My first job in California

After a few days, I found a new job for now at home. Making our home a real home sweet home. Hopefully sorting into gardening will keep me tied up for awhile.

I found these petunias on sale along Carmel Mountain road garden store, one of my first hands on in gardening.

I had the weeds taken of the front yard, and added flowers around the unknown tree. What about a queen palm in the middle of it. Palm still on sale for $19.95 on seven gallon in Home Depot.

Moving on...

After 5 months of waiting… thank you, God is really great. I finally received our visa. We are going to visit my hubby and see how things are looking out there. Hopefully if everything looks fine, we will be settling with him. It’s been awhile since we haven’t been together and I can’t wait to have our family back again. And better yet, who doesn’t want to taste the sunny weather of California. I would like to see how it is there, how he is doing financially as he mentioned how tough life in his area in this time of recession. I will be missing my mother who has been so brave in dealing with her health condition, please continue your fight and hang tight there, my father who will be looking after my apartment dealings and handling over my auto supply business, my sisters, relatives and friends who have been supportive to me in my day to day financial affairs. I will be away from them but not quite. We maybe far a distance but we will still be closed as always. And you know the miracles of communication – internet, emails, chatting, webcam.

Just A Thought

Though I haven’t had any activity in my blog recently, I have been so busy tending to my parents health affair. My dear mother who has been sick for the last three weeks has been in and out of the hospital. I wish I could do something miracle, yet I am aware there is only One who could do so. With the help from friends, relatives, neighbors, love ones -prayers and faith will be our guiding light in coping our mother's ailing condition.

As I was busy googling the internet searching for some cures, something caught my attention. You are looking at the winning poster from a 4th grader. The purpose of the contest is to introduce young people to the concept of financial literacy, and allow them to express their understanding of it through art. This year, more than 4,000 posters were received illustrating the theme of ‘I’m going to be a millionaire because I….
Jenna beat out a bunch of other entries.
And you know why…

moneywisepostercontest.org

10 Financial Commandments

I read this article last night on the MSN and I am enticed on what the author listed. I know most of us have done these, a good thing, I am in my mid thirty’s.

1. Pay off your nonmortgage debt.
I agree on this 100 percent. I should have no debt except for mortgage and if there is one like a car where we need to commute to work, then it must be a reasonable one.

2. Kick the debt cycle altogether.
The author said “What good is it to pay off your loans only to take out another one and rack up more debt? An easy way to save for big-ticket items -- and avoid going back into debt -- is to put money you would have used for monthly debt payments and interest charges into a savings account. For instance, after you make that final $300-a-month student-loan payment, keep making an equal payment to yourself. After one year, you'll have $3,600 saved."
My hubby and I are planning of doing this. We have a credit card loan with an annual rate 9.9 percent per year and we are planning to apply a loan to payoff that loan using his 401k for 3 percent. I hope this will happen soon.

3. Get serious about retirement.
Being in our thirtyish is when we saw surprising growth in our 401k. Unfortunately the market has taken it back much of its gains. In the long run, we should be better. We were just lucky and able to timed up building our passive income.

4. Diversify your investments.
We tried our best to diversified most of our hard earned money were it’s been distributed to 401k, savings deposits, cd’s, income properties, and with my small business.

5. Continue to learn.
I have been continually educating myself. I often read financial books. Even the emails coming from readers and friends, it’s an experience that I like to pass on.

6. Protect your assets.
It’s our hard earned money and our security when we are ready to retire.

7. Live simply.
Unless you make a lot of money, you really can’t have everything at once. I would rather wait and save until I can afford that something. I am glad that my hubby and I live simply. We live in an affordable area and make a decent living and this is something were not everyone has the advantage. And I say we’re lucky, and thankful, and blessed. We still made the decision to live in a small house. Though not our dream house, we haven’t done any improvement on it.

8. Make your will known.
We are not really used to it. We are going to plan this out this coming months.

9. Get a life…insurance policy.
Being an owner of a small business, I never thought about having one. But at least my hubby has one from his employer.

