WHEN one is single, one can pretty much live for the self. There’s more money to go around to buy that new cellphone and that new pair of shoes, and to go out with the barkada for gimik nights.

But when one starts a family, everything changes. Suddenly, there are responsibilities: mouths to feed, bills to pay, and future needs to prepare for. The days of frivolous spending are over. As financial journalist Salve Duplito, pioneer Money Smarts blogger, wife and mother of four said, “Motherhood made me realize that ‘irresponsible with money’ and ‘good mother’ don’t go well together. As parents, it’s up to us so the family won’t get buried in debt.” This “spending addict” has reformed and is on a crusade to help others learn to handle their finances well.

In her recent talk at the Family Finance 101 seminar organized by Money Sense magazine, Salve shared these basic tips to handling family finances responsibly:
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WHEN personal finance coach Randell Tiongson asked the audience at the recent Money Sense Live’s Family Finance 101 seminar how many have made decisions they regretted later on, a number of hands went up. Randell was quick to admit that he, too, has made bad decisions in the past.

“People can be logical in business but illogical in the house,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s how we use money in the house that determines the quality of life. So treat your house like a business.”

Randell explains this further: “The household is an enterprise that operates like a business.” For instance, households have revenues (your income) and non-discretionary costs (bills). It needs efficient use of cash flow and wise allocation of resources over time. A household has assets and liabilities which must be taken into account in planning out one’s personal finances.
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Karen Galarpe

THANKS to a perplexed Senator Juan Ponce Enrile wondering where his cellphone load went (it was traced to unauthorized downloaded ring tones), cellphone charges have come under scrutiny. Prepaid cellphone users have in the past complained about being charged for promo texts and other unwanted stuff but no action was taken.

So now the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is tripling the shelf life of prepaid cellphone load. Effective July 19, prepaid load will have the following shelf life:

P10 to P50 load: 15 days

more than P50 to P100: 30 days

more than P100 to P250: 60 days

more than P250 to P300: 75 days

Text spam or unsolicited promo texts will also be banned, and this will take effect on July 23. Hip hip hooray! (Read news story here.)

CHILDREN ARE like sponges; they generally absorb knowledge fast. Parents can take advantage of this wonderful time by teaching them about money early on.

In Rich Kid Smart Kid, author Robert T. Kiyosaki wrote: “I am often asked, ‘At what age should I start teaching my child about money?’ My answer is, ‘When your child becomes interested in money.’”

Lifestyle trainer Chinkee Tan, author of the book Till Debt Do Us Part, shares that kids can be taught about money as early as four years old.
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SOME years back, when my friends and I were starting families, talk would inevitably go to family finances. How much is your monthly electricity bill? How much do you spend on groceries every month? Where can you buy the best bargains? How are you saving up for your children’s tuition? These were just some of the questions we would ask each other, and because we were friends, we had no qualms about basically revealing how much we were spending on everything.

Those talks helped because we would each give tips on how to save precious pesos and where to put our money so it would grow.

For instance, one friend said instead of buying a preneed education plan (premiums were high since her children were already in grade school), she would just put money monthly equal to a preneed plan premium payment in a high-yielding time deposit. It’s basically a do-it-yourself way of saving up for tuition.
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HOW do smart dads handle money? In time for Father’s Day, we asked some dads to share valuable tips to you fellow dads out there. Here are some wise advice:

1. Live within your means. “The general tip is really ‘living within your means.’ It is an attitude that should not be equated to being stingy; rather, it entails planning the family’s lifestyle to cover the basic necessities, leisure activities, and savings. It is also an attitude that makes the family define its own happiness instead of being dictated upon by the happiness of others.” — Noel M. Cortez, head of marketing and graduate school professor Dad to Popet (11), Peping (7), and Kimi (4)

2. Spend for experiences rather than stuff. “As dads, we have a tendency to lavish our kids with material things, partly out of guilt for not spending enough time with them and mostly because we just enjoy seeing the smiles on their faces. But their excitement is gone weeks or even days after getting something they want. So instead of buying more and more stuff, spend for experiences–trips to the zoo, the park, the beach–since memories of happy experiences last much longer than the fleeting enjoyment of toys and gadgets. Plus you get to spend quality time with them. More experiences, less stuff.”– Heinz Bulos, editor-in-chief of Money Sense magazine and dad of Kimi (2).

3. Cut down on your unnecessary spending. You’ll be amazed at how much you can save. And don’t get discouraged when times are bad. A downturn also creates opportunities to earn good money.– Benjie Oliva, commercial banking director for a leading multinational bank, and dad too

4. Teach kids about money early on. “Train up a child in his ways and when he grows old he will not depart from it. Teaching our kids financial literacy at a young age is very important. The best person to teach children about handling money is you. We cannot leave our child training to the TV, to teachers, to MTV, to their idols. It is the dad’s main responsibility.”– Chinkee Tan, lifestyle trainer (www.chinkeetan.com) and author of the personal finance book “Till Debt Do Us Part” Dad to Kayla (8), Jethro (6) and Destiny (4)

Happy Father’s Day to all dads!

