GreenBucks

Nice asked me to answer this question:

Can you share any budget or money saving tips that you find effective?

I found this very apt because of the present situation we are experiencing, not just here in the Philippines but all the over the world: food crisis, rising price of gasoline, environmental concerns, rising cases of violence among others.

On the other hand, I find this question amusing. Why? Because we have been saving, budgeting, saving, scrimping, budgeting…ok you got it, but still, no matter how much we save, nothing seems to be happening good with the budget, if there is even a budget at all.

Anyway, here are a few tips I can write about on how we try to save:

1. Instead of frying the chicken pieces, cook these with vegetables and sauce, that way, we have more servings. Same goes with fish and other food products. Be a kitchen genius. There’s no need to buy expensive ingredients if one knows how to cook well. If not, learn to cook and avoid, asmuch as possible, eating out.
2. Turn off all electrical appliances that are not in use.
3. Buying of toys and other unnecessary things are not allowed. These unnecessary things are the trinkets, small things that become junk after a few weeks.
4. Stick to the budget. The what? Yes, the budget, especially during Christmas holidays.
5. Bring food to work, or in my eldest daughter’s case, bring cooked food for lunch.
6. Take care of your things so these can last long.
7. Eat at home before going anywhere. And when going somewhere, bring packed food and drinks.
8. Ask yourself first if you really, really need a thing before purchasing. Be honest.
9. Wait for your favorite items to go on sale, even if it means a loooong wait.Who knows, you might change your mind and not buy that thing anymore.
10. Be simple. Feel joy and happiness without spending a dime by appreciating the wonderful things around you. In other words, walang malling, sa bahay na lang tayo.

This I can honestly say, our family can go to a mall to eat and browse, and window shop and leave the mall without spending on anything other than food, gas and parking ticket. Well, of course, that too is still spending so we would rather stay in the house or go for a nature walk.

5 Comments »

My friend Wenchie asked me two weeks ago about how a certain sponsored post writing goes. This paid posting site has it differently than other sites. Why? Because bloggers can bid the price that they want to be paid for writing posts. They get 65% of the price they would bid with.

Here are the simple steps in going about this sponsored post services:

1. Register your blog.
2. Wait for your bog to be approved.
3. When your blog is approved, check your blog’s status regarding ranking. There are checks that show how much one can charge, say from $10 – $100. There are also those who can charge as high as $500. But of course, there would be buts here which I wouldn’t write anymore.
4. When all these are done, one can start the bidding process. How? Here’s how:
   1. Look for available opportunities from advertisers.
   2. Be sure to read the description of the available opportunity. If it asks for blogs with PR3 and you don’t even have a PR, then don’t try to bid on that opportunity.
   3. Be sure to bid well within the range of prices set by the advertisers. For example, if the minimum bid price is $10 and the maximum bid price is $50, then don’t bid $75, even your bidding capability is up to $800.00. Yes, there are those who can charge as high as that, if there are advertisers willing to pay that.
   4. When bidding, try to bid using the maximum allowed bids. For the bidding price mentioned above, try bidding at half the price, or maybe even lower. Be sure to consider your blog’s ranking when doing the bidding. Blogs with high ranks are probably ok to bid high but to those of us without ranks, (Hello,Google? send some PR around here 🙂 ), that is a risk I wouldn’t want to take. Why? Continue Reading »

6 Comments »

It is not just the Philippines that suffer the rising price of rice (and just about all other commodities, be these edible or not).

Asian states have shortages citing extreme weather, rise in demand for food in fast growing places, price hike due to hoarding , low stockpile and  long term lack of agricultural investment.

The Egyptians are also suffering from price hike of food.

India, with over a billion in population is likely to suffer or has already been suffering food crisis.

Australia‘s drought means no food too.

What has been happening to the cost of food across the globe?

4 Comments »

Debt that the British had incurred for the last decade has been astonishing $2.8 trillion or 1.4 trillion pounds, according to that New York Times article.

Spending more than one can earn is not just dangerous, its very dangerous. Being in debt is not a good. How would one pay for those debts? With used designer shoes? With foreign holidays already consumed? With used designer clothes? I don’t think so. Such is not the case.

Children have their own cellphones. People can get the latest models in tech gadget, clothes, cars and every thingamajig that comes out in the market. These things are outdated every few weeks, months. For tech gadgets, these are outdated by the time they come out of the market.

So what? So what if people get these things for themselves? If these were purchased using the plastic, then I personally don’t think its a good investment, judging by the way things change so fast. Better purchase these things in cash to avoid being indebted to these big companies where in the long run, it is not just the purchased thing is being paid for but even one’s dignity.

No Comments »

This is what parents hammer into the minds of their children when they are growing up.

But with today’s unconventional ways of living, people do not really rely on having good education to have that dream job to be able to have some form of purchasing power.

A lot of the parents now are probably a product of this kind of philosophy which they got from their parents. I am sure this line of thinking is what exactly they are telling their children who go to school.

Sure, it is a comforting thought to have a solid educational background to up the resume. Who wouldn’t want to hire someone with an MA or MBA or PhD? Who wouldn’t want to hire someone whose GPA is somewhere near 4.0? More often than not, these people are highly qualified to apply to a job that would need their expertise. But are they up to the challenge to maintain that status they so want to achieve?

Continue reading here.

4 Comments »

Paper boxes anyone?

Great for a business venture or for personal use.

Click here to read more. Or click there -> He Cares Foundation where you can find these paper boxes.

No Comments »