Chris, one of MoneySmarts’ regular readers, raised a very interesting question the other day:

I was offered last year by an agent of Sunlife to subscribe to this VUL insurance thing. I did, and put the fund in equity with a NAV of 1.8. Ok so far.

After one year, they gave me this annual financial statement with an insurance charge of P230/month and the amount is deducted from the VUL units of my equity fund. Since the NAV of the fund is gong down due to their investments, they deducted bigger units from my VUL so, at the end of 12 months, 117 units na lang natira with a NAV of 1.2.
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The Registered Financial Planners (RFP) Phils. is giving free financial planning seminars to companies in an effort to help out firms and organizations who, in turn, want to help their employees manage their personal finances in the midst of the ongoing financial crisis. It guarantees that there will be no commercial promotion of any kind during the seminars.

After the seminar, RFP Phils. will also be giving out survey questionnaires on Filipinos’ saving and spending habits to more fully understand how Filipinos are coping during these financially challenging times. If you want to know the full results of the survey, answer the following questions through this blog, or copy the questionnaire in a Word file and email your answers to me at lightdream (at) gmail (dot) com.

Name: (Optional) ________________________
Age: ____________________________________
Gender: Male, Female (Encircle one)
Civil Status: Married, Single, Separated, Living with partner (Encircle one)

Monthly Gross Family Income:
a. 20,000 – 35,000
b. 36,000 – 50,000
c. 51,000 – 65,000
d. 66,000 – 80,000
e. 81,000 – 95,000
f. 96,000 – above

Home ownership: Own, Rent, Living with parents/relatives (Encircle one)

A)    How would you describe your personal financial situation? Would you say you:

1. Live comfortably
2. Meet your expenses with a little left over for extras
3. Just meet basic living expenses
4. Don’t have enough to meet expenses
5. Don’t know

B)    How often do you worry about money matters?

1. Often
2. Sometimes
3. Rarely
4. Never
5. Don’t know

C)    How would you describe the extent of this crisis’ impact on your personal finances?

1. No impact
2. Some impact
3. Major impact, but I can handle it
4. Very high impact, I’m having difficulties
5. Wouldn’t say

D)    How often would you say you spend money on things you can’t afford?

1. Often
2. Sometimes
3. Rarely
4. Never
5. Don’t know

E)    Have you ever felt that your financial situation was out of control?

1. Yes
2. No

F)    How closely do you watch the amount of money you spend?

1. Very closely
2. Fairly closely
3. Not too closely
4. Not at all closely
5. Don’t want to say

G)    To what extent is this increased watchfulness a result of the ongoing crisis?

1. Not at all connected to the crisis
2. To some extent a result of the crisis
3. A direct result of the crisis
4. Wouldn’t say

H)    Are you always aware of how much money you are spending or you just have a general idea?

1. Always aware
2. Have a general idea
3. Neither
4. Both

I)    Which expenses are you having most trouble budgeting for now but are still including in your expense list?

1. Entertainment and recreation
2. Food and dining out
3. Shopping and personal items
4. Bills and utilities
5. Car/cars
6. Home and housing
7. Luxury items
8. Children and schooling
9. Credit card payments
10. Medical
11. Taxes
12. Insurance
13. Regular savings for retirement
14. Investments
15. Health insurance
16. Debt payments
17. Others
18. Nothing

J)    If you need to cut back on your expenses, which items would you need to remove from your list or have already scrimped on in recent months? (Choose up to three)

1. Entertainment and recreation
2. Food and dining out
3. Shopping and personal items
4. Bills and utilities
5. Car
6. Home and housing
7. Luxury items
8. Children and schooling
9. Credit card payments
10. Medical
11. Taxes
12. Insurance
13. Regular savings for retirement
14. Investments
15. Health insurance
16. Debt payments
17. Others
18. Nothing

K) Which items do you splurge on, even when you know you should not? (Choose up to three)

1. Food and dining out
2. Entertainment and recreation
3. Shopping and personal items
4. Home and housing
5. Children and schooling
6. Bills and utilities
7. Cars
8. Medical
9. Luxury items
10. Travel
11. Others
12. None of the above. I have everything under control

L)    Do you or your spouse have a formal budget for your household?

1. Yes
2. No

M)    Would you say you are saving and investing as much money as you should, or should be saving and investing more?

1. As much as I should
2. Should be saving and investing more
3. I don’t know

N)    Do you have savings in the bank that you can count on when there’s an emergency?

1. Yes
2. No

O)    How many weeks’ worth of living expenses can your savings cover?

1. One to two
2. Three to four
3. Five to six
4. Seven to eight
5. Nine to ten
6. More than ten

P)    Have you resorted to borrowing money in the last six months to cope with financial needs?

1. Yes
2. No

Q)   Do you foresee a need to borrow money in the next six months to cope with financial needs?

1. Yes
2. No

R)    Have there been unexpected expenses over the past year that have severely set you back financially?

1. Yes
2. No

S)    Which unexpected expenses have set you back financially?

1. Medical
2. Cars
3. Home and housing
4. Life events and children
5. Work-related
6. Travel/vacation
7. Taxes
8. Pets/veterinary bills
9. New baby
10. Need to take care of parents/relatives
11. Business-related expenses
12. Others

END OF SURVEY

There’s no official statement yet from Philamlife, but AIG issued a late advisory that it will no longer sell its crown jewels including the local office. Read the story here.

I am almost disappointed. Consolidation is always good for any industry. A sale to BPI, BDO or some other big player could only push the others to offer the public with better products.

The flipside is that the sale might put pressure on the buying entity to recover its investments, and this could mean dividends originally meant for policyholders could be lessened. Would a need to repatriate earnings to AIG have the same effect? I guess we will soon see.
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Last Saturday, the moment of truth arrived for my eldest daughter: it was time to get her school card for the third quarter. As my eyes skimmed over her grades, I fought the urge to be the perfectionist, the slave-driver mom, the one who pushes and pushes “to do your best.”

Can a single figure summarize all the effort that go into learning or doing something? I’m sure the answer is different for various things, but inevitably, we rely on measurements for performance, whether at school, at work, in life and most especially when it comes to investing.

People often interchange yield and return when talking about how investments perform. They are not the same, and if you look at resources around the web, not everybody defines them the same way, too.
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This just in: the central bank has approved the Philippine National Bank’s high-yielding, long-term deposit product. Offer size is P5 billion, and the offer will be made before June. Read the news item here.

The technical term for the instrument is long-term negotiable certificates of deposit. Yep, the alphabet soup is out again. LTNCDs have become another option for bank depositors wanting more returns for their money.

Aside from the following, there are no details yet about the offer:

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