Financial IQ: CEB Offers P1 to All Domestic Destinations!

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Wow, great deal!!


The Philippines' largest national flag carrier, Cebu Pacific brings back its trademark P1 'Go Lite' seat sale to all our 33 domestic destinations, for sale on March 28, 2011 or until seats last. This is for travel from June 1 to December 15, 2011.


You can book flights to any of our 33 domestic destinations, namely:Bacolod, Boracay (Caticlan), Busuanga (Coron), Butuan, Calbayog, Cagayan de Oro, Catarman, Cauayan (Isabela), Cebu, Clark, Cotabato, Davao, Dipolog, Dumaguete, General Santos, Iloilo, Kalibo, Legaspi, Laoag, Manila, Naga, Ozamiz, Pagadian, Puerto Princesa, Roxas, San Jose (Mindoro), Siargao, Surigao, Tacloban, Tagbilaran, Tuguegarao, Virac and Zamboanga.


The seat sale fare is exclusive of government tax and fuel surcharge. We are allocating more than 100,000 domestic seats for this P1 sale to encourage you to plan your travels for the 2nd half of the year. 

Financial IQ: Want cash from an ATM?

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When possible, withdraw directly from your bank's ATM machines to avoid inter-bank ATM fees.  The fees add up, if done often.


ATM fees are on the rise at some of the country's biggest banks.


Chase, for example, is testing out $5 fees for non-customers. That means if you stumble upon a Chase on your way to dinner and decide to take out 20 bucks, you'll pay a 25% fee. And that doesn't even include what your own bank charges you for going out of network, which is typically around $3.


JP Morgan Chase is currently testing the $5 ATM fee in Illinois and a $4 ATM fee in Texas -- both for non-customers who use its ATMs -- to see if they bring in enough revenue to introduce nationwide, according to sources familiar with the tests. A Chase spokesman declined to comment.


Out of the bank's network of 16,000 ATMs, more than 20% -- or about 3,600 -- are located in these two states. Chase spent an estimated $400 million to build the entire network and pays $200 million a year to run it. So the bank is making non-customers pay a significant amount for the convenience of using this large network.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Want-cash-from-an-ATM-Pay-a-5-cnnm-2010047842.html?x=0

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• Consumer Pain: Banks Tack On $5 ATM Fees (abcnews.go.com)
• How to avoid $5 ATM fees (cbsnews.com)
• ATM Fees Rise as Banks Feel Funding Squeeze (dailyfinance.com)
• WHAT! JPMorgan Is Testing $5 ATM Fees (JPM) (businessinsider.com)

Financial IQ: Sale on fares to Korea

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Another good offer from Cebu Pacific.


The Philippines’ largest national flag carrier, Cebu Pacific (CEB) offers you a fantastic P2,499 seat sale to South Korea from now until from March 19, 2011 or until seats last!


For travel from April 1 to June 30, 2011, you can avail of P2,499 ‘Go Lite’ seats from Manila or Cebu to Incheon or Busan. Our Manila-Busan flights will be launched on June 15, 2011. 


Spend your days in the cities of Jinhae and Jeju, home to the cherry blossom festivals this April. The 2011 Hi Seoul Festival, which celebrates culture and the arts, will also happen in Seoul this May. From June 4 to 7, the famous Haeundae Beach in Busan becomes filled with beachside events, sports activities, firework displays and concerts during the Haeundae Sand Festival.

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• Downtown -- yikes! - Cebu City, Philippines (travelpod.com)

Financial IQ: On investing on Real Estate

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An example that we have to perform due diligence on real estate.  Similar to paper assets, real estate prices can go up or down.


Three years after purchasing our home in the spring of 2008, my wife now sees the light and finds the idea of home ownership as repugnant as I always have. Due to a multitude of reasons and factors, we decided to put our home on the market. It's now been over a year and we've yet to sell, but when we do, we stand to lose a boatload of money. As hard as it is to believe at times, and while the two often correlate, sometimes happiness really is more important than money.


With continued real estate market issues, we now have our home listed at $249,000, a full $45,000 under our purchase price. Now you might be asking yourself why we don't just take it off the market and wait out this rough patch. It's a good question, one that I have asked myself a multitude of times, and one that's hard to answer without a person being in our situation. Let's just say that being closer to my ailing mother in Washington, our happiness, and the opportunity to be out from under what to us is a heavy burden, is worth the loss, be it a big one. So get ready for the numbers.


Even if we sell our home for the full asking price, which I don't count on happening in this market, it will be well under the price we paid three years ago.


- Loss of $45,000 on price of home 
- 5% Realtor's commission on $249,000 is $12,450 
- 3% closing costs on $249,000 is $7,470
- Total losses on the sale of the home at its current price would be just under $65,000.


