(Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall leaves a blessing at St Georges Chapel in Windsor Castle after her civil wedding Prince Charles 09 April 2005. It’s easy to overspend on weddings, especially on rings when couples don’t know what to buy. Photo from AFP.)
Raising your eyebrows? You’re saying there are only four Cs?
Cut, color, clarity, carat.
Let me add one more.
This photo made me sigh. Calling Hachiko…how do those cherry blossoms look?
And this made me smile. Walking barefoot on grassy fields is a favorite pastime since I was a kid in Bicol. I used to let my heavy bags slide down after a long day at school and spend the good part of an hour quietly observing birds, trees and clouds and smelling the earth. I nurtured my inner introvert that way ☺
Work and life balance is a big deal in personal finance. When it comes to a point where work sucks in all our energy, we are no good both at work, at home, at church or in the community. Imbalance kills the inner joy in us; it is an enemy of money-smart peeps like you.
But since vacations are expensive especially in a country with more than 7,000 beautiful islands, it is best to plan and prepare for them carefully. Our personal finance article today on “Travel now, pay later” gives some tips:
1. Book early. It’s mid-summer, and most people would like to head out of town, if they haven’t done so already. Pick a vacation spot you and your family will enjoy then book flights and hotel rooms as soon as possible. This will make sure you’ll still have a summer getaway in comfort. Find out too, if the airline and hotel you’re looking at will give added points for your credit card company’s rewards program. Extra points will mean extra rewards later on. Plus, paying with a credit card may entitle you to free travel insurance.
2. Compare costs. Not only should you compare hotel room rates and air fares; compare costs between destinations as well. For instance, there may not be much difference between traveling to Hong Kong or Macau and traveling to Palawan and Davao. The weak US dollar has made reasonable travel packages abroad possible.
3. Budget the monthly installments. The Travel Now, Pay Later scheme is an installment plan which you should treat in the same way you would treat an appliance purchase. Find out how much the monthly installments for your vacation would be, then calendar it in your budget and planner. This scheme is easy on the pocket, enabling you to enjoy a big-ticket item (your vacation) without taxing your bank account.
4. Don’t forget transfer arrangements. Transfers between airport to hotel and vice versa may be arranged beforehand; so do city guided tours. Take advantage of these offers as these will enhance your travel experience.
5. Charge only what you can afford to pay. Just because you can use your credit card for the Travel Now, Pay Later scheme doesn’t mean you should get the most expensive travel package offered. Take only what you can afford to pay in the next three or six months (depending on the terms of the scheme). Don’t be saddled with debt with the vacation of your dreams. That will come in later in life, when you can afford to do so.
There are credit card companies who offer travel packages that will allow you to “travel now, but pay later.” Perhaps you have already availed of them or are planning to. Do you think these are good deals?
Yes or No?
*Photos from Agence France Presse.
(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:
If credit cards were horses, I would be crucified by animal lovers the way I’ve been repeating again and again that credit card bills should be paid in full every month. Banks don’t like me very much when I say this, and in fact a friend who is also a banker told me (very nicely but with a hint of acid hehe) that she would like to turn over my account on a silver platter to a competing bank.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my credit cards. I get free tickets to Butuan and Boracay every other year. I get cash rebates too. I manage my cash flows more easily and I don’t rush to payment centers anymore when Meralco says it’s time to pay up. If I could pay parking fees at the mall with my credit card, I would. But as much as I love those shiny plastic things, I hate paying interest more.
Think of this, if you have a P30,000 balance in your credit card and this has been going on for a year, you could have saved at least P12,600 just by paying interest the balance in full. And just to keep it simple, that computation is on straight interest, not even compounded interest. Imagine how many pairs of shoes you can buy with that! (Greedy laughter)
(Photo from AFP)
INQUIRER.net’s personal finance offering for the day has a quote that needs to be given the limelight as often as possible:
Some people reason out that with their meager income, they can’t afford to save. But the reality is, no one can afford not to save.
