Category Archives: personal

Planning for retirement (adulting is very hard)

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courtesy of philstar.com

courtesy of philstar.com

My conversation with my friend (see previous entry) prompted me to ponder about my immediate financial future (Will I get a raise after working my butt off for a year and six months? How should i ask for a raise? Shall i ask for a change in contract?). While I did so, I couldn’t help but think of (and act on) my financial future 30 or 40 years down the road.

My mother has scrimped and saved and was brutally frugal when we were still under her roof and she’s now reaping the rewards: she has more than enough money in the bank; a generous retirement package c/o GSIS; and she will be going on an Alaskan cruise, a European religious pilgrimage and a Canadian tour all within this year.

While I don’t plan to have a grand retirement like that, I suddenly felt that I should be saving more than 50% of income for retirement since the SSS is going bust in a decade, methinks, if they don’t mend their ways and be beaten to a pulp to shape up.

The benefit of being a business journalist is that you get to learn more about investing than an average Juan from the streets. So while I was writing about Lehman Brothers going belly up and the subsequent tanking of the markets in September 2008, my mind was whirling and began gathering up my courage. On the second day that PSE was on a tailspin after Lehman, I bought 3 stocks that (having previously bought a power/energy stock prior to Lehman) I knew I could hold for the long-term until my kids enter college (I was 28 years old then and didn’t have kids). So until today I hold those 4 stocks that I bought for dirt-cheap prices that I will never see in my lifetime again. When markets bleed, I buy. When they do a rights offer, I buy. I never sold any of them yet.

Prior to Lehman (around February 2008), I bought myself a traditional insurance policy. A few months after that, I placed a huge sum of money (for me at that time) in a mutual fund.

I terminated that traditional insurance policy last year and shifted to a VUL with several riders in it (I neglected to keep up with my traditional because life got in the way and my insurance agent left the country and was an orphan policy holder until last year). My mutual fund was still intact and in fact it earned well. I just regret that I wasn’t able to top up my investment for the past 8 years because again, life got in the way (high-octane job that made going to the bank for payments a little off-putting) and because my former agent left me high and dry. *Aww shucks for the lost time, I keep telling myself* I got my financial life in order last year and a few weeks ago I just transferred my mutual fund into another fund. Then topped up my investment after the market tanked. I’m hoping the market would tank again by March or by the third quarter (US Fed hiking rates) so I could place another tranche of my savings into that mutual fund.

Last month, I bought my nearly 5-year old twins insurance policies with investment riders that hopefully we could use for their college education (the direct stock investments are for their college funds as well). The other education policies being offered to me were expensive that I felt I would be stretching myself too thin if I was suckered into buying those so I searched for other insurance products that have good investment riders. I would pay for the policies for my kids annually while my own insurance policy is a quarterly thing so my monthly budgeting would be easier.

Aside from my mutual fund and insurance policies, I’ve been putting funds in another savings account that I don’t touch. That is my emergency fund. I want to have at least 6 months’ worth of expenses for my emergency fund, just for my peace of mind. I hope I don’t get to be unemployed that long.

I’m still not satisfied with my investments since I worry about inflation and future medical costs. I’m thinking of placing some savings in time deposits but—bahahahaha! As someone who covered Treasury auctions, I know it’s nearly impossible to make money out of these unless the Philippine government goes back to its bad habits and blows its finances and starts borrowing more than it can collect revenues. Of course I wouldn’t want that. But I can revisit this time deposit option since I don’t want inflation eating into my savings in my regular savings account. Inflation is a brutal animal but at this moment, with oil prices dropping and food inflation a slightly less-than-worrisome issue, I can put it off my mind in the next 6 months.

Or I can go for a UITF. The Landbank Growth UITF looks ok to me (40% fixed income, 60% stocks) but I have to check their performance vs other UITFs. After I meet my desired emergency fund ceiling, then I can go back to thinking about investing in a UITF.

I have two vehicles that are over 5 years old (one is 10 years old and another is 7 years old) but they’re running well and have a couple of more years in them. I don’t see any need to replace them in the near future. I am renting right now but I must think about buying a property outside Manila to be the forever home. How I would budget for that is still a mystery. Either I would have to change jobs again or be brutally frugal like what my mother was, sending us to school while paying for her forever house, which by the way, worked out well in the end.

