I've been paid below minimum wage. I've been paid exactly minimum wage. And I've been paid above minimum wage. All three, by the time I was in my twenties — not because I planned it that way, but because I never stopped taking whatever door opened next.
This is that journey, job by job, and what each one actually taught me about money, worth, and why "above minimum" isn't the finish line people think it is.
Job 1: Online Seller — Learning That Margin Is Everything
My first real steppingstone wasn't a job title at all — it was hustle. Starting in 2019, I bought items cheap and resold them for a small markup on Facebook Marketplace. I also worked as a tindero at a small boutique owned by a churchmate.
There was no payroll, no fixed schedule, no benefits. But there was something valuable in it: I learned early that money isn't just about how hard you work, it's about how much room there is between what something costs you and what someone will pay for it. That lesson — margin — would matter more than I realized later on.
Job 2: Banana Chip Cooker — My First "Real" Job, and My First Reality Check
Eventually I landed what felt like a more "standard" job: working in first-fry production as a banana chip cooker. This was actually a milestone — the first time I had SSS, Pag-IBIG, and PhilHealth contributions taken from my pay. On paper, it looked like progress.
In reality, I was earning between 1,200 and 1,500 pesos a week, often putting in more than eight hours a day of hard physical labor. Below minimum wage, for genuinely exhausting work.
This job taught me something uncomfortable: having "legitimate" employment status doesn't automatically mean fair pay. You can check every box — government contributions, fixed hours, a real job title — and still be underpaid for what the work actually demands from your body.
Job 3: Freelance Bookkeeping — My First Taste of Dollars, and My First Taste of Instability
This is where things got interesting. I moved into bookkeeping for US-based companies, getting paid hourly in US dollars for the first time. My starting rate was $4 an hour — which sounded massive on paper, more than 200 pesos an hour.
But it wasn't full-time, and it definitely wasn't stable. Some months I'd climb to around $200 total. Then a client would disappear, and I'd be back at zero. It felt like riding out one storm after another — a glimpse of what was possible, paired with a lesson in just how fragile "possible" can be without a system behind it.
Eventually, I needed something steadier, so I stepped back into full-time employment — this time finally landing exactly at minimum wage.
Job 4: Back-Office Admin and Sales Assistant — "Above Minimum" That Didn't Feel Like It
My next role paid 500 pesos a day. Technically above minimum wage at the time, but barely enough of a gap to notice. I still mentally filed it under "minimum," because the lifestyle it afforded didn't feel any different.
While working this job, I kept trying to build something on the side — small businesses, part-time gigs — but I was still constantly short. And that's when the real question started forming: I wasn't a breadwinner, I had no family of my own yet to support, I was just renting space in a shared house — so why did it still feel this hard to get ahead?
Job 5: Accounts Payable, US-Based Transportation Company — The Job That Looked Like the Dream
This one checked every box people associate with "making it": above minimum wage, complete benefits, HMO included. On paper, a fantasy job.
But rent still had to be paid. Food still had to be bought. Old debts still needed settling. Even with a solid salary, there was barely anything left at the end of the month — and some months I still had to borrow just to cover daily expenses.
What made this job valuable wasn't the money that stuck around — it was the perspective it gave me. Watching colleagues in the same role manage to save, travel occasionally, and enjoy real vacations, I started asking: why does the exact same paycheck stretch so differently for different people? Why do some people escape the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle on "above minimum," while others stay stuck there indefinitely?
What the Whole Journey Actually Taught Me
Looking back across all five jobs, the pattern isn't about which job paid the most. It's about how much of that pay actually translated into real financial breathing room — what people call purchasing power. A wage label like "above minimum" means very little if it still evaporates the moment rent, food, and old debts are accounted for.
That's the real shift that happened for me — not chasing a bigger paycheck, but understanding what actually needs to change for a paycheck to mean something. It's part of why I eventually built a business around bookkeeping instead of just working inside someone else's payroll system: understanding money at that level changes how you build your own.
If your own job history looks like a similar patchwork — a little of this, a little of that, never quite landing on "enough" — that's not a personal failure. It's a signal worth paying attention to.
To know more about my services, writings — connect with me here — here's my website: https://www.kylenelsonomac.com/
Mahal na mahal kita. Mahal na mahal ka ng Diyos. Faith without action is nothing.