Life Happenings
Where do I even begin with what's been happening in my neck of the woods? In a nutshell, we'll be moving houses, playing landlord, taking on new challenges, tightening our belts and I'll be adding RFP in my calling card (at least after I pay the membership fee and if I had a calling card).
The biggest news is that I'm switching jobs in about a month's time and I couldn't be happier. The job offer came out of the blue, a few months before I planned to officially start my job search because my boss is retiring by the middle of this year and I always thought that I would stay with him until then (and enjoy the one month winding down period afterwards).
But then this came along and I'll be very foolish to give up the opportunity to work with someone I greatly admire. My new responsibilities will be completely different from what I've been doing for the past 4.5 years and the environment very dynamic and fast-paced. I can't wait!
The most challenging aspect of my new job for now though will be the two month delay in salary (which seems to be SOP in government service). I do wish I had more in my emergency funds to shore us up during this period, but I know that our emergency funds are what they are because I opted to pay down my debt to my parents and not because we frittered away money, so no regrets. If I include the cash surrender value of my life insurance, I'll have a stash of 2-3 months of worth of expenses and if we live extremely frugally, then that can even be stretched to 4-5 months. So it's just a matter of tightening our belts and carefully accounting for every peso in our budget.
Secondly, my sister and her family are moving back to New Zealand for an indefinite period and so my family can take their place in my parents' house. This means a slightly longer commute for me, but it also means that we can rent out our condo units and by pouring the additional income into mortgage payments, we might be mortgage free in 5-7 years, about 15 years ahead of schedule. How awesome is that right?! To make this happen though, we have to come up with about Php50,000 to Php150,000 to convert the units into dormitories, so once our finances settle down and normalize, I'll be setting aside cash for those upcoming projects.
Finally, my financial paper made the cut which means that I qualified for membership with the Registered Financial Planner Institute. I am now an RFP! Woohoo! Or at least I will be after I pay the membership fee.
Imagine all of this happened in less than a month. If my plans are thrown up in the air in such a short period of time, I'm curious to know what else can happen for the rest of the year. Years ago I would have wished for only good things and dreaded any divergence from my plans, but now that I know slightly more, my prayer is for God to grant me the strength and humor needed to be able to roll with whatever it is that life may decide to throw my way.
Comments
Good luck Atty Jill, RFP. hehe
I wrote about my search for HMOs here: http://www.frugalhoney.com/2014/08/shopping-for-health-insurance.html
I eventually went with the lowest plan with Maxicare for my husband, since I'm covered by our health plan at work and there's also Philhealth to act as a buffer.
I'm not sure what type of health plan my new employer will have, but hopefully I can include my husband and son in it. If not, I was thinking of getting those prepaid Maxicare cards as soon as our emergency funds are completed. This will cut down my yearly expense for my husband's HMO to Php1,000 +++ from Php40,000 +++. Ang laking tipid no!
I think it's good to have both health insurance and HMO, because they function differently. For my health insurance, I took out a term policy for 1M with critical illness benefits. The payout happens if I get diagnosed with any of the listed critical illnesses or if I keel over and die.
You talked of a health insurance where you will "get something at the end" so are you referring to a VUL product with a cash surrender value? If you are, you may want to compare it with a term insurance policy for the same payout because the premium price for VUL is about 4x-5x more expensive than term. But if you can afford VUL then go right ahead, I only advise term over VUL if I think the insured will have trouble keeping up with the premium payments.
I hope I was able to help!
Parang ang daming blessings na dumating sa yo in less than a month.
Good luck & God bless Atty Jill :)
RFP? Wow! pwede bang magpa advise? I do hope so kasi I have been following your blog(s) since dun pa sa kikayexchange :)
We're also looking into renting out one of the condos to a single person, but the dormitory for students is guaranteed so we're looking into that first.
For financial advice, please email me at jillsabs@gmail.com and I'll try my best to help you out.
PS I'm glad I'm into reading footnotes. Was able to dodge VUL. For people with disposable income, it's ok. Pero for me, ang mahal. I'm learning how to invest in the stock market and sayang din yung difference between term and VUL for me to have money to "play" with.
For me any of the big insurance companies (i.e. Sun Life, Philam, PruLife and Manulife) are ok when it comes to life insurance because they will deliver. It really depends on your agent if he/she will have your best interest in mind when recommending a product.
I have a Sun Life term insurance with critical illness benefit with a payout of 1M for a yearly premium of 8k++. I think this is convertible to VUL if I wanted to.
I'm 35 y.o. so if you get the same policy, your premium will probably be lower because you're younger. I suggest shopping around with other life insurance agencies first to get the best price and make sure to find an agent you're on the same wavelength with so that he/she will be easy to talk to.
i'm happy for you and i'm always inspired with your stories.:)
good luck sa bagong role mo as an RFP. i hope u could help more and more people achieve financial freedom. :)
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