I can spot them 50 feet away — mommies with not a single strand of hair out of place, carrying tiny handbags, and with fingernails done to perfection. Mommies who are slim, trim, and confident. Sometimes, I wonder if I decided too early to be a work-at-home mom.

Think big, bulky, baby bags and endless trips to the pediatrician. Gone are the regular trips to the parlor for hair spa and I have long since traded my strappy sandals for comfy ToeBerries.

While interviewing Education Secretary Jesli Lapus at the sidelines of a conference last year with the World Bank senior guy looking on, I saw him eyeing my notebook suspiciously after I turned a page to take down notes. The entire spread was full of scribbles made by my two-year old son. Using a big-point permanent marker, I might add.
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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.
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We all get that itch periodically to chuck our day jobs and do something crazy and fun and risky with our lives. That “something crazy” can often be interpreted as going into entrepreneurship.

Our personal finance article today gives good advice on a to-do list for people who have taken concrete steps to follow this entrepreneurial craving.

1. Assess how much savings you have. Since most business owners source most of their capital from their personal savings, we assume that you will do the same. Sit down and write how much savings you have. Look not just at your bank accounts, but holdings in mutual funds or unit investment trust funds, or even equities. Are these enough for your share in the starting capital of your business. If not, then you may be thinking that you will earn through the business anyway and will be able to put in additional capital. We caution you against this thinking, as the business may or may not grow as expected in the timeline projected. It would be better to ensure that you personally have enough in your savings to meet capital needs even before you start your business operations [Read the rest of this entry »]

Warning: the first few paragraphs of MoneySense’s personal finance feature today may read like the diary of a rich, spoiled brat:

When Mardie and I married in 1999, we were better off financially than other newly-weds. We already had a townhouse (my parents helped with the down payment), acquired through a loan from the Government Service Insurance System. I was working then as a lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission; Mardie just finished a contract with a foreign firm and started a consultancy business.

We weren’t concerned about other things as I was pretty much relying on my parents for support. Being the youngest and only girl in a brood of six, I had lived a stress-free life especially about money. My dad was and still is a great provider. Growing up, there were plenty of extras and luxuries (I had a credit card when I was a teenager in the 80s), so at a young age, I was used to buying stuff without thinking of how to pay for them. I actually did not give up my dad’s credit card until a few years after I got married. I knew I could always count on my parents to foot some of the bills and pitch in whenever we had money emergencies. Deep down, I felt that my husband was uncomfortable with this set-up, but he seemed to accept it, and was never resentful.

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Dan Magallanes, CEO of Headhunter Manila, says your salary should be four times your age. Meaning if you are 30 years old, you should be getting P120,000 monthly – at least.

Bink, blink, blink.

I make a mental roll call of my acquaintances and close friend and find that I can pull out only 10 percent of the names in my roster that meet this rough rule of thumb. CEOs, senior management in a multinational firm or entrepreneurs who have already made it big in their chosen businesses are what their calling cards say.

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A career in financial advisory services appears to be a hot move these days. I used to be a bit unenthusiastic about this because of how lopsided income distribution is in this country. Read: there’s too many poor people for every Lance Gokongwei or Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala.

I even asked a couple of bank staff who have to comply with HSBC’s quota for wealth management services, if it’s hard to find people who have at least P3.6 million ($80,000) to play with. “You would be surprised,” they said, looking at each other quite conspiratorially, I thought. Hmm.

In various interviews, industry leaders are saying while the Philippines still has to play a catch-up game with China, Taiwan or South Korea, banks are definitely growing their wealth management services in the Philippines.

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That’s easy. Get your Harry Potter books autographed by J.K. Rowling and sell them on e-bay. I’m not kidding! Check out this link.

J.K. Rowling, your kung-fu is supreme among all writers. The Harry Potter series has turned more kids into readers than any other book series, in a world where libraries have turned into museums.

Photo Caption: After purchasing the book shortly after it became available at midnight, Jennifer and Jessica of Manassas Virginia made their way to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to read it. AFP Photo.

Now, how do we turn them into readers of books like Great Expectations. Hmmm.

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