Admit it. Spending is more fun than saving. That’s why in these tough times, some techniques to trick ourselves into saving might come in handy.
There’s a television segment that discusses this topic, but the tips are not that applicable to the Philippine setting. Those who are in the US, may however, want to watch it:
By Marjorie Gorospe
INQUIRER.net
This is an interesting piece from one of our reporters:
When I was still taking entrepreneurship and statistics classes, I yawned a lot. I was never a huge fan of numbers and finance terms.
Now, experts say they can teach these subjects and still put fun in the classroom. GE Money Bank Philippines and Let’s Go Foundation in collaboration with local experts come up with a financial education program called Women Entrepreneurship Program, and part of this program is FUNANCE.
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For many of us, financial lessons for our kids involve loosey-goosey lectures on wants and needs and “money doesn’t grow on trees” kind of things. Perhaps some parents go to the extent of opening up a savings account and explaining the magic of compound interest. Perhaps.
From time to time, though, someone like 12-year-old Anton Fausto comes along, making you realize how easy it can be to underestimate what children can learn.
We were at the set of Shoptalk at ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) last Monday where host Pia Hontiveros interviewed four kids about saving money at a young age. Each one had an amazing perspective on money: Melvin Esteban’s eight-year-old niece Maxine, Randell Tiongson’s 17-year old daughter Ysabella, my 13-year-old Alix Danielle and Anton.
By Aya Laraya, RFP*
With the global financial crisis hitting everyone and so many people losing their shirts, a lot of people are beginning to lose heart and quitting the whole financial planning mindset. And as lousy as it can be to talk investing when you have just lost your life’s savings, you will only be able to recover from things like this if you develop a sound and coherent plan. How? By being the one who actually decides where your money goes. What do I mean by this? Consider the following:
First, ask yourself, how did you arrive at the decision to purchase your last investment? (Let’s say a pre-need educational plan.) Did you decide on your own or was it recommended to you? Did you consider other options before deciding on the pre-need plan? (Like stocks, mutual funds, etc.) What factors made you decide to take that option over the others? (Risk? Accessibility? Rate of Return? Cost?)
Second, who decided on which provider to buy from? Did you research who the industry leaders were? Or was it based on word-of-mouth? Or on the fact that your friend or relative worked for said provider?
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Here’s my roundup, which should have been uploaded last Saturday. Sorry for the delay.
By now, you probably know that job losses and news of more firms shutting down intensified last week, and we might not like it, but you’ll see more of the same in the coming months.
There’s no use cursing the gods. Better use your time wisely by thinking of ways to keep your jobs, and if that’s not possible, prepare using the mantra we have been repeating over and over again. Save more; spend less. Build up your emergency fund. Postpone major expenses if possible. One more thing: financial tension is most often the cause for marital troubles. So keep your job, but if not, remember to keep your spouse!
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One of the reasons I fell in love with our little home is the balcony near the master’s bedroom. I am so much of a garden-sky-fresh air person. Plants, birds, quiet moments under the night or early morning sky relax and reinvigorate my soul.
I have little sketches in my mind of how my little patch of heaven would look after I adorn it with orchids, little bonsai trees, lots of plants, perhaps those little water fountains that delightfully makes you feel you are in a fairy tale forest. Hmm. Visions of a little garden set where I can relax and perhaps type a blog post or two. Where I can unwind with the kids.
It has been three months since we moved in. My terrace is still bare.
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When you’ve been socking away money religiously to pay for an education or pension plan, sacrificing personal comfort and doing away with little treats in the process, and you find that dream of security snatched away by a corporate failure, you don’t just hurt. You are likely to lose belief in the system. You are likely to blame everyone you can think of—the government, the agent, the company. You may even lose belief in yourself and in the very basic principle of preparing well for the future.
I have learned to live with my investment mistakes, but it hasn’t been a walk in the park. I have decided that there’s nothing else to do but learn from it and start over.
If I had known some of the things I know now, I would have handled the situation in a more mature way. I would have been more empowered and less freaked out! So, here’s a quick guide for those who find themselves victimized by failures of pre-need plans:
In reaction to my previous post, “Tales of woe from Legacy scam victim,” some of you asked whether Letty’s “lucky” that her pre-need plan has been converted to a time deposit because the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) will now be required to pay her back.
I wish, for Letty’s sake and many others who were caught in the same crazy scam that that will be true.
Unfortunately, based on my interviews with sources at the PDIC, it will not be that simple. PDIC is, even as I write, going through the bank’s records with a fine-toothed comb to make sure it pays only “clean” accounts—meaning those that were deposited in good faith, with sufficient documentation (i.e. signature cards), adjusted for all interest due or deducted with loan payments due to the bank. That’s the mandate of the PDIC: pay only real depositors and make sure precious taxpayers’ money is not paid out to fictitious accounts or even to accounts that are the result of fraud.
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There’s no place good enough for scam artists but the darkest, foulest, living hell where cretins that go bump in the night are more sinister than the exorcist and the predator combined.
Leticia Catalan, a reader, emailed me she now will put money under the mattress rather than trust anyone to grow her money.
When my daughter was a few months old, I bought this Educational Plan from Scholarship Plan of the Philippines from the Legacy Group of Co. I will get my investment once my child reaches college. For my P25,000 in 14 years I would have P125,000. The agent was a friend. I cannot exactly recall the reasons why the agent converted our policy to a time deposit with the Rural Bank of Paranaque. But I remember the agent asking me for the insurance policy. When she returned it to me she exchanged it with five time deposit certificates. Kind of stupid of me, right?
Get Rich Slowly gave me food for thought again today. In his most recent post, he said:
“True wealth has nothing to do with money.”
That made me stop and think. I know that’s true. I know that in the end, we won’t bring any of our mutual funds, savings, time deposits, stocks and bonds to the next world. That’s silly, right? I know that what really matters is family, faith, friends, service to others—and these are things that don’t have a peso or dollar sign before them.
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