“THE last 18 months has been very challenging,” admitted Jason Miyashita, deputy executive director of the Asia Pacific Association for Fiduciary Studies (APAFS), a nonprofit educational association for prudent fund stewardship.

Indeed, the global financial crisis caught a lot of people off guard, fund managers included. This is probably the reason why a lot of finance professionals are all the more looking forward to the 9th Annual Pacific Region Investment Conference (PRIC) to be held on October 8 to 9 at the Renaissance Makati City Hotel Manila. Some 400 delegates are expected to attend the conference which aims to provide current and fundamental understanding of global issues and regional trends from world-class experts.

A number of premier financial institutions and organizations have partnered with APAFS for PRIC, among them the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP), Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX), the Philippine Stock Exchange, and USDA Graduate School.

“This partnership will not only enhance but strengthen our institute’s advocacy in providing professional development, through training and continuing education, to our finance professionals,” said Roberto Borromeo, FINEX president.

According to Miyashita, the conference will tackle the latest trends, discussions, and outlook for specific industries and investments. “We’re looking at alternative investments, a lot of pensions, hedge funds, private equity, and commodities. We try to cover what’s hot.”

Among the speakers scheduled for this year’s conference are:
• Stephen Weiss, senior vice president at Income Research and Management;
• Michael E. Salvay, CFA, managing principal and senior portfolio manager at Payden and Rygel. His talk is entitled “Fixed Income Strategies—What a Wild Ride It’s Been”; and
• Louis Boulanger who will give a talk on “Protection Against the Risk of a Systemic Financial Meltdown.”

There will also be speakers from the Philippines. Among last year’s conference speakers was Senator Edgardo Angara who spoke on the Personal Equity and Retirement Account (PERA) law.

“We organize the PRIC each year because we foresee that Asia will be the area of growth in the future. We are working to continually equip the region and build its professional accountability as markets mature,” said Daniel Roland, CIMA, executive director of APAFS.

IT’S Wednesday as I write this. These past two days, Monday and Tuesday, I saw my retainer fee for the month from a publishing company disappear–in just two days.

First, my desktop computer refused to do anything at all, and so I brought it to the computer shop. It turned out that the power supply is broken and the video card sympathized with it and broke down as well. Since the computer guys were tinkering with the CPU, my son and I figured we might as well add 1 gigabyte of RAM.

Then on Wednesday, it was time for the car to have its 40,000-kilometer check up. This does not come cheap, I realized, especially after I OK’d a rustproofing job, etc.

So there, a whole month’s work pay gone in two days. Why does money “evaporate” so fast?

Parents with school age children may be thinking along the same line at about this time of the year. With tuition fees the way they are now, it’s no joke to send one child to private school. And what now if there is more than one child?

I learned from a financial management talk I attended years ago, that one must prepare for annual expenses by saving for it monthly. Take tuition fees, for instance. See how much the annual fee is for next school year, divide the amount by 12, and begin saving that amount monthly this June. This can be done as well for other annual expenses: car registration fees, annual income taxes (for the self-employed), and insurance premiums. As for repairs and maintenance expenses, saving a little more for this purpose every month will cushion you from the shock of getting your repair bill in the future.

Preparing for big expenses this way will help you avoid panicking when it’s time to pay up. Save, save, save.-Karen Galarpe

PERSONAL finance experts encourage teaching one’s children how to handle money. It starts with letting them know how valuable it is, and what happens when they spend it or save it.

My parents never sat down with me to teach me about handling money. But from observing them through the years, I have learned valuable insights I practice up to now.

Here are the money lessons I learned from them:

1.  Money does not grow on trees. You have to work to have some. No work, no money. My parents got married a few years after the liberation. Times were hard. Since my dad’s earnings as a government clerk were not enough, he supplemented his income by becoming a security guard at night at the pier. And when this still wasn’t enough, he would borrow an uncle’s jeepney and drive it a couple of trips around Manila ferrying passengers. When he got back from driving the jeep, he earned enough to buy powdered milk for my kuya, who was then a baby. Hard work pays.

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And so, after 490-or-so articles over the course of roughly two years, I am saying goodbye to MoneySmarts.

It’s a bittersweet spot to be in. I feel like I am letting go of a child that I have nourished and nurtured for quite a while. Although I feel comforted that she will be in good hands and that we will continue to stay in touch, I will sorely miss the great conversations here (especially those hateful comments haha!).

Many are asking why. There’s a time to let go, you know? Moving on has a personal finance as well as an emotional cost. Yet even when the cost can be high, there is reason to raise our glasses and be grateful because much of the growing up that we do over the course of our lives has to do with how well we handle transitions.
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