Adulting is very hard.

AGE-ISM

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Society is cruel on women of certain age. If you get past the age of 30, you’re already dismissed as old. But honestly at 35 I still feel like I am 25 but wiser than my 25-year-old self. I would rather be my 35-year-old self than be scatter-brained, clueless 25-year-old me.

Hollywood is one of the biggest proponent of age-ism:

Aging Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal ‘Too Old’ to Play 55-Year-Old’s Lover

37-year-old Maggie Gyllenhaal was recently told by a Hollywood producer that she was “too old” to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man. In an interview with The Wrap, Gyllenhaal said she was surprised by the producer’s admission, but that it’s just one of the many “disappointing things about being an actress in Hollywood.”

“It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made feel angry, and then it made me laugh.”

When will society stop feeding our insecurities?

I oftentimes feel ugly due to weight issues but maybe in reality I’m not really that bad-looking. Then the pressure to be the perfect size 10 after giving birth has never been that greater than before. Social media has made it worse, with photos of your elementary school classmates frolicking in the beach in their two-piece swimsuits dominating your Facebook newsfeeds.

TRAGEDY STRIKES BEFORE THE YEAR ENDS

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Photo from InterAksyon.com by Brandy Roa Solayao

As of today, the last day of 2014, rescuers and retrieval personnel of the Catbalogan City government are still searching for the missing victims of the landslide in Burak, Brgy. Mercedes, Catbalaogan, Samar. Fifteen people are reported dead, three of whom were small children–the youngest was 3 years old. It has been raining non-stop for two days as Typhoon ‘Seniang’ swept from Northeast Mindanao to Eastern Visayas. The typhoon dumped huge amounts of rainfall, causing massive flooding in its wake. Misamis Oriental has declared a state of calamity. In Leyte near the town of Carigara, a bridge gave way to the rushing river that has overflowed, cutting off several towns from Tacloban City.

In short, I am not in a celebratory mood.

The kids and I had been here in Catbalogan since December 23 to celebrate the holidays. So far none of our plans pushed through due to bad weather. To make matters worse, my kids and I were down with a nasty bug, triggering really bad asthma attacks. Trips to the beach and other jaunts would have to wait until our next visit.

This year has been tumultuous for me personally, bringing me highs and really deep lows. I changed jobs but before that, I succumbed to the burnout that has affected many of my colleagues in the online news business. One such colleague-friend left her editing post almost at the same time as I did. She told me the high stress level she had been enduring for the past three years has induced neurological ailments in her. “It’s not worth it in the end,” she told me, “at the expense of my health.” She quit her online news job and now she’s a correspondent for an overseas publication and she says she still has her internal targets but she’s doing her job in her own pace.

I can say the same thing for me. I do my job at my own pace and I choose the coverage I have to go to, depending on what my priorities for the month are. I set my internal targets and I am now developing my own system since I am working alone.

Do I miss the fast-paced newsroom/news cycle? So far not yet. Do I miss reporting things that matter? Sometimes but when I see my colleagues rushing past me due to hectic deadlines, I am thankful that I don’t have to deal with that anymore. Although my news cycle is slower, I have different demands and different challenges that I have to deal with. One of them is to be verrrrrry ahead of everyone else. That’s really tough but somehow manageable.

Still winging it, being a working mom. This year we sent the twins to school so at least somehow their boredom at home lessened a little bit. Sometimes I marvel at how quick their minds work. They’re an active lot.

Thankful for the opportunities and experiences learned this past year. Here’s to 2015!

THIS IS WHAT I’M AFRAID OF: DATA CAPPING

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Since Bayan now will be folded under Globe, there is now a possibility that it would impose that much-dreaded data capping.

I need my data. I am an online journalist after all. I have my Facebook and Twitter accounts open at all times because my job requires me to. I have to access YouTube videos and be able to upload or download large amounts of data because I also post in our CMS and do all sorts of things when uploading a story. I stream videos and audios, especially oral arguments at the Supreme Court. And I download—all sorts of things.

