Buy Globe Gcash Online Through the Unionbank-to-Gcash eMoney Xchange Service

I've just discovered it's now possible to get Gcash transferred from your Unionbank savings, checking, or EON account.

What you need:
A Gcash account
A Unionbank savings/checking/EON account

What to do:

1. Enroll for Unionbank's eMoney Xchange service. You can do this by calling Unionbank's customer service at (02) 841-8600 and telling them you want to enroll your account for eMoney Xchange.
   
   The operator will get your name, account details, and verify your identity by asking the standard security questions. Then you will be asked to nominate a six-digit MPIN, so have one ready.
   
   You'll be put on hold for a while, then you'll have to wait around two banking days for the registration to be completed. Then you should receive a text message confirming successful registration. After that you can transfer money from your Unionbank account to Gcash.
      
2. To transfer funds from Unionbank to Gcash, text U2G <amount>, then send to 2318.
   
   Example: U2G 1000 (to send P1,000). Your Unionbank account will record two charges: P1,000 for the Gcash and P10 standard service fee. The service fee remains the same no matter how much Gcash you load to your phone from your Unionbank account.
   
   So if your account has P2000 and you send P1000 to your phone, your phone will receive P1000 Gcash, and your remaining balance will be P990.
    
   The minimum amount you can load is P100. Maximum is P20,000.
        
3. To transfer funds from Gcash to Unionbank, text G2U <amount>, then send to 2318. There will be a P7.50 charge, deducted from the amount transferred. So if you text G2U P1,000, your account will receive P1,000 - P7.50, or P992.50.
   
   The minimum amount you can transfer is P100. Maximum is P20,000 per transaction, P40,000 per day.

For more details, you can visit Unionbank's Gcash FAQ page.

By the way, from what I've heard, you can also transfer from BPI to Gcash and vice versa. I wouldn't know anything about it, though, as I don't have a BPI account.

Have you tried the BPI or Unionbank facility for Gcash purchase? Do share your experience here with us!

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How to Get Collateral-Free Financing for Your Startup Business

(Photo by iprole)

For a few articles now, we've been talking about businesses you can start right from home. But the big question for a lot of us is, Where do I get the money to start this business?

Often, a compounding problem for a lot of us is that we have no assets we could use for collateral.

Well, this is another reason why I strongly advise everyone to start their businesses while they are still employed. When you are an employee, you have one valuable resource at hand: the salary loan.

SME banks

How much, you may ask, can one get from a salary loan? Well, if we look at the loan offerings of my favorite bank for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Plantersbank, you can see that you can get as much as P500,000 salary loan (of course, depending on your salary), payable for up to 36 months. And yes, no collateral is needed.

What are the requirements for applying for a salary loan?

• Fixed-salaried individual working in the Philippines’ Top 12,000 Corporation OR  must be a credit card holder with a P50,000 credit limit if not employed in the Top 12,000 Corporations.
• At least 23 years old but not more than 65 years old
• A permanent employee with a length of service in current employer of at least 1 year (if less than 1 year, then total continuous work experience should be at least 2 years)
• Has a gross monthly income of P30,000 for Metro Manila and P20,000 for Provincial Areas
• Not due for retirement within the term of the loan.

Now let me take this opportunity to highlight the usefulness of a credit card. It's true, this little piece of plastic can be detrimental to our financial health when we don't know how to use it properly. But often, our credit card is also our best (sometimes, our only) proof that we are willing and able to pay our debts. When we apply for a loan, our credit card history can be our strongest ally.

Note, also, bulletpoint number 3: permanent employee of at least 1 year with current employer. If you can't keep a job, so much less will you be able to keep a business. Because no matter how difficult it is to work with your boss, trying to be your own boss is even harder.

The SSS loan

But what if your gross monthly income does not reach P30,000 per month? (Mine never did, when I was employed.)

Well, there's SSS too. But to get a one-month SSS salary loan, you need to have paid at least 36 monthly contributions prior to the month of filing the application. For a two-month salary loan, the requirement is 72 posted monthly contributions.

