One of the reasons I fell in love with our little home is the balcony near the master’s bedroom. I am so much of a garden-sky-fresh air person. Plants, birds, quiet moments under the night or early morning sky relax and reinvigorate my soul.

I have little sketches in my mind of how my little patch of heaven would look after I adorn it with orchids, little bonsai trees, lots of plants, perhaps those little water fountains that delightfully makes you feel you are in a fairy tale forest. Hmm. Visions of a little garden set where I can relax and perhaps type a blog post or two. Where I can unwind with the kids.

It has been three months since we moved in. My terrace is still bare.
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Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

– a common adage during the Great Depression, says this Washington Post article.

Later on this evening, you can catch me on Lucy Torres’ show, The Sweet Life (QTV 11), where we talked about how to live on a budget without going “losyang” as Lucy herself calls it.

It was an interesting evening when we taped the show, as I had a front row seat watching fashionistas talk about how they have fallen prey to the urge to splurge (but have since learned their lessons).

Giselle Sanchez, a schoolmate at UP Diliman, was as usual funny, smart and very much honest with her spending binges. She talked of how she ended up buying almost all of the bags in a Louis Vuitton shop in Italy (guess how much it cost her), because the snooty manager tried to boot her out of the store because he mistook her for a Filipina domestic helper. (You must watch the show to fully appreciate her effort—albeit costly—to defend Filipinas).
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Photo courtesy of Aladdin Cordero

I learned a few more things while preparing for my interview at ANC’s Shoptalk, as well during the show and would like to share them with you:

1. Use a budget. Makes you consciously think of what you put in your shopping carts. Write a shopping list.
2. If you must shop, go for frugal shopping hot spots. The psychological rewards of saying yes is the same whether you do it at Zara’s or Divisoria. (Read my previous post to to find a list of frugal shopping hotspots.)
3. Set aside a Christmas fund. In government finance, a sinking fund allows the government to set aside every month some money for future payments. We can do the same in our personal finances. A 12,000 budget for gifts and noche Buena every year for example will not be as heavy when you prepare for it by seting aside 1,000 a month from January to December.
4. Don’t forget the “hidden costs” of Christmas holidays, like contributions for company/church Christmas parties, Kris Kringles for children, etc.
5. The law of supply and demand in economics indicate that if you buy in January, you will get lower prices because demand is bound to drop. Not so, says Pia Hontiveros-Pagkalinawan, who is a self-confessed Divisoria shopper. She says apparently shop-owners have realized that children who get cash gifts during Christmas time go shopping in January!
6. Be a bulk customer: contact your company’s suppliers
7. Recycle gifts
8. Keep Christmas parties simple, go potluck!
9. Think of giving the gift of experience instead of toys
10. Don’t go overboard when buying toys. Some of the most expensive toys these days kill children’s imagination

Is there anything wrong with enjoying the spirit of the season that’s fast approaching? Of course not. We wouldn’t want people to think we are misers who are only concerned with the glint of money.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying what we earn. But therein is the key—the words “what we have already earned.” We should be enjoying in moderation past income with some set aside for the future. But Filipinos have to stop enjoying future income, future bonuses, future salary increases. After all, what if these don’t come in? Then we have to live with the reality of bounced checks in January or missed credit card payments when the new year rolls in.

Break the cycle by refusing to mindlessly spend. The psychology of spending is a topic that I have been studying for quite some time. Unless we face the deeper reasons why we get into debt come Christmas season—and even after—we cannot really get rid of these urges to splurge.

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ADVISORY: Catch me live today on ANC’s Shoptalk with Pia Hontiveros-Pagkalinawan at 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. to talk about the psychology of spending (one of my uber-favorite topic) and how to hammer down your Christmas budget.

We all know the urge to splurge bites everyone strongest during the Christmas holidays or as the colder months come near. But we also get little scratches and bites all year round! Just look at all the stuff (most of which are useless after a month) that we accumulate through the years! The best thing would be to control the urge, of course. The next best thing would be to shop in the right places.

Lately, I have discovered new frugal shopping secrets in Metro Manila, but to my delight, somebody else has been thinking about the exact same thing. Blogger Paetechie/Tutubi, who owns the blog Budget Travel Philippines (among other blogs), practically read my mind when he emailed me yesterday about his blog post “Manila Shopping Guide and Tips: Divisoria, Malls, Markets and the Art of Haggling”.

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The not-so-friendly bundle of grocery receipts have been winking at me for quite some time, so I finally got around to putting all the figures down into an Excel worksheet to make a Grocery Booklet—an exercise that reveal some pretty interesting lessons.

Here are some of those lessons:

From January to August, these items showed the biggest jump in prices:
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I’m intrigued by the phrase “scrimp and save.” It sounds so crunchy and delicious when it actually connotes discipline and sacrifice. :-p

It made me think of how far people will go to save money. The genetic footprint, as well as cultural background, can impact this tendency greatly. For example, some people can skip lunch to save for something. Some can’t.

While interviewing Jocelyn Sta. Ana, Bank of the Philippine Island’s vice-president for retail mortgage division, for my article “Goodbye easy home loan terms?” published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer today, she shared this amazing story about a friend and gave me permission to share it with you.
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Pacita U. Juan, owner of Figaro Coffee, said her secret to cutting her electric bill in half is the humble power strip.

Admit it, its such a chore to unplug all devices. So, use the power strip with a switch. Even that telephone charger that hardly gets removed from the socket consumes power and your television set which is always turned on by remote may not be showing images on screen but still consuming electricity.

Agree? Disagree?

UPDATE: Editor’s note: Added video of Abby Sarmiento taken by INQUIRER.net business editor Ma. Salve Duplito.

Filipinos spend too much on staying connected. When you don’t text, you’re not a good friend. When you don’t call, you’re a bad daughter. Husbands know full well the wrath of a woman untexted.

These days, cutting costs will have to include taking a second look at alternatives to the high cost of getting connected. In our household, only my 7-year old and the toddler don’t incur costs. There are six mobile phones in our household (two for the hubby), a landline and a DSL service.

This should be interesting for financial voyeurs . On a monthly basis, this is what we pay telcos :
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