Planning your homecoming: money moves for OFWs coming back for good

Every contract ends. Whether you come home in two years or twenty, the best time to plan your return is while you're still earning abroad. OFWs who plan come home to options; those who don't often have to leave again sooner than they wanted.

Build a coming-home fund

Aim for at least 12 months of your family's expenses in savings before you come home for good. The first year back is when income is lowest: you may be job hunting, starting a business, or adjusting to a lower local salary. This fund is separate from your emergency fund and from any business capital.

Test a business before you invest

1. Start small while you're still abroad, with an amount you can afford to lose.
2. Choose something your family can actually manage day to day, and that you understand.
3. Track every peso of sales and costs from day one; profit, not sales, is what matters.
4. Only scale up after it has been profitable for several months.

Many OFW savings are lost on businesses started all at once with the full savings: a sari-sari store in a street with five others, a vehicle for hire with no driver agreement, a franchise nobody researched. Testing small first costs little and teaches a lot.

Use reintegration help

The government has programs for returning OFWs. The National Reintegration Center for OFWs (NRCO), under the Department of Migrant Workers, offers business counseling and training. OWWA runs livelihood assistance for qualified returning members, and the Pag-IBIG housing loan remains available to help you secure a home. Ask about them before you come home, not after your savings run out.

Plan your income back home

• Update your skills or get certified for local jobs in your field.
• Keep paying SSS voluntarily after you return so you don't lose pension eligibility.
• Decide what your family's monthly budget will be on local income, and practice living on it before you come home.

Try a 'practice year': for your last months abroad, live on what your expected local income will be, and save the rest. It shows whether your plan is realistic.

Remember this

Twelve months of expenses saved, a business tested small before it gets your savings, and reintegration programs lined up before you fly home.

Do this today

Estimate your family's monthly expenses on local income and set a coming-home fund target: 12 times that amount.