This doesn't even factor in the increased costs of owning a home as compared with the apartment we were renting for $780 a month with free heat, water and trash. Things like annual property taxes, homeowner's insurance, increased utilities, repairs and maintenance, interest on our mortgage, and similar costs add additional tens of thousands of dollars to our losses, unless you want to consider them costs of the opportunity to live in a house.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/First-Person-Losing-Big-65-ac-2690070448.html?x=0

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Financial IQ: 5 Financial Tips You Should Ignore

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Nice article.  Always remember to perform our due diligence when investing or taking out loans.


Have you heard the one about houses being a sure-fire investment? Or the tip that you should close all your credit card accounts? Bad financial advice can circle the web faster than the latest e-mail scam from Nigeria, and some of it originates from personal finance gurus themselves (although their words are often twisted). Here are five popular financial tips you should ignore:


1. A house is always a good investment. 
2. Avoid credit cards. 
3. All student loan debt is good debt.
4. Never take out a 401(k) loan.
5. Use home equity loans to pay off credit card debt.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112289/5-financial-tips-you-should-ignore;_ylt=AkzxFBmuGhyqIGb6cLjHufcyo9IF;_ylu=X3oDMTE1aWc4MnI4BHBvcwMyBHNlYwNmaF9zZWN0aW9uBHNsawM1Y29tbW9ubW9uZXk-?mod=series-e-article

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• Is There Such a Thing as Good Debt? (moneyning.com)
• How to Avoid Making Dumb Money Mistakes: A Five-Step Plan (dailyfinance.com)

Financial IQ: Difference between Rich and Poor

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Rich people makes money work for them.  Poor people works for money.


To be rich and successful, you don’t need to be lucky, extremely hard working or you need to have a college diploma or a university degree.


What you need, is the right mindset and the right mindset will form the right habit. As a result, the right habit will lead you toward the financial abundance kind of lifestyle that you always desire.


So here are the 7 main differences between rich and poor people…


1. Rich people believe that they create their lives while poor people believe that life happens to them. Can you see why rich and successful people are able to create amazing results in their life right now?


2. Rich people play the money game to win but poor people play the money game just not to lose money. This is a big mindset difference.


3. Rich people think and focus on opportunities while poor people focus on obstacles. When you face with problems, what are you focus on?


4. Rich people dare to dream big, poor people think small. When I tell my parents that I want to make a million dollar, they will tell me, “Why do you need so much money? You can live a very good lifestyle if you got a job that has a good pay. You don’t need to be a millionaire.”


5. Rich people are committed to their dreams, poor people are just dreaming about their dreams. Yes, this is an obvious one.


6. Rich people associate with rich and successful people. Poor people will associate with poor people. Do you have any rich friends? Or all of your friends are poor?


7. Rich people good learners while poor people think that they have learned everything in the world. One of the fastest ways to be financially abundance is to learn directly from people who have already achieved this status.

http://www.themillionairesecrets.net/7-main-differences-between-rich-and-poor-people/

Financial IQ: Singapore and South Korea for as low as P999!

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Another good deal from Cebu Pacific.


Grab our seat sale fares to Singapore and South Korea for as low as P999!


You can afford to fly to Singapore and South Korea because the Philippines’ largest national flag carrier, Cebu Pacific (CEB) is giving you a hot seat sale deal from now until March 8, 2011 or until seats last, for travel from May 1 to June 30, 2011.

Financial IQ: 7 Tax-Filing Money Savers

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Similar to U.S., filing of tax in Philippines is also complex. :)


The process of collecting all of your information and figuring out where to get help and how to file forms is fraught, and the amount you spend getting your taxes done can sting.


Here's how to make the whole process less costly:


- File for free.
- Use a popular program for free.
- Choose your program carefully. 
- Get free advice, too. 
- Skip the extras. 
- Squeeze more into your retirement account. 
- Get a review. 

http://custom.yahoo.com/taxes/article-112098-d0a77eab-8c4d-4fc0-b5d9-464816298d62-7-tax-filing-money-savers

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Financial IQ: Saving for Retirement

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Retirement planning needs to have a balance on saving for the future and enjoying life.


Recently, Christine Fahlund, the financial planning director at mutual fund company T. Rowe Price circulated what you'd have to call a pretty novel retirement planning strategy for boomers. Stop saving. Instead, spend the money on cruises and other indulgences until you retire. Do this, her calculations showed, and you'll end up with 70 percent more income in retirement than someone who saves like crazy for the rest of his or her career.


Why, yes, there IS a catch: You have to work until age 70. Fahlund contrasts the results of that tactic with those of a hard-saving boomer couple who leave the workforce as soon as they become eligible for Social Security at age 62. You can see how it works out in the chart below. Maybe it's cheating to compare retiring at 62 to slaving away until 70, but Fahlund's point is, it all depends on how you define slaving.


I give her credit. Fahlund's approach addresses one of the key dilemmas anyone faces in planning for financial independence. You fix a lot of retirement financing issues if you stay with your job until 70. CBS MoneyWatch writers like Charlie Farrell, Carla Fried and Steve Vernon have written extensively about the powerful financial upside of working longer.

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/112212/stop-saving-so-much-for-retirement?mod=fidelity-readytoretire&cat=fidelity_2010_getting_ready_to_retire