How would you like to be part of a publishing project on financial planning? Alijeffty Gonzalez, president of ACG Advisors and Management Ltd. Co., is coming up with a free e-book that would help investors in their quest for financial freedom. All you have to do is to answer the questions below.

I found the questions stimulating. They forced me to reconsider my investment goals and think about whether I am doing enough to achieve them.

So fire away, guys. The person who will really benefit is you ☺. Here are the questions:
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Interesting quote from Antonio L. Tiu, president of AgriNurture, Inc., a P3-billion agriculture company that’s braving the stock market blahness and pushing through with an initial public offering in the coming months.

“In Buddhism, there’s an interesting logic. If you are destined to earn a billion pesos, and I’m your father and I let you inherit P999 million, I am reducing your power. You are supposed to work hard and create value for everyone, and then suddenly I give you everything. But suppose I give your inheritance to the public, I am passing on a legacy rather than inheritance. If I give too much money to the next generation, I am actually destroying their future.”

In Filipino parlance, pamana is a measure of how well we love our children. More love means bigger inheritance. We even equate that to parenting prowess. (As if money can measure love, huh?)
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Young, upwardly mobile Filipinos who spend much of their time on the Internet, are scouring the web for personal finance advice relevant to the Philippine setting, and are flocking to websites like Income-tacts.com, a forum populated by Filipino financial planning practitioners.

“Objective advice” is the operative word, says Efren Ll. Cruz, chairman and chief executive officer of Personal Finance Advisers, the company that owns the website. Cruz says Filipinos are very wary about tainted advice and the one thing that separates Income-tacts from other personal finance websites is that it does not market specific financial instruments.

“There are many products out there to manage finances. More often than not, however, you don’t get an objective view because they are explained from the point of view of the salesman. That’s what we provide: the objective view,” says Cruz.
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By Alexander Villafania*

How do you make money, reduce debt and still smile about it? This was the main question raised during the held “Take Charge of Your Money” seminar at the AIM Conference Center in Makati City last August 2.

Professionals, employees, businessmen and people in debt were invited to attend the seminar organized by Citibank and Inquirer.net. The seminar intended to provide people with tips on saving amid economic problems, how to deal with debt and why Filipinos need financial planning.

Chinkee Tan, a lifestyle trainer and entrepreneur in his speech said that it is typical for most Filipinos to be in debt. Personal debt becomes worse as people find it harder to make ends meet and are forced to ask for financial assistance. He said the most important aspect of paying debt is to have the willingness to actually doing so.
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We’ve been talking about money, money, money and how we must make more and lose less. Why we should dig deep to know our money personality. Use that to create a strategy for saving more and saving smart. Count our change and use them. How we must agonize over how to grow our nest egg well enough to fund kids’ education and retirement.

I don’t know why but sometimes, being broke and happy sounds like a mystical, deserted, paradise beach where the wind and waves can sound as sweet as Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

Pinoy Penman, who confessed to an addiction to eBay, says he is broke but happy.

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A reader once asked me if it is possible for a financial planner to grow her portfolio for her, but pay her for any losses if her money shrinks for any reason. It was a jaw-dropping email.

People are attracted to the idea of having a financial planner, but the expectations have to be clear from the very beginning. This video should give you an idea what financial planners should and cannot do for you.

Time flies by so fast. MoneySmarts quietly turned one last summer. To make the celebration really special, we are giving loyal readers first crack at limited seats for an interactive personal finance seminar.

Together with Citibank, which is celebrating its 100th Take Charge Of Your Money column for INQUIRER.net, and MoneySense magazine, we hope that this personal finance seminar will bring our discussions to a new level.

The promotions for this seminar is officially going to start Monday next week, but MoneySmarts readers who want to be there can email register (at) iluvlearning (dot) com beginning today.

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When “El Kapitan” was buying the government’s stake in Philippine National Bank more than 10 years ago, my teammates and I (in another publication) wrote a special report on him. While doing my research, I must have read truckloads of literature about the man -– from urban legends to PR-ish articles. Sadly, most of those publications are not available by Googling.

He has been painted as the best rags to riches story this side of the planet, to the most “well-connected” tycoon and everything in between. Lucio Tan is an enigmatic figure. The fact that he is one of Asia’s richest billionaire is not as interesting as how he got his billions.

I would have loved to a one-on-one interview 10 years ago, if only to ask him how he could remain unscathed after every Philippine president he has been closely linked to went down in political flames. But of course, we all know the answer to that.
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How do you prepare yourself for a loved one’s death?

Not exactly a peachy thought on a MoneySmart Monday, I know. But as they say, there’s no going around death and taxes. And while it may be easy to prepare for the loss of a loved one financially, the emotional part is something else again. Can you attache a peso sign to that?

This story from MoneySense about a widow’s journey from tragedy to triumph is worth the few minutes it will take to go through it from start to finish.
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State-owned Landbank of the Philippines’s sweet deal for OFWs launched yesterday is described in this article.

An annual interest of 7.0% and a maturity of 5.5 years is not bad for anyone’s portfolio. Experts always tout diversification and to do that properly, the risky part should not overshadow the secure and boring part. How to cut the cake exactly depends on personal risk appetites, of course.

It is a fact of life that stocks are sexy and deposits and bonds are boring. ☺ Most of the times, boring is good.
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