Season's Greetings from ratedKG!

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2012 has proven to be one of the most challenging years for me. I've been through a lot of obstacles, especially regarding my career, that pushed me to make difficult choices and decisions and lead me to where I'm at right now.
Despite all that, there are still lots of other reasons for me to be thankful.

ONLINE FREELANCER: VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
Generally, I have improved my virtual assistance skills and extended my services to other websites like Fiverr and PeoplePerHour and other means. I've also started offering a few more tasks this year.
I'm still geared towards having seamless ratings on all of the tasks I do, and maintaining a 100% rating on Fiverr is a good jumpstart for the coming year, 2013. My sincerest gratitude to all of the clients/ buyers who continously trust me and patronize my gigs and services.

ESL, FILIPINO, AND PANGASINAN INSTRUCTOR
I came back to Italki to teach English and Filipino again and added my native language, Pangasinan, to my course offerings. The past few months were productive so far not just because I was able to garner a perfect average of 5.0 from all the sessions that I held, but most of my new and old students scheduled more sessions with me too.
Teaching Pangasinan is a bit out of my league but I am able to deliver all the necessary information and all my sessions proved to be very beneficial so far.
Thanks a lot to all of my students and friends who refer prospective students my way!

Virtual Assistant; ESL, Filipino and Pangasinan Instructor

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!

RATEDKG's GIFT TO EVERYONE:

You can choose between 30 minutes worth of free VA services or 30 minutes free ESL, Filipino or Pangasinan practice session via Skype.
How to claim: It's so easy! Just go to the sidebar of this blog and fill-up the form.
Reminders: 1. Expect a confirmation message from me within 5-7 days, or extremely shorter than that. ;) Your prompt reply would be appreciated. 2. The VA services and language practice sessions offered on this holiday promo will be scheduled next year.
For Questions: Leave a comment here or fill-up the form on the sidebar and ask me those questions as soon as you receive the confirmation.

November to Remember!

I received a message from Sandy L. of The Fiverr Team about three days ago that I will be able to offer Gig Extras up to $40. With this, I should think of an extra service worth $40 that could be easily added by buyers to my regular gig. This opens up more opportunities for me to earn more for me and my family. I suddenly remembered how happy I was to receive messages from them in the past that notified me about every promotion that I received.

"Holy cowabunga! You’ve just become a Level 1 Seller on Fiverr"‏

"It's a Bird...It's a Plane... It’s Fiverr Level 2 Seller!‏"

My Fiverr Profile Rating and Level

These promotions, together with every positive feedback that I receive from my clients and buyers, continues to empower me and serve as my inspiration to deliver better service to my clients as a virtual assistant.


Five over Five in Italki
From 4.8 to 4.9 to perfect 5.0, again!

I was also able to redeem myself as an English as a Second Language (ESL) tutor at Italki.

Virtual Assistants Worry: US Dollar to Philippine Peso Exchange Rate Continue to Decline

Philippine Peso (100-peso bills)

More and more virtual assistants (and online freelancers in general) from the Philippines are getting increasing anxious about the current trend in the US Dollar to Philippine Peso (PHP) exchange rate.

USD to PHP Exchange Rate

The current exchange rate (8AM, November 10, 2012 UTC+8) according to Google*, is 1 USD = 41.0500 Philippine Peso and the trend scares more 'virtual employees' working under the outsourcing industry that this will continue to go south.

On November 6, the peso reached its 4-year highest value, closing at 41.06 against the US dollar. Last March 2008, the peso closed at 40.85 per USD. According to analysts, investors bought assets on emerging markets that, in turn, gave a boost to the Philippine peso and other Asian currencies.

Philippines is currently favored by foreign investors because of it's economic growth. Finance Secretary Purisima proves this as he said that "(The Philippines) is considered today to be one of the safest emerging market sovereigns to invest in.” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco also stated on October this year that "The peso remains competitive and its strength against the dollar is due to the Philippines' strong economic fundamentals." The Bangsamoro peace deal, which was signed this October, also gave some "pogi points" to the Philippine market as it potentially solves the problem in Mindanao.

Remittances from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are also one of the driving factors of this trend. It can be noted that there was a slight increase of remittances on the later months of this year that gave some lift to the peso too.

Paypal Currency Conversion, US Dollar to Philippine Peso, November 11, 2012, 9:00 UTC+8

People earning through their outsourced online jobs are greatly affected by this because their payments/ salaries are reduced and some websites offering online payment solutions, such as Paypal, have considerably lower exchange rate. Virtual Assistants and other online freelancers are hoping that the government will find some means to control this, of course, without the risk of having a negative effect on the Philippine economy.

*Currency Conversion Disclaimer (from Google): Google cannot guarantee the accuracy of the exchange rates used by the calculator. You should confirm current rates before making any transactions that could be affected by changes in the exchange rates. Foreign currency rates provided by Citibank N.A. and displayed under license. Rates are for information purposes only and are subject to change without notice. Rates for actual transactions may vary, and Citibank is not offering to enter into any transaction at any rate displayed.

Questions:
1. What are you, as an online freelancer, doing to solve or get around this problem that is obviously out of our hands?
2. Do you have some self-proven effective tips to share with other troubled freelancers?

Telecommuting: The Benefits of Working from Home

As the simplest meaning provided by Google says, Telecommuting (also referred to as teleworking) is the process wherein an employee is working from home (remotely), making use of the Internet, e-mail, and the telephone.

Being an English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor before in a South Korea-based Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) Company/ Educational Institute, I've tried telecommuting more than once, considering the fact that my schedule directly relies on the schedules made by the students. Most of the time, I do this when I'm just making my students' daily and monthly evaluation reports, but of course, still checking on my schedule religiously so I can easily report at my office in case I'm made available on an on-call basis.

Having experienced so, there's no doubt that it is far more convenient to telecommute. I saved the money for my fare and there's no need for me to waste my time and effort going to office and end up doing nothing the whole day, too.

CarInsurance.org recently released an infographic, entitled "The Perks of Working from Home," that could answer most of the questions about the latest trend in telecommuting.

This trend has gained popularity:
From 2005-2012:
US workforce grew just 3%
But the number of regular telecommuters grew 66%

Let us know the reasons behind this trend in Telecommuting.

Here's the full infographic (with the text below):

Top 10 Freelance Websites

Top 10 Freelance Websites

Are you currently looking for an online freelance job? Make no mistakes as these are the websites that you should check:

ODESK

oDesk is the world's largest online workplace, where savvy businesses hire, manage, and pay a talented workforce of on-demand professionals. | URL: https://www.odesk.com/

FREELANCER

Freelancer.com | Hire freelance programmers, web developers, designers, writers, data entry & more at a fraction of the cost on the World's Largest Outsourcing Marketplace. | URL: http://www.freelancer.com/

VWORKER

vWorker.com is an international marketplace connecting employers/entrepreneurs and virtual workers in numerous industries (including programming, writing, … | URL: http://www.vworker.com/

ELANCE

Elance.com | Access 1.8 million skilled freelancers from around the world. Find rated web developers, mobile programmers, designers, writers, translators, marketing pros, … | URL: https://www.elance.com/

FIVERR

Fiverr.com | The place for people to share things they're willing to do for $5. | URL: http://www.fiverr.com/