The Western Union branch on West Avenue in Quezon City is nearest to my place, so one morning a few weeks ago, I went there to get a remittance from a friend in the US who asked me to buy Swarovski stuff for her hobby.

I was in a hurry, so I asked Western Union to give me the remittance in pesos. The girl at the counter said their exchange rate was P39.30 to a dollar!

I was outraged. I said, “That’s too much!” I just came back from Bank of the Philippine Islands and Banco De Oro and they were converting at P40.40 to P40.30. That’s an almost one-peso difference. Aren’t they satisfied with the huge remittance fees they charge? [Read the rest of this entry »]

Johnny Noe Ravalo explains this in figures, already doing the math for us. hoping nobody gets him wrong.

To some extent, we can still play a catch-up game in planning for retirement, he says. But there’s a point where it becomes too late.

Read his article here. Below is an excerpt and the graphs he prepared. Click on them for a bigger, clearer version. Enjoy reading!

[Read the rest of this entry »]

(Photo courtesy of Joe Goodz, Flickr)

Getting ready for enrollment should have been done at least six months ago.

Not today, not in May, and certainly not a week before school starts.

A couple I interviewed once said enrollment time is their most stressful season of the year. Christmas spending may put them in debt, but the warm, fuzzy feelings ease the pain. What the heck, it’s Christmas! they say. No such thing for enrollment days. It’s just pure financial pain.
[Read the rest of this entry »]

(Balancing coins for good luck. AFP photo.)

Phone conversation with The Hubby:

The Hubby: Don’t forget to set aside P15,000 this month okay?

Salve: For what?

The Hubby: So, I can upgrade from my PC to a MacBook Pro by December.

Salve: Hmm. We are saving ***** monthly for our insurance policies, education funds and investments, and setting aside P15,000 for your MacBook. What will we live on? How will we eat? (doing my best to sound dismayed)

The Hubby: That’s okay. By the end of the year, I will have a MacBook Pro AND a slimmer wife. Nyahaha!

[Read the rest of this entry »]

Eight things you should not miss this week:

1. George Soros’ new book to be launched tomorrow on why the global economic collapse he predicted in 1998 that never came is now at our doorsteps. The New York times article here and International Herald Tribune here. You can even watch an exclusive CNBC interview with Soros himself. (I love TV on demand through the Internet)

[Read the rest of this entry »]

(Photo from AFP)

Johnny Noe Ravalo continues his online bestseller last week on preparing for retirement in the Philippines. This made me wonder whether retirees are ready for rising medical and travel costs:

Food and utility bills will be the baseline but they will not figure prominently in the total cost scheme. What you need to be very realistic about is medical expenses. Maintenance medicine and periodic check ups are never cheap.

If diabetes runs in the family, for example, you will have to dish out over P5,000 in monthly medicines plus the annual check up which can run up to P10,000 if all the laboratory tests are included. That’s P70,000 per year — minimum — for an ailment that has no cure and has to be paid when you are no longer enjoying both a regular salary or your company’s medical plan. Complications also add to the expenses. Any hospitalization will set you back in the tens of thousands for as short as a day or two of confinement. You need to estimate a portion for monthly medical maintenance plus set aside a lump sum for the “just in case” part.

Some of MoneySmart’s regular readers are in their 30s but are already planning for their retirement. A lot of you are working and living abroad and are planning to come home for your golden years. It’s relatively easy to figure out the lifestyle part for me, personally, but medical cost is very much a puzzle. How do you know what medical problems you will have to prepare for, huh? (trying out a sultry, vampy voice) Can’t I just be young forevah?

Noet brings me back to earth. Okay, okay, the medical cost fund should be extra, extra fat. And since every Pinoy is a tireless “lakwatsera”, the travel fund should be, too. We’re all dreaming of visiting every beach in our 7,000 plus islands so we gotta raise the travel fund too what with the rising cost of oil and all. Sigh. There goes the upgrade to Macbook Air.

(Scam artists can make frogs look like princes in 10 seconds, so just walk away. Photo from AFP)

It’s true. I’ve been scammed several times. Don’t laugh at me, okay? This is a public confession of my extreme stupid moments!

When I was a college student, I gave the gold necklace I was wearing to an old lady I met at the Shopping Center in the University of the Philippines who said she would only “borrow” it so that she could pay someone to open her car door. For some reason, she was locked out and could not go home. Duh moment! She spoke in even tones and was very persuasive, but let me tell you it was my stupidity that got the better of me. She looked pretty decent, too.

That was a pretty simple scam, but con artists can get creative in their efforts. Another fraudster was a contractor for a big telecommunications company who installed our DSL modem. He seemed like a harmless guy and I didn’t think there was anything wrong in telling him about my line of work as well as my husband’s. Besides, he was in my home on official business. Unfortunately, he was part of a gang that preys on househelp. He or a member of his group pretended to be my husband, gave a story about being in a car accident and instructed the househelp to bring cash and valuables to a shady place in Caloocan, a city just 30-minutes away from us.
[Read the rest of this entry »]

(Photo from Agence France-Presse)

Worsening poverty plus rising food prices, and what have you got? More and more households are definitely going to the poor house if this keeps up. There are indicators everywhere that high prices aren’t likely to go back down anytime in the future. I remember what Rico Hizon said during a recent interview: We are importing inflation from the US and China. Everywhere in Asia, prices are going up.

Here are some tips from a MoneySense article on how to make sure you’re not badly affected:

Watch out for the warning signs:

1. Uncontrolled spending and/or use of credit cards
2. Having loans you are having difficulty to pay
3. Not making and using a budget
4. Living a lifestyle you can’t afford
5. Lack of savings

To me, number five would go to number one. An inadequate buffer fund, absence of emergency stash – whatever you want to call it – should make ANYONE stop and take stock of your situation as if it’s the biggest red light on the street of personal finance.
[Read the rest of this entry »]

I thought everything was a steal. From clothes hangers to craft punchers, from plasticware to slippers. It’s too embarrassing to reveal how much I spend whenever I shop in any of its branches.

Then I saw the bathroom accessory I bought selling for P70-something in the grocery. Same brand, same size, same packaging.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

Asia is getting a lot of attention these days, and for BBC World anchor Rico Hizon, it’s the best time to be covering 15 Asia-Pacific economies for a television network that is watched by the whole world.

Rico came in jeans and T-shirt for the interview, not his usual get-up when he goes to the BBC studio in Singapore, but I bet most of the bloggers who were in Kape Isla that afternoon could identify the Rico smile. Besides, a number of them probably watched Rico when he was still reporting live from the stock market trading floor for GMA7 in the 1990s.

We talked about investing in art, being a gatekeeper of information, the stories he wants to work on given more time, his son who played the trumpet, jumping from one topic to another. He shared why it’s exciting to be in Asia right now where the action is.
[Read the rest of this entry »]