By Marjorie Gorospe
INQUIRER.net

This is an interesting piece from one of our reporters:

When I was still taking entrepreneurship and statistics classes, I yawned a lot. I was never a huge fan of numbers and finance terms.

Now, experts say they can teach these subjects and still put fun in the classroom. GE Money Bank Philippines and Let’s Go Foundation in collaboration with local experts come up with a financial education program called Women Entrepreneurship Program, and part of this program is FUNANCE.
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By Aya Laraya, RFP*

With the global financial crisis hitting everyone and so many people losing their shirts, a lot of people are beginning to lose heart and quitting the whole financial planning mindset.  And as lousy as it can be to talk investing when you have just lost your life’s savings, you will only be able to recover from things like this if you develop a sound and coherent plan. How?  By being the one who actually decides where your money goes.  What do I mean by this? Consider the following:

First, ask yourself, how did you arrive at the decision to purchase your last investment?  (Let’s say a pre-need educational plan.)  Did you decide on your own or was it recommended to you? Did you consider other options before deciding on the pre-need plan? (Like stocks, mutual funds, etc.)  What factors made you decide to take that option over the others?  (Risk? Accessibility? Rate of Return? Cost?)

Second, who decided on which provider to buy from?  Did you research who the industry leaders were?  Or was it based on word-of-mouth?  Or on the fact that your friend or relative worked for said provider?
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BY MALAYA LARAYA

I recently conducted a half-day seminar on financial planning for some professionals and it was a rather enlightening experience on the mindsets of people when it comes to financial planning. As always there was an open forum at the end and quite a number of questions were asked – some were the usual and some were rather unusual. So for those of you who may have had some of these questions in mind but didn’t know who or what to ask; here is a small FAQ on financial planning.

What is the best investment? This is definitely the most common question that has been asked and the short answer is this : There is none. More specifically, there is simply no investment tool that is the best for all people all of the time. There are instead, instruments that are best suited to each individual’s particular needs, plans and current financial condition. Simply put, what is good for your friend, spouse, relative, lover, workmate, neighbour or child may not necessarily be good for you due to the undeniable fact that you and your friend, spouse, relative, lover, workmate, neighbor or child are two different individuals. Consequently, the two of you will have different sets of wants and needs at different times and will therefore need different solutions. Therefore, be very wary of anyone who tries to sell you a panacea for all of your investment needs as it simply does not yet exist.

Where can I get information about (x)? Despite the fact that we are very much in the online age, very many people still do not know where to get even the most basic information about financial products. From equities to managed funds to pre-need plans; people seem to be at a loss as to where to go. Here are some websites that you can visit as well as what you can expect to read.
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