You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2008.
At least here in my side of the world.
I woke up at around 6:30 this morning, said my bit of thanks to the Big Man above for another day. Read the newly bought back issue of Entrepreneur magazine (I’m a sucker for these type of mags), went to the bathroom to wash my face, looked myself in the mirror, smiled and said, ‘you’re pretty’. LOL Yeah, I do that every morning, something to give myself that much needed assurance that at least one person thinks I am pretty…
I went downstairs to find out my parents are still sleeping and the store still closed. Opened it up, set my half-lab, half-native dog to wake up my parents. That, my friends, is her version of early morning thrill!
Breakfast consisted of grapes, pan de sal (bread of salt, but not salty), butter and freshly brewed coffee. Combined with their favorite morning show on TV (mine is Discovery Travel and Living, but it’s hard to argue with a houseful of people!).
After breakfast, my parents set to go to the market for last minute shopping: fish, seafood, round fruits, meat. I specifically asked for sweet and sour fish, baked mussels, buttered shrimp and corn & carrots. If I eat another pound of meat, my waistline will resemble a pudgy man’s!
Right now I am manning the store, listening to my CDs, typing away in my notebook with my dog snoozing at my feet.
Well, that’s how the day in this house had started. Busy, but I am loving it!
Hope you’ll all have a blast this new year!
I am torn between funding my eFund (3 months worth of after tax salary) and allocating some for investment/retirement.
For next year I am opening a 20k, 1 year time deposit as beginning eFund. I am also setting my eFund savings on auto pilot by joining the Company’s ‘paluwagan’ and have them deduct 2k every month from my salary. They will pool all the money from all the employees who joined and put it on a TD, to be distributed on December. They also use this fund to lend to employees in need, sometimes with no interest or with 1% monthly, depending on the nature of borrowing. This will be given back to those who joined the program. For this year, the other people who joined had about 8.5% interest for a 20k deposit, which was alot.
1K a month will also form part of eFund, except I will be the one depositing it in a separate savings account. This should provide me with peace of mind in case I will need cash pronto.
Thing is, I am already 28, turning 29 by middle of the year, and I have very minimal amount in investment (stocks). I have a very stable job, and very unlikely to be laid off. The stock house I am transacting with charges a minimum of P200 every transaction and in order to offset the cost, a pretty huge sum must be invested. 1k monthly worth of investment will be very small and any gains will be eaten up with different charges.
Analysts predict that the financial crisis will be in our shores by February 2009, but I refuse to be affected. I refuse to panic, but I am gearing up to save and keep our heads above the water.
There is no doubt my finances look much, much better than it was a year ago regardless of the occasional financial stupidity. But I am not comfortable with what I have right now. Come to think of it, who is?
I am almost scared of updating my NetworthIQ for December. I have everything in spreadsheet and I see my networth tumble down by about 20%.
No, it has nothing to do with stocks or anything like that. I attribute everything to mindless spending and acquiring a new laptop when my old one is perfectly fine (except for the busted cd-rom and stupid software).
As early as October, I had been eyeing this mini-notebook at the malls. Original price then was 27K but for December the price dropped to 24k with free external dvdrw. I took it on terms, 12 months, zero interest. No, I am not justifying the expense, and I admit to succumbing to my biggest ‘want’. Sigh.
And though I budgeted 10K for Christmas, I easily went over that in gifts, cash out, etcetera. WAY OVER. I don’t even want to account for it. I used my card most of the time so I can somehow track the expenses. I can still do it, call my card company and ask for the detailed transaction, put it down to my spreadsheet, but…do I really want to do it? Besides, this December is very unusual, as you can read in my previous post.
On a positive note, I won big time in our Company’s raffle draw. I got the new (here) Sony Ericsson C902. It’s the one used by James Bond, except the one I have is in red. I plan to sell it, want to sell it. I have one prospective buyer but he’s still having second thoughts. His offer was to pay 9k in cash plus the 4th generation iPod Nano he won in the raffle. He’ll let me know when we get back to work.
Aside from the phone, I also won a 3k gift check to a major deparment store. The check can be used in the department store, some boutiques and supermarket. Also, the Senior VP of our company gave me 5k in cash as a Christmas gift! I was thrilled since I know she gives it to selected few only!
The company also gave us a Christmas bonus of 1.75 months, down from 2.5 months of the last 2 years.
For 2009, I already laid out my goals and savings plan. I only hope I have the face energy to post my new networth.
Well, hello again, blogosphere! Been a long time since I last posted and I apologize to those who visited this site and found nothing. Things have been crazy over here, and I am just catching on some sleeping time.
Anyway, here’s what happened, capsulized.
December 13, Division’s party/charity work.
The Division Vice President decided to give back to the less fortunate instead of throwing a big bash for the employees alone. The party was held at the gym near Children’s Joy Foundation, and financed partly by us, the employees. I am a supervisor and so they deducted P300 from my salary. Then there’s the gift to be given to our adopted kid. I got her a warm, blue hooded jacket for P400 and it was a perfect fit. It’s as if I had her with me when I bought it.
My immediate boss was the one in charge in organizing this party, and when your own boss is in charge of something, the rest of the group is usually in-charge, too.
December 17, Company party.