10. Be charitable.
My family tithe but we could do better in giving. We give away our used clothings, used materials, still we could do better.

Reading the ten financial commandments makes me comfortable. I am feeling better at my husband and I on our accomplishment in our thirty’s. Sooner we will be in our forty’s and new commandments on the way.

A Welcome Start to My New Venture

I have my newly built apartment fully rented now. What a welcome start to my real estate venture in my hometown. I was quite surprised that such turnover happened at a quick phase. I recalled during the construction phase where I made my conservative speculation. That it would take me at least two months before I could fully rent it. This is due to the availability of apartments around the area. However, after a thorough observation doing my own survey, I found out that fifty percent of those apartments are old and needing upgrade. They lack the appeal to the wannabe tenants where most of them are in the mid thirty’s. I’d better lend my ear to what this group of people are looking for. Overcrowded tenants, such congested places creating negative comments from walks of life surely will scare them away, too. And yet after all, location still plays an important part of it. When I was still building my project, I noticed that people walking by kept asking of when the apartment will be ready for occupancy not minding the cost of the monthly rent.

And so after a week of completion and had my ribbon cutting done, I put up my sign. I ran three kinds of advertisement:

One - I printed out signs the size of regular printing paper and had it nailed on two electrical posts just between the vicinity of the location. Then, I posted another sign by my auto shop.
Two - I posted on the internet, forum section of sulit.com and entrepreneur.com, and
Third - is thru word of mouth.

Through out my posting, I received a lot of calls, text messages and emails. Every time I responded back I asked them of where they got the info. I found out that
seventy percent of the inquires got it from the posted signs, fifty percent were thru word of mouth (thanks to my friends and relatives, without their support, this won’t materialized), and fifteen percent were from the internet.
Of all those inquires, and after inspecting the place, various reasons came up again, on how they got turned down or why they turned it down:

1) Too many occupants. For a two bedroom renting by five, I believe its plain and simple too much. Rent includes free water supply, so my water pump and electricity consumption will suffer for too many users. Too many people living in a cramped place possess a safety issue. The area gets too warm to live, and sure enough most of their appliances will be running most of the time, like tv, stove, electric fan, etc. One more thing is unnecessary noise around the area creating an unpleasant neighborhood.
2) They couldn’t afford the down payment. I was asking a one month deposit plus a month of advance payment. I need this assurance incase my tenants suddenly vacate the place.
3) They found out that the place is too far from their work places.

For now, theses are just my thoughts, my observation… and as I go along, I am expecting more headaches will arise, more complains from left and right, more lessons to learn, more experiences to gain, more cash flow in hand, this makes my hubby a happy camper, and more ventures to follow. These will come up along this new found endeavor in my dealing. But first, let me not forget my important part in my family, for I am still a mother, a housewife, a homemaker, and a wife to an ofw.

I'm Taking A Week Off

After completing my project, it's about time to reward myself off. I'm taking a week off somewhere in that island.

That means no:
early wake up
telephone calls
text messages
traffic noise
music
internet
electricity
shopping
malling

My Apartment Project is Finally Completed

Done with my project….

Here we are, after fifty one days of construction, my two door apartment is finally completed.

This will be my last post of series regarding my project.

Looking on my excel sheets, and a box of shoes of receipts, total expenses for this two door, 27sqm each door, two room apartment is P324,430.

Total building materials – P254,785.

Food and Labor – P66,500.

This includes payment for the Meralco fixer, P12,000 (P6,000 each) electrical meters installation, municipal application and inspection.

Ribbon cutting by one of the sponsor, Lola Ruby

Father Fransisco presiding

A bucket of coins, anyone?

Prepping on blessings day

Progressive Village Lot Property

After a month of hectic negotiations, I finally closed the deal on the 360 square meters lot property located in Progressive Village. This is approximately two kilometers away from my current apartment project. The owner was previously asking for P3,500 per square meters but I was able to lower down to 2778/sqm… of which will cost my wallet an even P1M. Good thing no there is no real estate agent involved.

