The Registered Financial Planners Institute and Personal Finance Advisers Philippines Corporation are pleased to announce their first joint event entitled, “Pesos and Sense – Weather Proofing Your Personal Finance” on October 29, 2008 from 1 to 5 pm at the Makati Sports Club.

For this event, we have invited the following bestselling authors and practitioners to articulate how personal finance can indeed be weather-proofed:

Chinkee Tan – The Right Perspective On Money
•   Bestselling author of “Till Debt Do Us Part”
•   Lifestyle Trainer
•   Former actor turned Millionaire
•   One of the most sought after speaker on practical financial management

J. Randell Tiongson, RFP – Prosperity Begins with “S”

•   President and COO, Personal Finance Advisers Philippines Corporation
•   20 years of experience in the financial services industry
•   Director of the Registered Financial Planning Institute Philippines
•   Co-founder of www.income-tacts.com, the country’s premiere personal finance on-line community
•   Columnist/Writer, Business Mirror Newspaper, Moneysense Magazine, My Money

Francis J. Kong – The Right Pursuits in Life
•   The country’s leading motivational and inspirational guru
•   Author of 10 best-selling books
•   Award-winning radio program on DZFE and a most read columnist of the Philippine Star
•   License holder for John Maxwell and Zig Ziglar programs
•   Extensive experience in business
•   Featured in many of the major business conventions and conferences both here and abroad

People who should attend this event are individuals interested in improving their personal financial management as well as practitioners who want to get insights on how to help their clients better manage their finances.

The cost for attending the seminar is One Thousand Eight Hundred Pesos (P1,800.00) per person, VAT inclusive or a special early bird rate of One Thousand Five Hundred Pesos Only (P1,500.00) – Great value for fantastic learning from 3 of the country’s most respected speakers and trainers.

For more inquiries, please call Rachelle at 634-2204

MoneySense is supporting an upcoming seminar entitled “Developing a Millionaire’s Mindset” this September 30 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium in RCBC Plaza, Makati City. It showcases two of the country’s most inspiring speakers — Francis Kong and Chinkee Tan. You can learn more about it here.

Hope you get a copy of the latest issue of MoneySense. It’s our Money & Kids issue. Still available at National Bookstore, Powerbooks, Fully Booked, and many magazine outlets nationwide.

I particularly like the cover. The Pangilinan family looks great (I mean their kids are just cute…and smart…wait till you read the interview).

It’s also packed with a lot of articles — probably the most we have so far. If you don’t have kids, that’s fine. We have articles on car loans and alternative credit as well as bank deposits.

If you’ve read the latest issue, please let us know what you think. Thanks!

OK, this is quite a late reply, but I just want to put some “closure” to the questions about a previous article we wrote.

I kinda knew we’d get a lot of reaction from our March-April issue with the “Best Places to Live” article. It makes me regret we didn’t make that our main story. Even mayors, vice-mayors, and city administrators gave their own comments about it. We’ve seen blogs and online forums discussing it. And that post about the article got the most comments.

If I may sum up the comments, here they are:

1. Those from Bacolod, Iloilo, Davao, and other higher-ranked cities agreed with us
2. Those from Cebu (which was ranked low at no. 20 said we suck

Of course those who said we suck didn’t bother to read the article and the editor’s note. Personally, I love Cebu. My brother-in-law is a Cebuano based in Cebu. My sister and nephew are now in Cebu. I’ve been to Cebu a couple of times and I love it there. I think it should be in the top 10, maybe even top 5.

I also think Tagaytay, Antipolo, and maybe Sta. Rosa Laguna should be in the list. They’re not.

But like what was explained in the magazine, we based the ranking on existing surveys from AIM and the UNDP. They did the actual research, legwork, and analysis. Some cities were excluded from the survey. Others were simply ranked very low.

As for your (and my beloved, ahem) Cebu, sorry, AIM ranked it very low in infrastructure and relatively low in the other criteria we adopted. AIM’s previous survey ranked Cebu very high. When it did the most recent survey, Cebu dropped in its ratings. Even AIM sheepishly explained Cebu remains a top investment destination. Here’s an analysis on the survey taken from here:

Directly relating with the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) survey, the Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis Inc. (IDEA) analyzed that Cebu City’s fast growth has resulted in an irony of sorts as the Queen City of the South slipped below the top five most competitive cities in the country last year, losing its former spot to Davao City. Veteran economist Cayetano Paderanga, Jr., head of the team, stated that the city’s ranking suggests that businessmen continues to have “anxieties” about “congestion in roads, water and others.” He also stated that concerned local governments must invest in needed infrastructure to address issues raised by the business sector. Despite the setback however, Paderanga declares that “Cebu is still a fast-growing city,” and that its speedy growth led to economic development overtaking the city’s infrastructure. In the AIM survey, Davao City replaced Cebu City in the top five most competitive metro cities in the country. The other four are Las Piñas, Makati, Marikina, and Muntinlupa. Cebu City finished last of 12 metro cities in terms of infrastructure but landed first of the same 12 cities surveyed in terms of linkages and accessibility.

So, we did not use personal opinion to come up with the ranking (if we did, Cebu would be ranked high). We did not do an informal poll where anyone can vote. We based it on a survey conducted by a reputable institution answered by the very residents and business owners in the cities surveyed. In other words, Cebuanos rated Cebu.

We’re working on our “Money and Children” issue and we’re excited about it! Just to give you an idea what the next issue has to offer, here are some of the topics we’re working on:

1. How to raise money-savvy kids: Here we interviewed experts on ways we can teach our children about handling money, from their allowance and spending to saving and investing
2. The ABCs of homeschooling: This is a growing trend in the US and other countries. Did you know a good number of FIlipino families are also homeschooling their kids? This article will tackle the why’s and how’s of home study. Plus, I’m sure some of you might be worried that if you homeschool your kids, their socialization skills will suffer. The article will discuss that as well.
3. Child-birth costs: Do you know how much it costs to have a normal delivery? If you’re shocked, wait till you learn how a CS operation costs!
4. Educational plans: The pre-need industry has certainly taken a beating. I mean, from 90 plus companies, they’re now down to just a couple of dozen. And fewer Filipinos buy pre-need plans. The major reason for the debacle were open educational plans. Still, in case you still want to buy a fixed-value educational plan, this article will break down the parts of a typical plan (because, really, who understands those charts and tables?!?). And if you think you should just save on your own, we also do a comparative computation.
5. Scholarships: We included an article on scholarships because not a lot of Filipinos really take advantage of them. I mean, you meet parents who are proud of their child’s academic achievements yet applying for a scholarship for them doesn’t cross their minds. If you think scholarships are just for “poor but deserving” students, this article will give you a better idea of the other available options.

This is just a sampling. And for you who don’t have kids (or don’t have kids yet), there are lots of articles in the upcoming issue that you’ll find interesting. Watch out for it!

We hope you already grabbed a copy of the March-April issue of MoneySense. We have an interesting list there — the “Best Places to Live in the Philippines.” Curious? Here’s the top 20:

1. Bacolod
2. Makati
3. Davao
4. Marikina
5. Iloilo
6. Las Piñas
7. Pasig
8. San Fernando
9. Mandaluyong
10. Quezon City
11. Manila
12. Batangas
13. Cagayan de Oro
14. Muntinlupa
15. Angeles
16. Baguio
17. Lipa
18. Calamba
19. General Santos
20. Cebu

If you want to know more, of course, you have to buy a copy. But just to give you a short background about we compiled this, here’s what I wrote in the editor’s note:

There Is a Method to This Madness
Compiling a “Best Places to Live” in the Philippines list just screams for complaints and criticism. After we came out with the results, I was actually disappointed, even perplexed, that some of my favorite cities weren’t included or were so far down the ranking.

I have lived in three cities my entire life and about to move to my fourth. Only two of those – Makati and Quezon City – made the list. It kind of bothered me a bit that Antipolo – my future home – didn’t make the cut (more on that later). Did I make the right decision to live there?

As for you, are you aghast that your city is not on the list or is at the lower rung? Sorry, we didn’t hand-pick the list based on personal opinion. How can Cebu and Baguio be at the lower ranks of the top 20? We had expected them to be right there at least among the top 10. Unfortunately, Cebu ranked low in the list of the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project (PCCRP) of the Asian Institute of Management (a major basis for our ranking) – 10th on dynamism of local economy, 12th in infrastructure, and eighth in quality of life. Baguio was also at the fringes of the criteria on economy and infrastructure, even though it ranked high in quality of life.

And where are the CALABARZON cities in the top 20 save for Batangas, Lipa, and Calamba? You’d expect to find Cavite, Sta. Rosa, Tagaytay, and Antipolo at least. Well, Cavite, Sta. Rosa, and Tagaytay were ranked really low. And Antipolo? Well, it wasn’t part of the PCCRP (that gives me hope).

You may also be annoyed by the fact that Metro Manila cities dominate the list. While we can say that there’s little difference if you live in Pasig or Quezon City if you work or study in Makati (or for that matter, also live in Makati), since it’s really not that far, it’s unfair to conclude that all Metro Manila cities are created equal and that therefore they should be just lumped as one. Obviously they’re not. Living in Marikina appears to be better than living in, say, Pasay, which ranked lowest in quality of life among metro cities.

There are three key components of what we believe makes a place the best place to live: standard of living, quality of life, and cost of living. You may be earning a lot but if you live in an overcrowded city with too much smog, a high crime rate, bad roads, and few schools to choose from, then it may be better idea to just move. Similarly, you can have fresh air, a peaceful environment, and longer life expectancy, but if you can’t find good jobs or business opportunities, you’ll also move.

What is standard of living? To us, the factors to look at are income (above average family income and per capita income), economy (high GDP and GDP growth), employment (high employment rate), and business (low cost of doing business).

Quality of life includes population (relative low population and population growth), demographics (good gender mix, good number of young economically active people, high ratio of singles), environment (clean air, clean streets), health care (high life expectancy, low mortality rate), education (high literacy rate, high proportion with high level of education), safety (low crime rate, high crime solution efficiency), and leisure (high level of tourist arrivals).

Of course, tracking all these metrics is time-consuming and difficult. So we relied on existing studies that have already done the work for us. We believed those studies sufficiently provided a solid basis for measuring standard of living and quality of life. However, we didn’t bother to anymore measure and consider cost of living as data for this is incomplete and unreliable. Besides, the “Best Places to Live” does mean best, not most affordable. And as the final listing shows, each city offers a whole range of options for every budget.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a good start.

We strive to make MoneySense as relevant, useful, and visually appealing to our readers. As we mark our first anniversary, we want to hear from magazine stand readers and subscribers how else we can improve the magazine.

We would appreciate it if you send a quick e-mail with your answers to the following questions. Or post a comment on this blog entry.

1. So far, which issue did you like the most? (note all letters that apply)

a. Jan-Feb 07: Amanda Griffin/Where to Invest in 2007

b. Mar-Apr 07: Ace Durano/Best Summer Destinations

c. May-Jun 07: Gary and Angeli Valenciano/Money and Marriage

d. Jul-Aug 07: Pia Cayetano/Cut Your Health Care Costs

e. Sep-Oct 07: Paolo Bediones/Millionaires’ Secrets

f. Nov-Dec 07: Christine Jacob/Holiday Shopping Guide

g. Jan-Feb 08: Ricky Carandang/Where to Invest in 2008

2. Which section of the magazine do you find the most useful? (note all letters that apply)

a. Easy Money

b. My Money Story

c. Index

d. Cover Story

e. Features

f. The Bottom Line

g. Smart Spender

h. Here’s a Final Tip

3. Which articles made the most impact on your financial life? (write as many)

4. What topics do you want us to write about in future issues? (write as many)

5. What do you like most about the magazine in general? And in what ways can we improve the magazine? (write as many)

We just changed the look of our Web site to make it more user-friendly. We’re also currently updating the content so you can get a lot more tips, news, and reference data. It’s still a work in progress, so you can expect better features in the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, let us know what you think and what you want to see here.

I’m not going to predict what’s going to happen this year (you can read that in our main feature “Where to Invest in 2008” on p.46), but I’m going to take some action steps that will impact my financial life. I suggest you make your own list.

1. Tighten belt. Soaring gas prices, construction costs, baby expenses, 2.6% inflation rate be damned! I’m going to have to watch my cash flow like a hawk and make some sacrifices along the way (goodbye, Chrysler 300c!). This has never been bad advice, so tighten yours as well.

2. Switch cards. After figuring out what I really want from my credit card (see last issue’s “What Credit Card Type Are You?”), I plan to switch to another card that will give me exactly the benefits I want. Now, if you’re a revolver and find yourself with too much holiday debt, pay it off. And don’t put it off (see “Drowning in Debt?” on p.54).

3. Increase passive income. I love when money works for me, not the other way around. I want to up my passive income to a quarter of my total, with the ultimate goal of generating a lean, mean, passive income cash machine replacing most if not all of my income.  That means selling some hard assets for something more liquid – and finding that elusive automatic cash cow, and I don’t mean 10% monthly guaranteed income scams (see “How to Spot and Avoid Scams” on p. 51).

4. Start a business. We just set up another company partly as a legitimate tax shelter and mainly as another income stream. Give entrepreneurship – even part-time – some serious thought.

5. Buy property. This is still a great time to borrow money to buy or build a house. We signed up a 25-year mortgage at a good fixed rate. If you’re planning to buy a house or condo unit, don’t pass up the opportunity.

6. Open a PERA account. I had been remiss with retirement planning, but if this PERA bill finally becomes a law (it was erroneously reported that it was months ago) and financial products tied to it finally get into market, I will definitely start my contributions. Retirement may be decades off for you as well, but early is always better than late (see “The Home Stretch” on p. 60, an excerpt from columnist Efren Cruz’s second book).

7. Invest in euro. I have some US dollars dropping in value even as I write this (read the Index section on 26). I really should at least recover my losses by investing in a higher-yielding US dollar investment or switching to euro. You should too.

8. Travel abroad. Okay I won’t, but if I don’t have more pressing priorities, I would. The falling US dollar means it’s becoming a lot more affordable to travel to the US (or buy stuff online for that matter). So if you can and you’ve got your financial house in order, go ahead. You deserve it. I know I do.

By the way, you know this is our first anniversary, right? If I’m going to do just one prediction for 2008, it’s this: MoneySense will just get better and better. Thanks for your support. And please spread the word.