FILED Scribble Planner 2015

Ber months! Yay! Well yeah I know it started last month and since then I already felt the Christmas season in town. You know, season where malls are jampacked, sales everywhere, Divisoria season, time to display those decors again, Christmas songs playing even in the bus. Of course Christmas is more than that. I love Christmas. It's all about giving. People are also excited because it is 13th month and Christmas bonus season especially in the compnay I am working at, ber months also means raining bonuses (and the saying of 'merry christmas BIR', too.) Although there is still Halloween and All Soul's day to look forward to, no doubt Chrismas is the most exciting time of the year.

 

Ber months is also means another year is about to end and another one to start. New plans, new hopes, new goals to look forward to. Planner helps us to organize things we need to do and we want to do. Personally, I own one from WittyWillSaveTheWorld planner. It's really cute and witty planner and really helpful. It also helped me to achieve my goals in 2014. I'm glad that I started something that will benefit my future and my current planner helps me to plan it all. Although I'm happy with Witty Will Save The World planner and I'm still looking forward to their 2015 version, I think I've found my new one:

from filed.com.ph

from filed.com.ph



from filed.com.ph

 

 

Scribble! I saw this while browsing through Facebook newsfeed and I follow their Facebook page right away. Checking their photos of their products, the Scribble got my attention. Although I like Doodle for its black and white cover, Scribble reminds me of my scapbook I own since highschool. The brown cover and ribbon bound the same I did to my scapbook before, though I have stop scapbooking, I still keep it. And this planner comes with a free Stylomark! and this is what excites me more: They also give the option to have your name scibbled by a typogrpaphy artist! Ha. My name Lala will be look so perfect on that planner. So I did what I had to do:

 

 

I made my order

 

If you find this planner really attractive (because it is), check more of their products on FILED! website, you can place your oder there, too. The free Stylomark is only available when you pre-order until October 27 so you better hurry, freebies are always great, you can't miss that one.

Money Management

I have read alot of financial books and blogs in the past few months. In the effect, I bought myself a VUL, learned to track my everyday expenses (although I am not that consistent doing it, but it helps me) and it made me more kuripot or penny pincher. I have learn to manage my money whenever it hits my payroll account, every peso has put into budget. Although sometimes, as I am a minimum wager, I do have some shortage. Like right now, I feel so vulnerable cos my savings is about an inch away from the minimum balance and I haven't deposit since May cos I prioritize my VUL. These past months, I had some money issues, I can't even save a hundred. I even borrowed money from my boyfriend by passing my shares to him for our utility expenses for two months. I needed some new clothes but I couldn't buy even in Tiangge cos my family needed my money more than I need it. I feel so unsecured. I haven't save money for long. My investment is one thing. I can't withdraw from it whenever I needed money. I felt broke. I had to break my Pi-Nik bank. Pik-Nik can I turned into a coinbank only saving 10 peso coins and new 20-peso bills. I planned to make the can full and deposit to my account but since I needed to survive, I had to use one of my remaining powers.

Many of my Pik-Nik empty cans are still in used. Like this one.

I managed to save Php2,700. I'm not sure for how long cos I don't remember when did I start, I think I did this for almost 3 months. Not bad, yeah? I added the saved money to my daily expenses. Thanks to this blog: Minimum Wager Journey, I copied her budget method. Kind of, and so far it works for me. I summed up all my work allowance from daily transpo to food. List down my bills, set aside money for tithes and contribution for my family. I only bring money enough for my food and transpo allowance. I don't even have emergency money. I started this since first day of September and still doing it. Slowly, I feel on my way back on track. Although I have to sacrifice some things like the cravings for fast food and sweets, but it's better to be safe. 

I also thankful with this book, that I have been eyeing to buy for weeks and finally was able to buy it when I got my holiday pay.

This is actually a 2-in-1 book. The other one is "I Wish They Taught Money In High School So I can Start my Business Right Away."

At first I thought, this book is kinda pricey, Php500 for this? Not even a hardbound. Well it should be worth every peso because it has been in the best selling books list for months. And I was right. This book made me realize, I wasn't losing my track after all. I was actually doing the right thing. Before, I follow Income - Savings = Expenses but Ms. Clarissa says, Income - Investment = Expenses is better, which I actually follow lately. She even says, we should invest our savings too but I am not going to do that. I still want to have money on my bank account. I have to have an emergency fund/ This book is actually good, I am not going to review it for you cos I'm not good at that but this book teaches us to manage money like how they promised on the cover. Things that we wish we had learn from high school so we may not have these money problems.

