Posts made in November, 2008

The popular online eyeglasses shop has something in store for the holiday. Check out the Holiday Glass Frames From Zenni Optical and you’ll see lots and lots of designs to choose from. I personally like this metal half-rim frame with polarized magnetic snap-on sunlens so I can have both eyeglasses and shades for the bright sunny days in the summer. If you’re in a budget you can also find $ 8 Complete Rx Eyeglasses.

One of the reasons I decided to quit my job and stay at home was because I came from a broken family. I didn’t want Z to experience growing up without a mother like I did and I felt guilty working away and being too tired to take care of him when I got home. It may be different with other mothers but I felt I was missing a huge part of his life by being away half of the time. I thought in order to have a strong relationship with my son I had to be a hands-on mom and be available 24/7. That was also the reason why I was convinced it was best to homeschool him especially in his early schooling years. My husband was not so convinced with the idea and so were the people we knew. I felt pressured to enroll him in school at age three. I seriously thought it was a waste of money, I believe mothers are still the best teachers of their kids. Our national hero himself was taught by no less than his mother during his early years and he didn’t grow up that bad. But I felt alone in wanting to homeschool him without S’s support. While attending church at CCF at St. Francis Square, I heard about the Homeschooling Convention which would feature talks about parenting and homeschooling your children. I decided to register right away and pay the P350 fee. My husband was hesitant to go because he has work the night before. But I was determined to go even if I was alone. Fortunately, S was really supportive because without my knowledge he decided to go on leave from his work the night before the convention so he can accompany me. We brought Z along even though the convention was from 8AM to 5PM because his would be baby sitter didn’t come. The money we paid was really worth it because the talks by the different speakers inspired us and gave us insights to become better parents to Z. S became convinced too that homeschooling will be good for Z upon hearing personal accounts by parents who homeschooled their children and the children (now adults) themselves. Z was not too happy listening to different people speak for eight hours but he endured it all and was able to entertain himself at the end. I swear at one point he was even listening especially at the part when Pastor Tan-Chi was demonstrating the correct way of spanking children. His eyes grew big when the Pastor pointed at his belt! That event was really memorable for S and me, it was a day of learning together, planning for the future together, and just being in sync and having the same vision for our child and our family.

A year ago, it was just my dream to earn money at home. We have heard stories about people working at home through internet and how I wished I could do that too. The problem was those stories seem like a myth because we didn’t know anybody personally who was actually earning online. We were also hesitant to have internet installed because of the extra cost but I was bored at my wits end staying at home so I finally took the plunge and had internet installed last February of this year. My immediate goal was to find an online job and everyday I literally searched online for any homebased job I could find. The first thing I tried were PTCs but didn’t have the patience to click numerous ads everyday. My first real online job was encoding, the pay was a pittance but I accepted it just so that I can pay our monthly internet bill. Finally, after a month of searching I discovered Craigslist and found a transcribing job through that site. The pay is good, the job tedious but I was happy because finally I was officially a work-at-home mom. I was enjoying both worlds, earning and seeing my son grow up by my side every single day. In addition to that, I have my blogging which earns me some money too.
However, I don’t want to stop there. My ultimate goal is to have my very own Home Business. My husband and I are constantly racking our brains for Home Business Ideas but we haven’t thought of any. I have heard about affiliate marketing but I don’t know anything about marketing and internet marketing at that. Good thing I chanced upon a Plug-In Profit Site which will teach you all about affiliate marketing and which includes a “30 Days to Success” training program for people like me who have no experience in internet marketing. I have read about people making money through affiliate marketing but I don’t know anyone personally – well, that didn’t stop me before. I’m sure it will not be easy and will require a lot of hard work but I would do anything just to be able to work at home and be with my family.

Image via WikipediaOur family’s goal is to really save money. In line with our goal, I opened three bank accounts this month alone: one for my online salary, one for Z, and the third one an automatic savings account connected to S’s payroll. Even if I’ve been earning online, it seems that we end up wasting the money on things I don’t even remember because it’s deposited to our current atm which we use when we go out, shop for our grocery, etc. Now that my online salary is deposited on it’s own account, I’m confident that the extra money will remain untouched and it will be easier to save it.
Z didn’t understand what it meant to open a bank account but he sure was excited to see his name on his passbook. It’s timely because Christmas is coming and so is his birthday this January. All the money gifts he will receive will be deposited directly there. I’m already excited to see his money grow slowly but surely. I’m sure he’ll be able to appreciate having money in the bank when he’s old enough. I also hope this will instill to him the value of saving so that in the future he won’t have a problem with debt elimination.
While at BDO, my husband tried applying for a credit card. As of the moment we don’t have a single credit card but we tried to apply for one just in case. We thought the application was going smoothly and we had submitted all the requirements but someone from the bank called S and told him he hasn’t submitted a photocopy of his IDs. That was impossible because we couldn’t open a savings account without IDs so I’m sure they were the ones who forgot to attach it or something. When we went back to BDO to claim our ATM card, we mentioned it and they said we need to submit our IDs again, unfortunately we only brought one ID this time so I told S it’s better that way, maybe it’s really not meant for us to have a credit card. It doesn’t matter if we have a poor credit score, but the reason why we’re saving is to avoid incurring any kind of debt in the future.
I opened our third bank account because one of our perennial problems was saving a portion of S’s income and not touching it. While reading the newspaper, I chanced upon an advertisement of BPI’s Direct Save UP which automatically deducts whatever amount you set from your payroll atm to its very own account. You won’ be able to spend that money because the account doesn’t come with ATM. What’s more, you will be insured 5X of your saved amount.
Now that everything is in place, it’s up to us whether we will be successful in our goal or not. As the moment, I’m just thankful we’re worrying about saving money and not about debt elimination.

I know it’s way too late to talk about Halloween but I still want to post about the third and last Halloween party Z attended which was held at his dad’s office. It was early in the morning of Oct. 31st that Z wore his cowboy costume for the third time. We rode a jeep to Libis which was just one ride away. When we stepped inside the office we were impressed to see that it was transformed into a ship which was inspired by the movie Pirates of the Carribean. Z’s dad and his officemates were all dressed in pirates. Z saw our former neighbor and his friend, Gia and they were unseparable after that. The children were given balloons and off they went trick or treating. We went from the executives’ offices then to the different accounts and we gathered quite a lot of candy which took us two weeks to eat. Next year I’ll remember to not get as much candy! A program came next which includes games for the parents and the kids. We were not able to finish it because we went out to eat.
Z really enjoyed the party and afterwards he is already looking forward to next year’s Halloween. He even has a costume in mind, he said he wants a ninja costume for next year.