In October 2011, Bo Sanchez launched another initiative aimed at helping those financially motivated to become wealthier, and he called it Wealth Circle. Of course I could not resist being part of it.  Turned out, not everyone could get in because there was an application process that consisted of about a 10-page questionnaire (or something [...]

Yes, please sign me up! Seminars.  Opportunities to learn new things, new ways of thinking, new (and hopefully more effective) ways of making money, new trends, meet interesting and like minded people… how could anyone pass that up?   I could not. And I am still touched by the ripples (a.k.a. benefits, gains, blessings) that simple [...]

We could not wait for dawn to break through. But as it is , the night was still blanketed with stars.  But we were excited and could not sleep because of the excitement.  We have just painted our Easter eggs, my brothers and I, just a few hours ago.  We had 2 eggs each.  One [...]

“Did”. I am not sure about that word. Because it is in the past tense and means the fun and the adventures are over. When they are not. We are just beginning.

A reader wanted to know how we “did it”. She said she read my first post but that I just skimmed the surface of how we overcame the bleak prophesies of our first financial planner, that I did not really explain how we got that 24% increase in our annual income, and more importantly, how we overshot it. If you have not read that first post, here is what our first financial planner said:

“While the couple’s Emergency Fund Ratio (EFR) will be over 1x by the end of 2007, the ideal ratio is 3x. The couple would need to add around Php149,000 to their annual income to meet such a ratio. To raise their savings rate to 18.1% from 6.7%, the couple would need additional annual income of Php262,000, or add 24% to their current annual income.”

So, how?

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I was getting tired of seeing 5,600+ unread mail in my mailbox. What’s funny is I am also being bombarded with emails that say I should simplify my life.

So I did.

But it is harder than I thought.

As of press time, I still have 3,089 unread emails. And it is growing by 50 a day.

I am confounded as to why my unread emails became that much. I am usually overly zealous at reading what’s up in my world and everyone else’s. Looking at my 2008 emails (Gmail has allowed me to keep them), I saw that I had read each and every one. I do not know what happened between then and now.

Maybe it’s just that I am a sucker for enlisting for products and services. In early 2009, I was so big on personal finance and internet marketing that I had signed up for those websites and people my mentors recommended – Schefren, Daily Wealth, Daily Crux, Morningstar, Napoleon Hill, Bob Proctor, League of Extraordinary Minds, Carl Ocab and many more other websites. I seriously think this is the time when my emails ballooned to unimaginable and my life went from simple to crazy-exciting.

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I think I first heard about Mutual Funds from Bo Sanchez. He likens it to a vehicle that almost anyone, with some funds to invest, can jump into, and that it should be a staple in the portfolio of any smart investor.

I was not entirely convinced (I did not really understand).

To further dispel the mystery of this so-called staple – Mutual Funds – I did some further reading and some interviews. It is simpler than I thought.

Mutual Funds, turns out, is an investment vehicle where people can pool their resources to take advantage of the magic of larger numbers, that is, because a lot of people invest into “the fund”, they have a large number, and thus, the mutual fund manager – a professional who will manage the investment – can get better rates of return for them. The mutual fund manager trades the “pooled” money on a regular basis and the net proceeds or losses are then typically distributed to the investors annually. As my friend Salve Duplito said in one of her articles in MoneySmarts, with as little as USD$100, the regular John or Juans can get their feet wet in an instantly diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, or both.

A sort of safe haven for the cautious investor.

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I have a secret.

But before me, it belonged to Bo Sanchez (and maybe before him from some really wise man).

I could still remember the time when I first heard him speak of it. I was cruising in my car and listening to one of his boxed audio seminars. It was the first CD I received from him as a member of his Truly Rich Club. I honestly did not think much about that CD – I plugged it and listened. But there’s something about a two-hour traffic and listening to Bo’s charismatic voice that gets the heart pumping and the mind dreaming dreams.

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There are those who know early on what they want in life. They know they want to be – president, CEO, beauty queen, housewife.

I did not.

And I looked at those people with awe. It seemed to be the right way to be and so when I was a child I had to force myself to choose to be something (newscaster), not knowing that life can take me to different, more exciting destinations and that it is okay and that it is possible to be many things.

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