A sad tale and I could only think to give you a 'thanks' for writing it as no other more suitable icon exists.

It is something we all have to think about and try to ensure those we leave behind are faced with as few as possible of the issues you stated above.

Money and health/death are poor bedfellows but that is the reality of life, especially for people in developing nations. Every time I see people here following a coffin, especially when on foot and in the heat, I feel so very sorry for them and want to help but I know the problem is just too great.

Thanks for your contribution and best wishes to you.

 

Yes Boss! lol

I am not sure if you looked up while you were here mate, but PLENTY of ventilation in my Nipa Roof here! hehe

I plan if possible in the new house to have a cement/concrete Ceiling with a Terrace on top accessible by internal stairs, with a bit of a Bat Belfry of sorts where I can open small windows to release the heat from inside and small cement decorative breezeway windows over each door in each room to aide ventilation throughout the House. After the Termites made themselves at home here I plan on a complete Reinforced Concrete construction if at all possible as Wood is OFF the Menu!

I did think of Wind Power when I first came here and looked into making one using a Car Alternator similar to a Windmill Pump setup, but as you said; wind is not big here, maybe if you lived right on the Beach it could work. I do plan on a few Solar Panels to power LED Lighting for night lighting around a Terrace and maybe low wattage LED (mood) Lighting inside at night to try and save on Electricity, maybe later I can keep adding to that to get off the Grid completely.

 

Only breed from females that are prone to having two kids every time, as I said it is better to find a male that has at least some Boer blood in it and it should be of a larger size, inbreeding sets the qualities of the sire in this case, of course the practise cannot be carried on forever, most Race Horses of good standing will feature a good winner in their pedigree and the same horse should appear at least twice on both sides, after inbreeding then line breeding is the game, Aunt to nephew that sort of thing but by then you should have at least 75% of the sire within the flock, although some aim for 87.5% in each and everyone, if you can breed good Boer crosses there will always be a market for them for breeding purposes, although they are big for Goats have horns they are mostly docile, check out a picture of one and you will see they also look good.