Microfinance institutions

There are also microfinance institutions. Granted that the interest rates of these institutions may be even higher than some banks and are definitely higher than SSS rates, they are still much lower than if you borrow from "five/six," those notorious lenders that charge an astounding 20% monthly interest rate.

If you want to contact a microfinance company near you, here's a list of them. Just click on the links below and find which company is best for you:

Alalay sa Kaunlaran, Inc. (ASKI)

Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD)

Center for Community Transformation (CCT)

Kabalikat para sa Maunlad na Buhay, Inc. (KMBI)

Taytay sa Kauswagan, INC. (TSKI)

Tulay sa Pag-unlad, Inc. (TSPI)

All these companies listed above are partners of the PinoyMe foundation, which was instituted by President Corazon C. Aquino. See the full list of PinoyMe's partner companies here. Or learn more about the PinoyMe foundation by clicking on the link.

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Is Homeschooling for Your Child, Part III: Other Reasons

(Graphics by nornir)

So far we've talked about (1) bullying and (2) ADHD. For me, those are major reasons to homeschool your child. Here are other reasons:

3. Other exceptionalities. If your child has been diagnosed with retardation or giftedness, your child might benefit more from personalized instruction (in the case of the former) or independent learning (in the case of the latter).

Keep in mind that a child with retardation's greatest needs are to learn basic life skills (e.g., cleaning oneself, fixing up one's own room and surroundings, crossing the street safely, washing the dishes, following instructions) and a vocational skill that will let the child earn her own money when she grows up (e.g., handicraft, maybe clerical work, depending on the degree of retardation), and basic literacy, depending on the degree of retardation (e.g., reading, writing, counting, color and shape identification).

A gifted child, on the other hand, can learn well enough by herself. All she needs is the right environment -- the necessary materials, the necessary time, the necessary freedom. Instead of putting her in school where she will need to wait for the rest of the class catch up to what she already knows, why not let her study at home and use the time (and money) you save to enroll her in ballet class or gymnastics or astronomy or whatever she's interested in?

4. Transport issues. Either school is too far from your home or your child is too sick to travel the distance.

Some kids have to travel an hour to reach school, and I'm not talking about kids in far-flung barrios with no roads and no cars. When I was in high school, I rode a school bus that had to make 30 stops from the time I got in to the time we got to my school. That's an hour and a half, one way.

Or maybe your child is ill and too weak to travel to school. That does not mean you have to stop her education and let her run after lost time when she recovers. Let her have her schooling at home instead.

5. Religious conviction. This is not so much an issue in the Philippines, where religion has not been outlawed in the classroom. Still, some parents would like a little more religion in their child's education, or maybe a little less, or maybe a different sort of religion.

In our family, this is one of the primary reasons why we homeschool. I wanted my children to learn more about religion than I felt was being taught in our regular schools.

The best part is, as I am teaching our children about our faith, I am learning too -- I am learning things about my faith that they did not teach me in school.

6. Financial flexibility. The big difference between homeschool and conventional schools is that in conventional schools, costs are dictated. The school decides not just how much to charge for tuition but also how much you need to spend on field trips, graduations, etc.

In a homeschool setup, you can spend as little or as much as you like, and you decide when to spend. If you have a lot of money, you can choose the most expensive curriculums available -- some are even more expensive than what you pay for tuition in conventional schools. You can go to Bohol and Beijing for your field trip, so that your child can see the Chocolate Hills and the Great Wall of China personally. You can enroll your child in Ballet Manila for PE class. You can buy her a microscope and telescope for science.

Or you can use a free curriculum downloaded online, take the ALS exam for validation (very cheap, almost free), go to PAGASA Planetarium for your field trip (P25), and let your child improvise materials for art and science to strengthen her imagination and creativity.

No one will make you pay P800 to go to Enchanted Kingdom and SM Mall of Asia for your field trip. You don't need to pay P200 for a hard-bound diploma holder for your preschooler if you don't want one.

