birthday greetings!

Happy Birthday Adoy! All the best!

compo!

We always listen to music through the computer. I've been telling IFC to decide on what kind of music player to get. And finally, we got this...

give me some MONEY!!!!!!!!!

I usually buy things when they are on sale or better yet when they are on clearance. And since Memorial Day is coming, I want to take the opportunity of the holiday sale. I have to start shopping as early as now for our Philippines trip on December. I’m having second thoughts though since we’ve used our Visa and Amex a lot lately… IFC’s glasses, shopping at Marshalls and Target for me (since I don’t fit anymore into most of my summer clothes last year arrrggghhh), music player from PC Richard, fee for the medical exam (not covered by the insurance) and the plane tickets (which get the biggest portion). All of these totaled $4500. And it doesn’t even include the regular spending like MTA and phone cards Whew! What a pain! Sometimes I wish I’m rich so I don’t have to worry about money huh!

And about the shopping, I have to buy stuff for our families anyway so… bahala na!

" in limbo "

In limbo?! Well, sort of...

A lot of crazy things have been going on lately. I wouldn’t go into details but we were so disappointed with how the supposedly “long wait” seemed useless… and sad to say, it is not within our control. We took that "only" chance to fix it. We had to shell-out a kind of significant (well at least for us) amount of money.

Two weeks later, we received good news for the other request. Sometimes it’s really a matter of timing! If this was just released earlier… ***sigh***

But... it has to stop right there as we didn’t reach their quota. We don't even know how long we have to wait again. Two days passed and they revised it… which means to say, we can proceed. Yey!

Thank you, Lord for making all things possible!

Are you still with me?! I know you’re kind of confused with my story. I’m sorry but I just can't say what IT really is... for now. I hope you understood it in a way?!

Oh and one more thing…

I called my agent last Tuesday just to say hi. I had no intention of inquiring on the tickets or anything because she said some time last year to call her around August for that. Then, she just blurted-out… “uy when are you going to book your flight?” I was like duh it’s only May! Who would ever think that most of the airlines are already booked this early! I didn’t even file for my leave yet. Everything just happened so fast… and voila! We have our plane tickets! Yes, we’re spending Christmas in the Philippines! Another Yey!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Birthday, Mommy! (my mom-in-law) Wish we could be there to have some spaghetti! I Hehehehe.

Happy 33rd wedding anniversary, Paps and Ma! May you have more happy and meaninful years together.

Saving or not?!

This very great and helpful idea came from Glo. Thanks, Glo!

Anyway, I’ve been freaking out trying to think of ways to save money considering that I already have a budget for everything. All this time I was thinking we’re not saving at all. I feel so especially guilty whenever we’re buying food or dining in at a restaurant. I always tell myself I should cook no matter what. But on the contrary, both IFC and I agree that we need to treat ourselves once in a while… not just in food but also on things like watching movies or shopping.

So I’ve laid out all our earnings and expenses for the last 4 months and made a graph for easier interpretation…

Summary:
38% - savings
18% - rent
10% - padala
09% - other expenses
07% - shopping
05% - groceries
05% - utilities
04% - personal allowance
03% - transportation
01% - restaurants

Notes:
- Rent gets the biggest portion of our monthly expenses… something that is not within our control.
- Utilities include telephone, DSL internet, electricity, laundry and phone cards for overseas calls to the Philippines. We try our best not to use IDD. Our electricity bill only peaks up during the summer because of air conditioner’s use.
- The restaurant expenses only came up to 1% because some of our eat-outs come from our monthly allowances. I still think it is minimal even if you add it up to the allowance’s 4%.
- I am proud to say that the 7% share for shopping included some of the Christmas gifts which we charged to our credit card, thus, paid in January. We’re not really crazy on shopping or should I say, we know how to control the urge. Lol.
- For the “others” portion, there was just an unexpected expense that we incurred last month. Had we have control of it we could have saved a total of 45% instead of only 38%.

Overall, I think we did great!