I realize that there are different successful strokes for different folks when it comes to savings. I am not anal with tracking expenses (just like All Financial Matters and he said it so nicely hehe) so jotting down each expense in a worksheet doesn’t work for me also. For others, that’s the only way they can save regularly.
The single most important tip I have heard so far on saving wisely is automating your savings. I was interviewing a newly wed couple last weekend and their eyes just lit up when I told them about automating savings.
It’s no big surprise why people like this tip. Budgeting is such a painful experience. Shopping on the other hand is bliss! So, the best way to save is not to let that money pass through your fingers. Automate your savings, and spend what remains the way you want to spend it! Simple, quick and easy.
How do you automate your savings? Let me count the ways.
3. Some mutual funds, unit investment trust funds, and variable unit-linked products also allow payroll deductions. This is another option.
For this to work, however, credit card debt and other high interest debt should be at a minimum. No use saving when you’re paying high interest on consumer debt.
Say this with me: no one can afford NOT to save.
Saving automatically will allow you to enjoy what you have. Shop, spend, eat with gusto, because you have already taken care of saving for tomorrow. Compare that with trying to track each little expense and scraping savings from the bottom. Nope, not for me. I like my steak eaten with a smile ☺
Check out my article on the Philippine results of an 11-country Citibank survey on financial intelligence. The results were very revealing, and quantified in figures what we all suspected.
Here’s the link: 8 out of 10 Filipinos worry about bleak retirement–survey
And here’s an excerpt:
MANILA, Philippines – Eight out of ten working, middle class Filipinos believe they face a bleak retirement and more than half expect to be supported by their children in their old age, results of a Citibank survey showed.
After cooking more than seven batches of leche flan, rushing around the malls making last minute gift purchases and with still a few more odds and ends to buy, preparing for Christmas parties and goodies for kids, I’m pooped. I’m giddy with the Holiday whirl and I can imagine that many of you are, too! And traffic shows it, grrr.
So, I thought we could all do with some holiday reminders. It’s too easy to be afflicted with temporary moneysmart amnesia when you’re busy untangling Christmas lights and party decors.
Double-check your check payments
There must be more bounced checks in December than at any time of the year. If you are used to paying with post-dated checks, check now to make sure your December and January checks are funded with cash. Bank charges on insufficient funds are pretty nasty at P2,000 or higher. It may be Christmas season, but I don’t think that’s the kind of gift you want to give to your banker. Oh and here’s the time when having a good speaking relationship with the branch manager in your bank of account can be to your advantage. If you are considered a good enough client, he will call you to warn of an impending bounced check!
The urge to splurge and miserly behavior are on opposite sides of the spending habit spectrum, but it’s not too hard to imagine most of us swinging from one side to the other at any given time.
That’s because everyone has weaknesses. I’m not very particular with electronic gadgets, for example, so I lived with a Nokia 3310 when everybody was taking snappy pictures with their latest model mobile phones. My friends told me that was super miserly behavior.
Get me into a kitchen showroom, however, and I will be hard-pressed to don my frugal hat. I “NEED” everything that comes with a nice kitchen, although I don’t know how to cook well! I thought I was moneysmart and was in my safety zone until the kitchen showroom came along. Then boom, sorry spending plan for 2006!
Oh you better watch out, you better not swipe, you better not flaunt your shiny new card. Christmas spending is coming to town.
Ok, ok, so I’m not the best songwriter in town. :p But the fact is, most of us do have hangovers come January – the kind that make it so hard to go to the bank to pay our credit card bills when Jingle bells no longer chime.
The spendmaster in me talks like a well-meaning conscience: Oh come on, it’s Christmas! What else do you work hard for? The children need the memories, the magic, the gifts, and the ambiance! You can always pay for all the expenses next year. (Voice becoming shrill and high-pitched towards the end of the argument.)
(Photo credit: AFP)
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.