And here I am contemplating whether or not I would bump up my speeds and be tied to another 24-month lock-in period. Or I can pay P5,000 to be able to be free of that lock-in contract.

To quote this IT professional-blogger:

The employee then calls Globe Telecoms, and encounters a straight run of awkward, plain disinformation:

He is told that this data cap is mandated by the NTC.  Telcos asked NTC to include this in administrative memoranda back in 2011, and had NTC not rejected the proposal, this would have given Globe Telecoms and PLDT-Smart the means to impose caps. This would help them to expand their customer base, by enabling them to take on more customers at a reduced level of service.  It makes absolutely no sense that the National Telecommunications Commission would impose a restriction on commerce this way, and not have consumers fight back.   (A word of advice to you at Globe Telecoms:  Fire whoever they were who devised the call center agents’ script, effectively making these workers lie for you.)

So what to do, what to do?

A SORT OF REVIEW | PATIS TITO GARDEN CAFE

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(This is not a sponsored review)

The twins and I spent our Christmas week in Los Banos and the weekend before the New Year, Mel and I decided to try Patis Tito Garden Cafe in San Pablo City. Driving there is a cinch, about 30 minutes away from our place in UPLB via the Maahas-dating-sabungan road (in my 34-year existence, I still could not get the name of that road near IRRI).

This is the much-hyped restaurant of Patis Tesoro, formerly known as Kusina Salud, the fusion Filipino cuisine resto. Hyped in the sense I’ve been reading so much about it in the past that it piqued my curiosity.

If you’re coming straight from Manila, the resto is faaaaaaaaaaaaaar. It’s along the road going to Villa Escudero and everybody knows that is already spitting-distance away from Tiaong, Quezon. From the highway in Brgy. Sta. Cruz, you turn left at a corner near a gas station and a narrow road would lead you there. Just follow the signs.

Open-air dining area of Patis Tito Garden Cafe (Photo by Likha Cuevas-Miel)

Lovers of old Filipiniana would like the place. There’s an exhibit of some antiques, handicrafts and Patis’ creations–and I made sure the twins would not venture there unless I like hurting myself and am willing to pay several thousands of pesos for the damage caused by the Demolition Twins. The weather was cool and breezy, making our late lunch pleasant and laid back.

Simple table setting

Table setting is unpretentious and uncomplicated. Menu is simple enough, no tongue-twisters there. Don’t forget to order the Enseladang Pako (Fern Salad)! It’s made of fresh edible ferns, itlog na maalat, cheddar cheese, kesong puti, newly ripened tomatoes, lots of onions, nuts, vinaigrette and probably other ingredients that escaped my tongue. Too bad it’s for sharing. I would have loved to keep the entire serving to myself.

Enseladang Pako (Fern Salad)

We ordered Chicken Inasal for the kids, Bistek Tagalog (Isabella, one of the Demolition Twins, liked the sauce drizzled over her rice),  Garlic Rice, and lots of Ripe Mango Juice that the twins swiped from under their father and Nanay Gie’s noses. Bill is around P2,000 for 3 grown-ups and two pre-schoolers. The food is OK, pleasing to the palate but not as stupendous as I thought it would be. The way some people or newspaper(s) had been praising the place caused me to place my expectations that high. But the fern salad was exceptional.

There was some kind of aviary in the cafe’s garden and Isabella and Adriana were entertained by the squawking birds and I wonder if the birds weren’t traumatized by the kids’ louder squawking. The garden was wide enough for the twins to run around, slip and fall.

Overall, it was a nice lunch but if you’re coming straight from Manila, it would probably be not worth it. If you’re city-bred, you would be enthralled by the ambiance (the house adjacent to the dining area is cool) but for a promdi (who grew up at the foot of Mt. Makiling), it’s nothing special. Visit Patis Tito if you’re already in Laguna or in nearby Quezon towns of Tiaong, Candelaria or Dolores. Try to call for reservations; I got the feeling that you have to given the limited seating they have there.

Patis Tito Café is at 285 Barangay Sta. Cruz Putol, San Pablo, Laguna. Call 7244231 and 0906-4439092