A strong Philippine peso and a weak US dollar means that Isleta has less cash in her pocket after receiving the remittance money her husband, a waiter on a luxury cruise ship, sends her every month.

"The money is really tight. Christmas is just another day for me. I’ll be hiding from my godchildren that day," she said, on a break from her office job in Manila’s financial district.

Isleta’s husband is one of an estimated 8 million Filipinos, or around 10 percent of the population, who work overseas due to a lack of opportunities at home and whose remittances have driven the domestic economy to a 20-year high.

The Philippines is the fourth-largest recipient of remittance in the world after India, Mexico and China.

The overseas workforce, known locally as OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers), and treated to their own visa line at Manila’s international airport, have fuelled a local spending boom through their payments, estimated to hit a new record of $ 14.7 billion this year, 15 percent higher than last year’s peak.

The monthly inflows have also made the peso Asia’s best performing currency this year, up nearly 15 percent against the dollar.

But this means that overseas workers’ foreign currency salaries are translating into less pesos and these workers are having to send home more money every month to provide the same amount of pesos for their families’ fixed monthly budgets.

Many remittances into the Philippines still come from the United States, but there are also significant flows from countries which have a dollar peg, such as Hong Kong and Gulf states.

The peso has also risen over 8 percent against sterling since the start of the year and two percent against the euro.

To make ends meet, Filipinos based overseas are taking on second jobs, working overtime or getting loans. Back home, families often have to cut back on spending.

In Manteca California, Donato Tino works overtime at two jobs to send an extra $ 200 a month home to his wife and two children.

The 38-year-old works in a petrol station and an electronics firm. In the Philippines, he was an X-ray technician but he would need to retrain to get employment in a US hospital.

"I don’t have time to study. I have to work and work," Tino said in a telephone interview.

The central bank has tried to temper the peso’s rise but it has run up its biggest loss in over a decade doing so and the cost of keeping the currency in check is now too expensive.

The government has cut wharfage fees and removed travel tax for exporters but it’s little consolation and exporters have slashed growth estimates for this year to 4.5-5.5 percent from an original forecast of 10 percent.