NOTE: I lost my 2 comments on this post. Disqus lost it :(

Smartphone

I'm feeling down about my phone that got wet after I accidentally pour the water pitcher on to the table where my phone at. That result to malfunctioning the touch screen. Now after I've gone to Market!Market! yesterday to have it successfully repair, I found out that WiFi connection won't work and the Bluetooth as well. Apparently, not only the touch screen got damage, also the WiFi and Bluetooth connection that I didn't notice right after I got the phone from the technician. I went to another technician just today to have it check but to my despair, they couldn't do it and needs to be done in Cherry Mobile service center since it is the brand of my phone cos they don't have the piece of needs to be replaced. They reformatted the phone, lost my contacts, messages and some apps. Now I'm losing my interest to this cos some stuffs that I've worked in this gadget lost. Like I am back to zero. No WiFi connection to regain them all until I bring this to the service center and fix hopefully with a low charge. This is ruining my budget, too. I had no choice but to break in to my savings account. Sighs. I hope my phone will be fully repaired.


But then, hey... this is just a phone. Although this is given to me by my boyfriend, it's just a phone. It could be worse. I should not be too much bummed about it. I still have all my downloaded songs and my pictures which is good. Contacts could be retrieve, thanks to Facebook. And I can still pay my savings account for money spent and will be spending for this. Its just a phone.

from Tumblr

I admit that this phone is taking too much time from me. Only this phone connects me to the 'outside world' as I live day by day with work-home-work and weekend for me it's either all day in the boarding house or home in Cavite. And even when I'm home in Cavite, my eyes is still glued to my phone, browsing, downloading stuffs. Can't get enough of it. When I'm offline, I still have my phone in my hand reading ebook. I guess this is a good thing that happened. To realize that heyy dude... this thing is eating you.. you need to go back your life off line. Away from your smartphone.

These smart phones. It's either your slave or could be you are the slave of your smart phone. One time I'm in a Itchyworms gig. The band was banging, the music is so good, I was singing my heart out to every lyrics of Beer then I noticed some people, well mostly, was glued on their phones busy taking selfies with monopod or whatyoucall selfie pods or filming the show. I was like, what the fudge people! They're missing the real fun here.

Taking selfies every angle, or with another friends, taking an angle where Jugs singing in my background. Great shot. The band is now playing their hit Loveteam but he doesn't know cause he's busy arranging those taken shots in a photo collage. Trying every filter, yes this looks good.. no.. my face too dark.. ahh this.. Itchyworm is playing an Eraserheads song! Oh myy God. Oh, some stickers won't hurt. Yep, good to post. Thinking of a great caption to this. Oh yeah don't forget to check in where am at. There. Wait some minutes, checks again who 'like' my post. 

I bet also he liked his own post.

There also a time I went to a Shane Filan gig at the Podium. I went there, waited hours and paid hundreds to see Shane Filan live but thanks to some guys, I saw him via live streaming on their little screens.

I swear I wanted to put a hole on that Ipad with a bullet. If I had a gun that time.

I hope people stop doing this in every gig. You won't enjoy the moment if you choose it to save it on your phone/card memory rather than to your brain memory. I've done this before and regretted it. I should've savor the moment. Well, if you want to relive it, there's always somebody would upload it on YouTube. Taking pictures now and then is okay, I do this. Just stop filming the whole damn show.

Mistress by James Patterson

This is my first read novel written by the famous James Patterson. I'm aware that he has alot of marv works. I think if you've written and publish lotsa novels, like more than a hundred, then you must be really, really good. James P has always been on my list but you know due to a lot of books to read, sometimes you don't know which one to start. If I can just read them all at once, like, one novel in the morning, another one by lunch, an e-book in the afternoon, one at night. Of course at this stage I can't do all that.

from google image

So yeah this one is my first from Mr. Patterson, finished it by 2 days. Started reading it last Monday after I've done my laundry until the next day morning at the office. I can say, I love it though it only gained 3 and ahalf stars in Goodreads which I dont know why. I really enjoyed reading it, couldn't put it down. One of the best book I've read judging how I excitedly want to flip page by page. I find it funny how the lead character run his thoughts and I think this is one of the reasons why they give this less than 5 stars cos it got them confuse which I don't get it. I mean, they are probably Patterson fans ever since or read hundred books in their life, whats the confusion. Sometimes, I get confuse in the middle of a Nicholas Sparks novel. The narrator enters presidential trivia all of a sudden, interesting ones and best part of the novel cos it's funny, too. This is the kind of book that you go pause reading and you'd say, daaammn... like you need to breath from the scenes you read and imagine. I pictured Bradley Cooper portraying the character. I dunno, I think he's perfect to cast if this going to be a movie.

This is 5 stars for me. I am going to read more James Patterson novels. Could you share your favorite novel from him? :)

For The Future

When you got your first job, what's the first goal in your mind?

I grew up with my parents who has never ending debt. Means we 'borrow' what we eat, spend every day and pay them on my tatay's payday. Usually dad's paycheck is gone after 2-3 days by paying all our debts we made throughout the cut-off. What's left is our surviving money for the next days til next sweldo. Sometimes, sweldo is not enough so we borrow money again to others or pawn my tatay's payroll ATM card and other stuffs to pay so we can have credit again for the next 12 days and so. That's how the money in our family flows. With God's grace, my older sister got a chance to work abroad, helped me to went and finish college, had our home in Cavite renovate, helped pay our bills on time and also help kamag-anak in province whenever they asked to (but not all the time). Although my sister is well-pay abroad, I dunno but my nanay still have utang. It won't go. In fact, until now. Even my cousin who already has own family, she pawns her husband's payroll ATM card to survive til next payday of his husband. One I asked her, why you keep doing that, she answered me like sangla or pawning atm is inevitable, it happens normally like trials in life. Kalokohan. So when I had my first job, I swore to myself: This never ending utang won't happen to me. It will not happen to me.

Then I read these books:

:

Boy, I am grateful that I have read these. These books taught me to budget and save money every payday and I did. I had P10,000 on my savings account before the 2013 ended. Until now, I follow this formula:

Income - Savings = Expense

I have one goal: To have my own house and lot. I am 25 years-old now and hopefully I can achieve that by my mid-30s, but with this money on my savings account is all I have, I dunno, with its low interest annually, It'll take me ages before I can save millions of peso.

I'm a Cosmo girl, though it's not obvious but I do buy and read Cosmopolitan magazine every month. It's their money article that I always look forward to so I learned about investments from reading the magazine. While browsing thru internet to learn more about it, I stumble upon this great financial website called The Wise Living (which is by the way, a perfect financial blog for people @  their 20s) and I contacted the blogger since she offers FREE financial consulting. I reached to her, who's name is Lianne, through Viber and she was very patient and nice to teach me brief information about investment which is what I needed. 

Now I have VUL, which is an insurance + investments product (which is I think is really great because you're investing AND you are covered by insurance in one. Ha. Cool, eh?) of Sun Life Financial. Ms Lianne now stands as my financial advisor (very cool. I sound like a person who has lot of money she don't know what the hell to do with those)

I'm just very glad that I did this, that I've start investing so my future self will thank me. This is so good and I thought, why can't everyone just do this investing stuff. I mean, it's a win-win situation. You help not only yourself but also our economy, right? More investments, great economy, yeah? This is just what I think, but I know I'm right. I tell about this to my friends, but they seem don't believe me.  Or I am not just an effective seller because I can't discuss these stuff to them, I am no good teacher so I just tell them, you may want to visit this site or contact this person but they still don't have interest, so I don't insist. Now I wanna know more about investment. As in more. If I can have more investment in the future. As of now, I'm planning to go to financial seminars to help me.

Hey, if you don't have what I've mentioned above yet, investment and insurance, or you wanna know more about those, please do visit this site:

This site is a big help for you specially to those people @ 20's. like what I've mention. Ms Lianne is really friendly, nice and very accommodating, will surely help you out. She is young. Younger than me. She is so cool that she knows alot about finance at the very young age who graduated from nursing. So cool. Again, consultation is free.

This is essential. I mean, you should REALLY get your insurance and invest NOW. I mean, really, really.