When I got the email from Kristina Monica Guerra of Cosmopolitan Magazine requesting for an interview, I was more than thrilled – I was ecstatic. She said she got to know of me from Anton Diaz’ list of upcoming Bloggers and wanted my two cents on how one can be a millionaire without starting a [...]

We broke the bank.

Of course we did not. But, well, the day was certainly not one of our frugal days. (we try to be frugal some of the time and fail some of the time)

It was my birthday and usually, we go overseas at this time. But, as they say, a baby changes everything (everything) so this year, we had to stay put. I am not complaining, though. I am so in love with baby. With him in tow, we headed straight for Hotel Dusit Thani for their Sunday Crossover Brunch.

We love buffets and are partial to Sofitel’s Spirals. But we were ready for a change. There were rave reviews about Hotel Dusit’s brunch. It was a restaurant tour concept and there were four cuisines we can feast on – Thai, Japanese, Italian and an-around-the-world offering. It all sounded very appealing.

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Everyone feels it.

The earth is no longer young. Its resources are no longer inexhaustible. Temperatures are rising. Entire species are disappearing.

Just yesterday, everyone cavorted in clean, sparkling water, drenched themselves in sunshine, fished an abundant ocean, breathed air that is fresh, harvested a generous, bountiful earth.

Something happened between the space of yesterday and today

Mother earth was taken for granted, and overtaken (over taken) by human greed.

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“When I enrolled in Maven Secrets, I did not know what I was getting into. I only thought I would learn about blogging, get to know the man behind all those amazing features in Our Awesome Planet and, yes, dabble a little bit in internet marketing. I did not know that it will lead to my re-examination of my life, that it will change my life, transfer me from the confines of my glass penthouse to vibrant, more exciting possibilities. Let this serve as a warning and a warm welcome to those who will follow this unbeaten path.”

The above was my testimony for MavenSecrets when I attended its pilot class more than a year ago. But its echoes reverberate to the life I know today.

MavenSecrets is an internet marketing program. But it was also a way out – because like what it did to Anton Diaz, its founder (and to my other classmates), it strengthened my desire to leave the rat race and go after things that I am passionate about – like family and doing the things I could not find the time to do, the more important things that give life its flesh and its color.

Through having multiple passive income streams.

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After 99 posts, 453 comments (54 of which are spam which I have not deleted nor approved) and 699 tags, I come to this, my 100th post.

To think that YouWantToBeRich started as just a requirement to get a certificate in MavenSecrets, a professional blogging and internet marketing education seminar that I attended in 2009.

I did not know that it would change my life and give it colors that I never knew existed, or give me opportunities for self-expression and advocacy in a niche that I was just getting really interested in at that time.

At first, I thought I would go into food and travel because like Anton’s OurAwesomePlanet, it was my passion. I even asked hubby to buy me a camera to herald my entry into the blogosphere via a food and travel blog.

But I am glad I went down the path of learning about money and people and their money idiosyncracies (especially my own and my family’s). It felt good to chronicle this journey and to look back and learn from it again.

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Let us face it. It is not everyday that we see the world with rose-colored glasses. It is monotony that that kisses our faces day in and day out, like waves that do not fail to come to the shore; it is the humdrum of everyday life that besets us and pummels us into submission; the unexciting coming more often rather than the exciting. And yes, there is some comfort in that. The heart can only take so much – of happiness, of excitement, of something happening all the time.

But when you need to, how do you inspire yourself?

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I like hotels.

I like them so much – and traveling! – that we bought our own timeshare. But like I said in my MoneySmarts guest post:

It gives birth to other expenses – yearly maintenance fees (which went up from P2,500 to P4,000 in the blink of an eye), RCI fees (S$150 annually –in Singapore dollars, but with the current exchange rate, it might as well be in US dollars), booking fees that could range from P2,500 (Asia) to almost P10,000 (outside of Asia). It does not include airfare, or the cost of food. The RCI hotels, although three or four stars, are almost always in the outskirts of the city – that means it is 30 minutes away from where the action is. With the cab fares we are paying, we could have had a decent room at a city hotel with dancing lights, Prada and great food at our doorstep.

But it is not all bad, as we have found out in our two years of owning one.

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The future is on the Internet. MavenSecrets has opened a lot of doors for me, even doors within myself. I feel what Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan must have felt as colonizers eyeing a new colony – the reach of my eyesight cannot even comprehend the breadth and height and limitless potential of what is before me. Except that I am sitting on a desk, my eyes reflecting the many colors on the computer screen.

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