Okay, lecture over. Any questions? Please feel free to ask in the comments box below. I always reply within 12 hours.

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How to Use Your UnionBank EON Account

*file image from the UnionBank EON page

Question: Do I have to apply for an ATM account to be linked to EON? Or is EON is just like an ATM account but used more for online transactions? Is it funded through online only, or can it be funded over the counter?

Answer: No, you do not have to apply for an ATM account to be linked to EON. EON is an ATM account, but functions as a debit card, not a savings account.

How is it similar to a savings account? Well, you can deposit over the counter.

How is it different from a savings account? Well, since it's a debit card, not a savings account, (1) it does not earn interest, and (2) you have to pay an annual fee of P350 to maintain the card. There is no maintaining balance.

How do you fund your EON account through online transactions, i.e. PayPal? 

1. Use your EON card as a debit card to verify your PayPal account. Simply hover over Profile, then click on Add/Edit Credit Card, then input your EON card number -- the big numbers near the middle of the card -- when PayPal asks for your debit card number.
   
   
2. Add your EON bank account to your PayPal profile. Again, hover on Profile, then click Add/Edit Bank Account. This time, when PayPal asks for your account number, you use the smaller ones at the lower left corner of the card.
    
3. PayPal will give you instructions on how to complete the verification process. Once you are verified, you will be able to transfer your funds from PayPal to your EON bank account with zero charges from UnionBank.

By the way, if you transfer from PayPal to your bank and you see Completed in the transaction, do not expect to see the funds in your bank account immediately. Completed means PayPal has completed the process of releasing your money, but that does not necessarily mean the bank has completed the process of releasing the funds to your account.

My experience is if I transfer money from PayPal to my bank on, say, Tuesday night, it will reflect as Completed on PayPal on Wednesday and show up on the account by Saturday morning.

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How to Manage Your Money and Get Out of Debt

I'm on my first week in my new job as a virtual assistant, spending a lot of time learning the ropes and getting into the groove of things, which means I'm not able to write one of my long articles that I know you all love so much (hahaha).

So instead, I'm gonna let Davey here do the talking for me. It's a nice short lecture; I hope you all gain something from it!

Did you like this video? Let us know!

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HMO for Today and After Retirement

Yesterday, this Filipino mom began paying for after-retirement health care.

For two thousand pesos per month -- that's a Starbucks coffee every working day -- for five years, I am assured of a 60,000 peso annual health benefit starting sixty years old. That turns to 98,000 annual health benefit when I turn 65.

That's without touching my principal, which will continue to earn interest -- extra income! -- for me.

Should I need more money than my allotted annual benefit, I will still have my principal, an additional 980,000 pesos, that I could use for more expensive medical procedures.

Why Long-Term Healthcare?

If there is one thing I absolutely loved and now miss about my old job -- other than my colleagues, of course -- it's the HMO (health maintenance organization)! You seldom get HMO when you work at home.

And having been at a point in my life wherein our children got sick and we did not have the means to bring them to a hospital, I appreciated the HMO right to the core of my heart:

• When a vomiting breakout occurred at home, I was able to bring the kids to the hospital immediately without worrying about where to get money for deposit or clearance. 
• When my husband's blood pressure dropped so low, the brachiometer couldn't detect it, we were able to rush him to the hospital without me having to wonder how on earth I would pay for the bills. (Incidentally, he was rushed to the ICU -- supraventricular tachycardia, they called it -- and The Medical City charged us forty thousand for the overnight treatment.)

Though I myself hardly ever used it, I was thankful for HMO every day of my life.

But I left the company to work at home. And inevitably, I lost the HMO.

Life after HMO

Without the HMO, gone was my total peace of mind for the kids' health. Gone were the annual checkups. No more free dental prophylaxis -- oh, how I shall miss that.

No more free checkups for the kids. Every checkup is now a pain in the pocketbook. And God help us, please do not let them need a hospital now.