I noticed that lot property prices around this city varies so much that if you are not careful in doing your homework well, could drive you nuts. As a matter of fact, there is just this neighbor of that said property who is unknowingly selling their 180 sqm lot for P900k. Added to this, just two months ago my sister purchased a 180 sqm lot for P830k in Celestino area. That’s P4,400/sqm! Way up from the current zonal values! You may find your areas zonal values thru this Bureau of Internal Revenue link.

For now, my plan is to hold on to this property and see if I can sell for a higher profit. Divide this lot into two and sell the other half to my sister. My third option is put up another apartment project. Oh well….

A Quick Guide to Buying Property

I recently made my purchased on a property (this is how I conceived my blogsite), although a realtor agent took care mostly of the processing, as I went along with it, every now and then I learned something new. As everyone is aware of, buying property is not easy as we thought would be. You may think of a simple piece of property that look idle and abandoned for years with clean documents, but still we need to be careful and do our research since we don’t want to have that hard earned money blow up in the air.

Here are some tips that I would like to share with you:

1. Ensure that the title, also known as TCT “Transfer of Title Certificate” is real. One way to find out if it is authentic is by getting a “Certified True Copy” from the Register of Deeds. This office is usually located at the city or municipal hall where the property is located. In my town of Bacoor, I have to go to the provincial capital of Trece Martires City. Request from the seller of the property for a photocopy of the title. You will need the title number and the name of the owner to get a certified true copy of the title from the Register of Deeds.

2. Verify that the title is clean, that the property is not mortgaged, no liens and encumbrances of whatsoever on the said property. Read each pages of the Title and watch out for additional typewritten documents. Read the back page title with the heading “Encumbrances”. Sometimes the space is for the technical description of the property on the front page of the Title is not enough and the description of the property is continued on “Encumbrances” page, which is of course fine.

3. You want to make sure that the land described on the Title is really the land that you are buying. You can validate this at the Register of Deeds or by hiring a private surveyor or geodetic engineer. Land Titles don’t have any street name and number to pinpoint such property. You must confirm that the actual property you are buying matches the technical description on the Transfer Certificate of Title.

4. Make sure that the sellers are the real owners. If you are buying from an individual property owner, ask for identification papers like passport or driver’s license. It is also a good idea to talk to the neighbors to confirm the identity of the sellers as well as some history of the property. When I paid the seller, I made an unannounced visit to their residence, but then I changed my mind that I made the payment to their bank account instead.

5. Verify that the yearly real estate taxes are paid. Ask for a copy of the Tax Declaration to confirm that real state tax payments are up to date.

Good luck on your buying.

You may want to check these other sources:
http://real-estate-guide.philsite.net
www.islandsproperties.com
www.philippine-real.info

Family’s One less Worry

Finally I sold my two wheels, my scooter, Sym Jet 100. I bought it new in 2000 at a cost of P45,000. Odometer registered 18,043 kilometers on it. There were lots of repairs and maintenance that were done. The main battery was replaced twice. I had the muffler overhauled twice, too. I replaced the brakes five times. And lately at the time I sold it, the auto start shut down, I had to manual start it. The used to be loud high pitch horn surrendered its volume. The shiny waxed paint had faded and lost its appeal. And the right tail light cracked due to getting bumped by passersby.

I sold it for P20,000 from an annoying buyer that after the sale transaction, kept bugging and begging me for another P1,000 discount harassing with text messages that lasted three days.

It has become so risky driving a two wheel transport in my area. The narrow streets, congested traffic, lots of passerby, too many standbys, and the commuters’ attitude towards each other. The thought of being too prone to accidents has been a worrisome that I decided to sell it.

I am going to miss the scooter, my main companion for the last five years commuting between home and business. I have to get rid of it for heaven’s sake and rather be safe, that I stopped driving it for awhile....

A one less worry from the family.