What to do with money?

In the past couple of years, whenever I make a financial plan that began with zeroing out my debt, I never gave serious thought to what I’d do with my money when I finally start saving. Mutual funds and the like have crossed my mind, but I’ve never gone beyond jotting these ideas down on my excel file.

This past week, though, I went to the next step: I consulted a financial person, looked at condominiums, and talked to an investment fund manager. If I don’t know what I’ll do with my savings by the time I have them, I’m pretty sure I’ll just end up spending them on a lot of useless little things.

Time to fly?

This is, I think, Cebu Pacific’s 3rd Piso promo in the past 5 months. I ignored the first two, since I wanted to get rid of my debt first before racking up any more, or spending for unnecessary stuff.

But the lure of travel is too much. I have a glorious photo of Boracay on my computer screen. My boyfriend and I have been wanting to go to Bohol for a few years now, and we’ve just met a friend who happens to work for a new resort in that province.

And, most of all, it’s just P2,000 +/- (US$40), with taxes and surcharges, for a round trip airfare! So, is it time for me to fly again?

Bajillionaire story #1

This is from www.inquirer.net:

Ex-housemaid turns P1,000 into multimillion-peso venture 

By Janet Luna-Bungay

F SUCCESS in business were a recipe, the ingredients required would be hard work, perseverance, love of family and lots of prayers.

Take it from Leonora C. Atienza–Aling Nora to most everyone who works with her.

With that formula, Aling Nora parlayed Charmica Soap from a P1,000 business into a million-peso enterprise that sells to markets in Japan, the United States and United Kingdom.

Read more here

Uh, thanks but no thanks…

While routinely checking one of my credit card bills online yesterday, my eyes popped out when I saw that instead of the PX,000 remaining available balance I thought I had, I had PXX,000! The bastards increased my credit limit again!

Spend more, they say! Sink yourself deeper in debt!! Mwahahaha!!!

Sigh…

Are you going to become a bajillionaire?

Got this test from Money Smarts » The best wealth test, and according to it, I’m well on my way to becoming a bajillionaire! See how you score and tell me about it:

Going shopcrazy online

I’ve been holed up in my room for the past three days, stuck in my computer chair while I wade through my work backlog. And so, I spend my self-imposed “breaks” surfing blogs and sites like the ones below:

Nth Attempt at Budgeting

Following the “deleverage before you invest” tip, I’m going to attempt to zero out my debt within the year again. If I stick to this budget, I can pay off my credit card debts in 4 months, and be well on my way to bajillionairehood. I’m not sure how realistic it is, though. And I’m not sure if I can really stick to it.

Ultimate goal

I’ve been paying rent for over three years now, and it really does feel like I’m throwing money away. Thus, whenever I start looking at my spreadsheet – the one that tries to serve as my spending and saving guide – and I start projecting a few years ahead, the ultimate goal I always end up with is to be able to buy a house – a nice, comfortable two-storey house, with a garage and a garden or backyard.

So I start looking at sites like bahay.ph and jaobuilders.com, trying to find something that looks like it’s both within financial and 30-minute driving reach. Then I look at home financing options, like those from banks and Pag-ibig. But as soon as I punch in numbers in their mortgage calculators, my dreams of owning a home go up in smoke.

Tip # 1: Deleverage before you invest

The first tip to achieving bajillionairehood is courtesy of doodskee, a friend and “one-time trust funds marketer and term insurance racketeer.”

Yes, as he pointed out in his comment, there’s is no point in putting our money in mutual funds and the like, if our credit cards are charging us more than triple the amount we can potentially earn from these investments. Although I don’t think this means that we shouldn’t save anything at all, and MoneySmarts agrees.

Project: Bajillionaire

My friend tarush made an interesting suggestion in an earlier post:

“let’s join forces in this money-saving endeavor! we could be budget buddies :p scrounge around for rakets, join the same mutual fund when we’ve finally saved enough, look for budgetting programs online. let’s start project: bajillionaire!”

So c’mon, let’s do it. Here’s what we’re going to do: