It’s easy to get a credit card and it’s even easier to misuse it. Do you agree?

I had a chat with my former officemate last night who is now based in Texas, USA. She told me that she’s having a hard time in paying her credit card bills and other debts.It’s affecting her everyday life already because some creditors are harassing her through mails and phone calls. I honestly informed her that I don’t have much knowledge about credit card laws in the USA, but I shared to her my story on how I was able to clear my credit card debts. I even advice her to check on some plano credit repair company to assist and perhaps help her on how to clear her negative credit ratings too.

I used to have 6 different credit cards in my wallet. Whenever I want something, I just whip out my card thinking that I can pay it through my salary which I’m receiving every month. But it was a gross mistake on my part. What I always have in mind was my high credit card limit  but not the real cash on hand, and my monthly take home pay. And before I knew it, I was already buried in debt and unable to pay even the minimum payment.

This greatly affected my  credit history when it was time to get a loan.  Somehow, the banks knew that I defaulted on most of my credit cards payment in the past.

At first I did not inform my husband about my problem but since we need to get a loan from the bank, I disclosed to him what happened. My husband helped me by lending me some amount to gradually close all my credit cards. Yes, he wanted me to cut all my credit cards in two. Being a dutiful wife, I resigned to my husband’s desire. It was a struggle in the beginning  but when I was able to pay the full amount on the first credit card, everything became smoothly until I was able to settle all 6.

I don’t want to be in that situation again. So I followed my husband advice to drop everything. I even requested a certificate of full payment from the credit card companies just in case I’ll be needing them later on. I was glad I did. After some few years ( 2 years to be exact, I think), my credit report was on the positive side already and was able to get a loan for our house.

Lessons learned.

• Two credit cards is more than enough already.
• Control your spending even if you  have high credit limit.
• Don’t give in to installment basis if you can’t even pay the item in full cash.
• Pay the balance in full  on or before due date.
• If you’re having trouble paying your credit card debts, settle it as soon as possible.
• Tell your husband about your spending habit.

The Network for Enterprising Women (NEW) is pleased to announce the staging of the 5th Annual Women Entrepreneurs Conference. The Conference is expecting 200 participants to include women from top corporations, entrepreneurs of small and medium sized businesses, teachers, students and graduates of entrepreneurship courses, officers, and middle managers of government agencies and local government units, overseas Filipino workers and their families and also gender advocates in NGO’s and government.

Network for Enterprising Women (NEW) is founded in 2006. Specifically, NEW is a group of women whose advocacy is to create an environment where there is an exchange of business ideas, sharing of experience, and opportunity to network.

For this year’s conference, it will include topics on:

• Marketing and Innovation by Josiah Go of Mansmith and Fielders
• Inbound Marketing by Tricia Gosingtian of www.blog.triciagosingtian.com
• Business Economic Outlook for 2012 by Ronald Balbieran of the University of Asia and the Pacific.

Aside from the above mentioned names, the will also showcase the members’ different businesses as well as introduce other business ideas.

The Conference will be held on January 28, 2012 (Saturday) from 8:30am to 12:00nn at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Makati Avenue, Makati City.

Sponsor’s for this year conference are BusinessWorld, Manila Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, Working Mom Magazine, Lifestyle Network, HerWord.com, GoNegosyo and ProAccess.

For more information and reservations, please call 908-2558 / 0917-5408697 or email newomen@gmail.com. To register online, log on to www.newomen.net.

Aim to dig-up the coolest finds, but low-cut gifts this season? Visit the Novel Discovery Bazaar now. Any budget would fit in with its really cheap and affordable products sold in kiosks, stalls and “tiangges.”

Here are some shopping tips from Ms. Aida Gregorio, the project manager herself:

• Start at the most convenient time possible. You should allow only two hours of shopping hours.
• Wear cool and comfortable clothes as well as limit wearing jewelries or accessories that can add to the hassle of carrying things that you have shopped for from stall to stall.
• Write down everything you want to buy and who will be given the gifts.
• There should be a definite budget for each gift to give.
• Bring shopping bags in reasonable numbers that you can use as well as re-use for shopping at the bazaar.
• Keep the receipt.
• Check what you have shopped for numbers and repairs.
• Take care and look after your personal possessions.

Prices for men and women t-shirts can range from Php 99 up to 150 only. On the other hand, shoes are offered in a buy-one-take one discount promo, which are made in high quality and in lots of sizes. There are also casual or formal blouses offered in 3 for Php 580, really affordable. You just have to buy once for 2 persons.

Store hours are: 11 am to 9 pm during Monday to Thursday and 11am to 10 pm during Friday to Sunday. This year, on its 11th run, there are 23 shopping days to enjoy. Namely they are:

• World Trade Center – November 18 to 27 and December 21 to 23
• PICC Forum – December 9 to 18

The proceeds of the bazaar will go to the GMA Kapuso Foundation, Associate Missionaries of Assumption and Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation. Helping are the hands of GMA Network and the Philippine Daily Inquirer to be able to acquire more buyers and sellers.

Were you shocked with the title of my post today? Don’t be.

It’s the time of year once more when many of us get loads of cash from year-end bonuses, at least for the working moms out there. And for those who are not in active working force anymore, well just ask for your husband’s bonuses. 

I’m pretty sure a lot of you can easily answer my question. Majority will answer ” spend, spend and spend!” Well, that’s my answer too… but I’m thinking on some other ways to put a part of it in savings. Not too big, but enough to start the ball rolling of savings for the future. My husband told me that If I want to keep my money, then I’ll just deposit it on a bank but If I want to make it grow then I need to invest it.

A badminton friend of mine told me that every end of the year, together with her husband, they pooled their money together and invest in stocks. Well, I don’t know anything about these kind of investments  but I’ve been reading more and more online like the Timothy Sykes penny stocks.

Good thing another friend of mine, who is connected to a local life insurance and a mutual fund company, explained to me how stocks works. Since I’m not an active player in buying and selling stocks, she encouraged me instead to look into mutual funds. She told me it’s the same with the pooling of money that my badminton friend is doing, the money for mutual funds is being pooled also from a lot of people and invest them on different portfolios like stocks. The advantage of this is that you don’t need to be involve in day-to-day o buying and selling of stocks since a Fund Manager will take care of it.

So for those of you who doesn’t know where to spend, I mean to save your hard earned money, you  may get in touch with me and I’ll refer you to my friend.

As couples grow old, they will need a retirement community wherein choosing a good health care system is vital. As Pinay Moms, you and your husbands should now start investing on an effective health care system. You can search them among the Internet advertisements offering this kind of services.

How can you say if it is the right choice for you? One should cover programs catered especially for needs on prevention of diseases and illness as well as the promotion healthy lifestyles for the both of you, endowment of the newest health technologies and guiding materials containing the most novel health and medical products, with particular treatments using special products for the prevention, health discovery and treatment of disease.

Life says that a good health is the heart of an investment. Every hale and hearty person can complete activities that make it meaningful to be alive. As you and you husband get old, so does your happiness level. Thus, exhausting more energy than you can think of. Incorporating a health care system in your routines is 1 way of sustaining and enhancing your health. You can combat daily environmental and behavioral threats in this way. Our goal in life should be to add years, life to these years.

If you are not still a part of it, nowadays, there is an obsession with bearing bodies to die for. Anyone of us would want to reach this state in our lives. Some even say that this effect on people is a good manner of skirmishing diseases and affecting relationships over actually no effort at all.

Health promoters also attest that end results of a good health care system show members on exhibiting added exercises, maintaining lighter weights and eating balanced diets that improves each day at their dining tables. Yet, critics of the said health solution have protested that this way of contouring up a body can only give us empty hearted and selfish personalities at the end. They say that members will only show care from own gratifications. However, stop worrying, because these conjunctions are so false.

Who are the experts to ask? If you really want a very effective health care system, you can consult the nearest health workers, health policy makers, health analysts and health service users reachable in your area. They should be capable of a better and broader grasps on aspects of health, its causes, needed phases and follow-up treatments. Besides, you can also read scholarly materials from books with chapter discussions on topics like academic debates, occupational health, health philosophy, policy statements, distribution and risks of health and disease patterns or health curriculum.

Incorporating studies on well-being under health care system will introduce the re-conceptualization of health, fresh ways of perceiving health, a new way of studying what health is, and a broadened understanding of health that was resulted due to an absence of disease or physical functioning to comprise of social issues, like transport, work, housing, sexuality and the diversity of risks with choice, behavioral and outlook factors.

Moreover, studying well-being in terms of health, a person’s key life experiences and conditions are compared with the health policy and practice, which you and your husband can actually be really facing today.

Hence, know what to include in a daily diet. See you and your husband today transform health into well-being with the benefits of a good health care system! It is the key to a balanced life.

Do you buy and sell online?

If you are the Buyer, how can you guarantee that the seller is not a scammer?

And if you are the Seller, how do you trust your buyers if they are legitimate?

I used to sell some second hand items online. I even met with the potential buyers (with my hubby as my bodyguard, obviously for security reason).  And of course, I even bought items online mostly from local sellers so I can meet them personally too.

And now, my husband is urging me once again to do business online. It’s more of a buy and sell. He wants me to buy items either locally and from abroad,  add a profit margin of 20-30 percent then sell the items again online. He told me that I can do it even if I have a full-time job. He even  volunteering himself to be the messenger of my business, if time won’t permit me to meet with the sellers/buyers.

What bothering me is,  what’s the best business credit cards that I need to use so I can order online specially from international sellers? I have 3 personal credit cards already but I don’t want to compromise them if something bad happens.  I’ve heard a lot risky of phishing and scamming of online credit card transaction and I don’t want to be one of the victims.

I think online businesses doesn’t entertain debit card. As far as I know, only credit cards are permitted to be used when paying the items you bought online. Correct me if I’m wrong. I personally don’t like to use bank deposit or money transfer because it is very slow and I don’t want to go to the bank either.

Is it wise to get another credit card that I can use for online transaction only, or should I just use one of my current credit cards? Now, I’m in a predicament.

A personal disclaimer here. I really don’t know much about investment. I mean, real investment that involves moolah! I thought my collection of shoes are investments. I thought my collection of hand bags are already investments.

But I was wrong. My husband encouraged me (forced?) to make investment, not for myself nor for him but for the future of our kids.

I withdrew a sum of money on my bank account and invested it on a mutual fund. As I’ve mentioned in my disclaimer, I don’t know much anything about investment much more about mutual fund. My husband explained to me on how does mutual fund works and how I can earn from it. He told me that it’s long term investment and that my money will be locked up for some few years in order to earn. He also explained to me the money in the mutual fund is being pooled from many investors  (like me), and invest to buy securities such as money market instruments, bonds and stocks.

Additionally,  our agent informed us that the mutual fund we enrolled in can also be used in buying stock funds both in our local market and foreign securities. According to her, we are in an era where people are more health conscious now more than even and so a lot investors are also buying the best medical penny stocks in the market.

To tell you the truth, my mind cannot comprehend all the information my husband and our agent told me. My mind went into temporary oblivion while they’re explaining all the terms to me. Good thing, we were on a restaurant on that day and I just concentrated on the sumptuous food instead.

Seriously, I didn’t mind spending my money on an investment like this instead of spending it on gadgets that lost value only after few months.

What about you, dear readers? Have you made an investment for you and/or your family? I’ll be glad to know more. Please share what are those investments and who knows, they might be of help to other readers as well.

I fancy bags…no I love bags… I can’t help but stare to some girls when I see a nice bag hanging on their shoulders wishing I have that kind also. In the office, when I need to relax, I would surf the net for signature bags like Coach, LV, Fossils, Channel, Prada, Hermes. It’s one of the best ways to relieve stress and treat my anxiety specially whenever there’s a lot of project that needs to be finished on time.

Just some of my personal bag collections

There are some people I know who share the same passion (or habit) as I have. Some of them told me that they can’t help but give in to their habit especially when they see  bag that they really like and dying to get their hands to hold it. They would feel uneasy, sick just thinking of the bag that they want. And there are those who will go the extra mile – resorting to loan money just to be able to buy bags.

Sometimes I would think, am I still normal? My husband sometimes complains about me having too many bags and not using them. He told me he had a small talk with our eldest son the other day about my bags. My 8-year old son told him that I’m spending too much on them already. He even saw me once when I’m reserving a bag online.  Of course my husband defended my actions and explained to him that bags makes me happy, and that I’m working hard. So it’s just a form of small reward my self, according to my husband.

Though our son is still young and might not be able to understand my behavior when it comes to my desire for bags,  I kinda felt some guilt when I heard that story.  I’ve been asking myself and trying to convince that I’m still normal (or so I thought or would like to believe). Am I being a bad example to my kids? I hope not.

Collecting bags, or anything fancy that will make you happy is not bad. Just as long as you know how to be responsible especially with your finances. If this will make you happy and comfort then go.  Controlling the urge to buy the bag that you really want is hard to do.  What I’m trying to say is, talk to yourself, always weigh your decision between needs and wants. Make a bargain to yourself (sound strange but this one is very effective on me). Ask help from your friends.

Have a nice weekend and enjoy your bags!

First, let me state that this post is not about me but about my hubby whom I’m encouraging to take a higher degree. When I say “higher degree”, I mean a postgraduate academic master’s degree and maybe a doctorate degree, but not for now. Well, I have ambition too,  but personally, I want my husband to have more laurels than me. Do you feel the same way too for your partners in life?

Higher Degree in Education

I think, again at least  on my own views,  most wives will feel the honor as well when they’re husbands finished a higher education.

So from time to time, I tried to talk about this topic to him. He always tells me that he wants to get a higher degree but not on the same field of interest where he is now. He actually went into mba admission process once, when we were planning to migrate to another country. This is in preparation for, hopefully, a better job when we migrate. I actually even helped him to look for MBA admission guide on the net. Unfortunately, that didn’t materialize because the area of expertise he wants to get into is not one of the in-demand jobs in the country where we are planning to migrate.

Why does it matter to get higher degree in education?

According to a  survey done by a business group,  it reveals that one of the most difficult parts of the job of a business leader  (the boss) is to surround himself with the right people; people who think and work like the business owners – caring and doing something to help the business survive, improve its profitability and find new opportunities for growth and expansion. These people help the company to reach its goals and visions. This is the very main reason why a lot corporations are recruiting people with high degree of education. They want to surround themselves with people who has the same wave length, someone they can trust and will perform like a true business owners. In short, thinking like an Employer and not an employee.

My husband has the passion and mindset of an entrepreneur. He always explore business ideas which he thinks will aid us not only financially but to help other people too. He wants to generate jobs. He told me that mastering business is not complicated; you just need to know what to focus on.

Truly, business greatest lessons are learned outside the classroom. Getting a higher degree where most students belongs to different  industries is an added factor so you will be exposed to different business models as well.

My husband was furious when he learned (or forgot) that he was not able to pay the amount due of his credit card on time. He told me that he did not received any billing statement from the credit card company and because of this, he was charged with interests and late charge fee as well. My hubby usually pays on or before the due date but because we were on vacation for almost two weeks and my eldest son got sick just some few days after that, he was not able to check the payment due date of his credit card.

He was so mad when he received the bill or statement of credit card account for the past two months only today. I don’t know whose fault it is. The courier or the credit card company. What made him more irritated is that the charges and interest is even more than the minimum amount due.

My husband is actually using a  money budgeting software to keep track of his expenses and budgets (and not so much of his savings…LOL). He was using the program MS Money Plus before, unfortunately Microsoft stopped the support for it already and no longer available. He’s using another program but this time it’s a free budget software.  He even let me see how it works. This new software is easy to use that even a busy mom can set it up in just few minutes. Unfortunately, for me,  I don’t have the patience to keep tracking my expenses or should I say I hate looking at my expenditures. Moreover, I don’t want to see If I’m overspending already or not.

I’ve told my husband that he will do the savings and I’ll do the spending. Fair enough, isn’t?

By the way, please, lets keep this post secret and don’t tell my husband about it.