We answered this question in our personal finance feature today:

Question: I am one of the thousands of people who live in Quezon City but work in Makati City. That means I drive some 20 kilometers to work every day, and that’s just one way. I tried commuting but it’s impossible during rush hour. With the price of gasoline going up, travel to and from work makes a huge dent in my budget. Is there any relief in sight for us? – Josephine P.

We all will have to deal with the rising cost of gas, whether or not we are from Quezon City, Bulacan, Cavite, Cebu or Davao. The most terrible forecast I have heard so far is for a full tank to cost P30,000. That’s almost the take-home pay of senior call center agents.
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Reader DB responded to my request for tips on how to get 50.0 percent to 75.0 percent off 5-star hotels and resorts and she responded with this comment. Sharing with you here so that it’s easier to find:

I go by the following:

1. Research and compare — Farecast.com tracks fares on given periods. I also use Quikbook.com, Kayak.com, and other travel search engines. Check hotel or airline websites for deals and promotions. For hotels, call the local hotel, and compare with the online price and the price given via their 1-800 (central office) — yes, these rates may be different. For US business travels, I use Hotwire.com and Priceline.com (sometimes Hotels.com) — I get the best rates from them including car rentals.

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MoneySmarts was invited to be a guest at Mornings@ANC last Monday to talk about budgeting and had a lot of fun!

It was terrifying, to say the least. I only felt like there was a cyclone in my breast. Fortunately, all the American Idol episodes I watched helped me, hehe. You know, keeping an image of people in their underwear and all that stuff.

*goes back to serious mode*

I was asked to talk about budgeting and thought I would share with you some of the points we discussed. Here they are, in bullet points:
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(This piece is written by Bianca, one of the readers of MoneySmarts who has been chosen for the one-year Money Makeover challenge by INQUIRER.net. Bianca’s real identity is confidential, so that MoneySmarts can share her family’s financials and the lessons she has learned with the rest of the world. Read more about Money Makeover here.)

I am stumped.

I had been meaning to write about our recent family trip to Hongkong and Macau. As a matter of fact, my computer bears the digital imprints of so many lines and pages written. But for the life of me, I could not strike the “send” key. It struck me why one night. I never could justify – even to myself – why we did it. A family undergoing financial overhaul simply does not go on trips. What example would I be? What message would I send? The shudders would not stop (even as I grin at the memories).

But, hey, we did it. And it, oh, set us back a few months. But there were valuable lessons we learned along the way.
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a. SM/Hypermarket
b. Landmark
c. Rustan’s
d. Puregold
e. Shopwise
f. Ever Gotesco
g. Cherry Foodarama
h. Metro Gaisano
i. Robinson’s
j. Metro Stop
k. Santis
l. Waltermart
m. Makro
n. PriceSmart

(Photo courtesy of Michelle Morelos)

With a global food crisis hanging over our heads, should we say goodbye to ‘good eats’?

Here are some tips from MoneySmart friends for enjoying good food even with low budgets:

1. Skip the fruit shakes, juices and signature concoctions! Super mom Kitts Luna-Vibar points out that these drinks cost as much as one dish. And don’t go bottomless if you don’t drink that much!

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1. Too busy to check the lowest or highest shelves.

Heinz Bulos, editor-in-chief of MoneySense magazine, says the most expensive items in the grocery are mostly at eye level. If you want to find bargains, you have to stoop down or look up. “This may not be true all the time, but I did find that it was true in some of the grocery stores I went to,” Heinz says.

We had a good laugh at the fact that I’m only all of 4 feet and 9 inches.

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(Photo from Agence France-Presse)

We hardly think about the few mouthfuls of rice left on our plate. Taken together, this daily rice wastage average 15 grams per head, or 1,280 tons per day and cost Filipinos P23 million. Did I say “daily”?!

Mind-boggling.

These are official figures from the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), the principal research arm of the government on food and nutrition, that I caught this morning from the television show “Mornings on ANC”.
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I bought my Canon G6 in SM’s Cyberzone in 2005. Since I was drooling over the EOS 350D at that time, I thought the G6 for P45,000 was already a money-smart compromise. It has video capability too, the rationalizing part of me said. When we took our new digital baby home, we took pictures of even the most ordinary things like doorknobs, light fixtures and fingernails ☺. My 10-year old kid, especially. It felt like a really good buy.

Boy, was I dead wrong. I learned last week that this camera shop called 24K on Hidalgo sold the little rugrat for P17,000 that same year! Original. With warranties and all. I wanted to weep! Rod, the friendly attendant who was referred to me by Edwin Redrino, a really talented professional photographer, was actually concerned for me.

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(Photo from Agence France-Presse)

No self-flagellation here in MoneySmarts this Holy Week break! Let’s list down all our favorite painless ways to increase savings. I’ll go first:

1. Take advantage of SM Advantage (and other store cards). They hardly cost any money and carrying them in your wallet won’t give you even a slight kink in your shoulder. The other week, I bought several grocery items and replacement parts for toilet flush and paid for them with my SM Advantage card. Not bad at all.
2. Don’t forget your rebates and freebies. I learned this the hard way. I forgot all about my expiring Mabuhay Miles and found out I was eligible for a free trip to a Visayas destination only when it was too late. Be careful, though. Rebates, rewards and freebies need to be managed carefully. For example, if Casa Armas is giving you 20% discount on a meal, don’t go just for the discount but go because you would have eaten out anyway. If you went out because “hey, we have a discount, cool!” you wouldn’t have enjoyed 20%, you would have spent 80% of the cost of the meal. [Read the rest of this entry »]