It's almost funny how acutely I miss my HMO, considering that I am young and healthy. What if I were old? There is no HMO after retirement.

Ironic, isn't it? When one starts getting sick, that's when the HMO disappears.

Now, when I have a full-time home-based job and two work-at-home sidelines, I am still afraid to go to the hospital, because of the expenses.

What will happen when I am depending on my retirement funds? Will my children be able to afford to send me to a hospital?

Even if they could, I don't want to be a burden to them. They will have my grandchildren to take care of.


That's why I am paying for my after-retirement HMO now, while I am strong enough to do a full-time job and two sidelines.  Soon, I will be getting the same plan for the rest of my family too.

HMO Now!

You see, in addition to the long-term health care, this plan also provides its owner right now an annual 50,000 peso medical benefit, in addition to free annual checkup and annual dental prophylaxis. It's like getting my old HMO back for myself and my family! Except we won't lose this one when I retire or resign.

What's more, if we don't get sick, we can get an 80% refund.

Did I say refund? Yes. Remember that with the HMO, if you don't get sick, you can say good-bye to your payments. That's 0% refund for staying healthy. You gotta get sick if you want to maximize your HMO payments. And I don't want us to get sick.

With this new healthcare plan, if I don't get sick for five years, I get 80,000 pesos after fifteen years. I'll be forty-seven then. I could use that money for paying off what's left of the amortization for the house I am dreaming of buying now.

All in all, I would say that this health plan was a heaven-sent for us. That's why I am so eager to share it with the rest of you Filipino moms out there. It was an answer to my prayers. Perhaps it could be an answer to yours as well.

Did this post help you?
Leave a comment and let us know!

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Get Rich Slowly

This weekend, I have come across an amazing freebie, which -- because it's free -- I would like to share with you, my readers.

What is it? My dear friends, it's a freebie that could change your life.

It's a free seminar workshop on financial planning.

It's free because it is the public education effort of IMG, a brokerage company. Despite the sponsorship, it has no strings attached. You will learn a lot, and you won't need to shell out a cent to use what you learned.

Now let me tell you more about what this Filipino mom learned for free in this workshop:

• I learned how to make sure that if I, the breadwinner, should die tomorrow, my kids would not starve.
• I learned how to make sure that if I live until 110, my kids will not go broke paying my medical bills.
• We have all heard that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. Well, this time, this Filipino mom learned exactly HOW that happens, and how I can make that rule work for myself and my family.
• Have you heard about compounding interest, how your money goes up so fast at 12% interest, then have you wondered which bank on earth gives 12% interest? Now I know where.
• Other stuff. What can I say? It was an information-filled seminar, and this is a blog, not an e-book.

Now let me digress a little. I have a confession to make.

When it comes to planning financially -- saving money, most specifically -- I have never been an authority. Oh, we try to save all right, but in all truth, the money that my husband and I make is barely enough to cover our basic needs. How on earth could we think about saving when what we make isn't even enough for our expenses?

But it has been said that insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting the result to be different.

I don't want to be working for sixteen hours a day until the day I retire -- heaven forbid, until the day I die -- and still be unable to afford a trip to Las Pinas!

This seminar has forced me to rethink my life. More importantly, it has helped me map out a way to do things differently so that, inevitably, the results will change as well.

Then maybe I won't have to work for sixteen hours a day for the rest of my life. And, God willing, my kids won't have to either.

I would like to thank our long-time family friend Ate Joy for letting me know about this seminar. From the bottom of my heart, you have truly been an answer to prayers I didn't even know I prayed.

And now I would like to pass the kindness forward. My dear friends and readers, I would like to invite you to the same seminar.

If you wish to attend it, you can go directly to this address: 3/F King's Court I, Chino Roces (formerly Pasong Tamo), Makati City, on Saturdays, from 2:00 to 8:00 p.m. (Schedules may change without advance notice.)

If you wish to confirm the schedule first, or if you prefer a different schedule or venue, or if you only have four hours to spare, you may contact 0906-2147059 for assistance.

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