Preparing for Baby No. 2

I am currently 17 weeks and 4 days pregnant which means that this baby is due to arrive about a week or two before Christmas.

Being the second born, the hubby and I are no longer as wide-eyed with excitement as we were with our first. Yes, there is still joy with the thought of having another tiny human to cuddle and love once again, but this joy is tempered with the thought that we are now responsible for two human beings, thus, we have to get our shit together.

Getting ready for baby number 2 means: (a) preparing my body for the birth; (b) preparing for the actual birth; and (c) preparing post-birth.

As a second-time mom, I know that I can only really prepare for a & b, while c just means going with the flow and dealing with things on a day to day basis.

Budgeting My Way to Being Debt-Free

Budgets come in all sorts of variants and permutations, but the best type of budget is the one that actually works for you.

The strictest budget that I know of is the zero-sum budget. With it, you have to "spend" every cent you make or to be more precise, you give every cent you make a job to do since money that isn't allotted will only be spent mindlessly. My preferred budget though is the anti-budget by Paula Pant of Afford Anything where you save/invest a pre-determined percent of your income per month. It pretty much goes like this: take out money, save/invest accordingly, and spend the remainder of your monthly income as you please. Easy peasy.

Unfortunately, it will take me a while before I can use the anti-budget since I still have consumer and mortgage debts to deal with, necessitating that I micro-manage my money until I can completely wipe out my debt.

What to Do After You Get Scammed By Manila Bankers Life Insurance

Without a doubt, my post on the shady practices of Manila Bankers Life Insurance is the most popular post on my blog.

I'm still amazed that the comments keep coming in and how Manila Bankers continues to prey on innocent people who hand over their credit cards in good faith merely for verification purposes, but would later find themselves saddled with an exorbitant insurance premium.

Questions of available remedies for the duped and unwilling life insurance holders appear with scary regularity and the most popular suggestion was to submit cancellation letter with Manila Bankers within the 15/30 day cooling off period. It was also suggested that the Insurance Commission be given a copy of the cancellation letter and/or to submit a separate letter complaint to the Insurance Commission.

As it turns out, the Insurance Commission does listen and act on complaints! I don't know why I'm surprised to hear this though, maybe I've become so used to hearing about government apathy and incompetence that I've forgotten that government is also filled with silent workers that toil without glory or accolade in ensuring that the system runs smoothly while protecting the interests of its citizens. It just so happens that bad news is broadcasted on loudspeaker and is so much sexier to report on, thus, the resulting negative image.