It was supposed to be a laid back one for the employees…well, for those that are not in-charge of anything, that is. My entire group was in charge of something. I was marshall for the service awardees and boy, nobody told me it was THAT hard to gather adults in one place and keep them there! I was walking all over the place and calling on people, asking them to come with me at the backstage. When we got there, I give them their placque and pin, and make them fall in line in the order they will be called on the stage. I succeeded, but only for a minute or two. The moment the AVR went on and showed the presentation for the awardees, they fell out of line again and bunched on the side to watch!
HR should have given us a whip megaphone. Should have made the job easier. I was hoarse by the time the party was over.
December 20-21, office friends’ party.
Held in Marikina at the place of my BMF. It was crazy, fun. We rented a videoke machine, and sang our lungs out till 3:30 AM. In between, there’s me arranging the table, setting the food, cooking my special pasta, calling on people to move their butts and go to the place. The pasta was a hit! It is famous among friends who tasted it that the husband of a friend and friend of my BMF watched how I do it. Well, I don’t feel good with somebody watching so I shooed them away. Besides, my recipe is a secret. LOL.
We woke up around 6AM, ate a hearty breakfast of rice, ham, hotdogs, leftover buttered shrimp, pasta, chicken with lemon sauce and good dose of laughter. After that, we again put the videoke machine to work and sang till the very last minute before we left at around 10AM. I only had less than 3 hours of sleep. Tsk.
December 21-22, Department’s party.
When I reached home from the party above, I at once packed another bag for an overnight swimming party at Cavite with my group. I had no time to rest, not even to lie down a bit. I showered, cleaned my nails, packed everything else we will need. As expected, I was the one in charge for this party. I met the 3 guys at Dampa Macapagal and we shopped for shrimp and squid. We left the goodies to be cooked as buttered shrimp and calamares. While the restaurant went on to cook, the 4 of us went to meet the 4 other girls at the church where we committed to donate used clothes, noodles, etc. Then we went back for the food, stopping at a staff’s house to pick up the rice and water, then to a grocery to buy disposables, chips, and drinks.
We reached Cavite at around 6PM, then the swimming party begun. Boy, the water was cold! I was shivering after 5 minutes in the water. After several dozens of pictures, it was time to get out and eat. We had games and raffles after, then soaked in the water for another 30 minutes towards midnight. The group woke up at around 5AM of Dec. 22, and there was only 1 bathroom. Our checkout time should have been 6 but since it’s impossible to be done packing and all in 1 hour, we extended by 1 hour and paid for P300.
We split in 2 groups, the one with the car went home with 2 other guys and I went to ride a bus with the girls to office (yeah, we still had to work!). We reached the office by 8AM, but then I didn’t have to log in for I was on a scheduled leave that day. The rest of the group are not, so they have to work with barely 2 hours of sleep.
December 22, friend’s wedding.
When we reached the office by 8AM, I had to hurry again to attend a friend’s wedding by 10AM at the other side of Metro Manila. My office is in Makati and the wedding is in Quezon City. I hurriedly fixed my hair and changed into a dress then hailed a cab to QC. The wedding was held in Max’s restaurant, and we stayed till about 1PM. I again hailed a cab back to my office, changed into ordinary clothes and went on to work till 5PM (not paid!).
Now it’s Christmas time, I need to get back all those energy and sleep I lost.
Holy cow. I am stuck in front of the TV with the radio tuned in to an AM station covering the fight live. It’s almost 10 AM here and the fight hasn’t started yet!
I am also stuck to this website: www.mannypacquiao.ph
An article written by the Pacman himself is also up there but it is in Tagalog.
I wanted to sign up for pay-per-view the very last minute but the cable provider’s number is busted. It would have cost me P800 but my sis agreed to pay for it if I was able to get through.
I am nervous as heck. I have watched Manny ‘Pacman’ Pacquiao fight way back his amateur days. Can clearly remember staying up till the wee hours of the morning with my father watching Pacman bring his opponents to the canvas.
The result of this fight will somehow affect the mood of Filipinos this Christmas.
My stomach is tightening. Our man should win.
Edit: PACMAN WON! OH YEAH! Now IT IS CHRISTMAS.
It decreased =c. Well, it decreased by only a little over 1%, but still. Had I not spent my 13th month for my teeth, I would have done so much better. Add the fact that I am currently spending, spending, spending. There’s clothes (work clothes), gifts, several contribution for various parties.
As a token, I will be giving away metal key chains depicting different Philippine scenes. There’s one shaped like a carabao and the farmer plowing, our native bahay kubo (nipa hut), there’s a couple dancing tinikling, another one shaped like a kalesa (horse-drawn carriage). I got it for P50 each, original price was P80. I took 14 pcs. so the woman gave me a deep discount. Everything came in a small red box and I’m planning on making some little sinamay bags to put it in.
For my two bestfriends, I am giving a diecast Philippine jeepney. It came in a box, very collectible. I want one, but I don’t wanna go overbudget. The jeeps cost P150 each, originally at P175.
I got some other stuff as gifts but they are kinda boring: toys for kids, practical stuff for the moms. Suffice to say that I got everything at a deeeeeep discount and I declare my shopping a rousing success.
=)
They sent me some lovin'