Category: Money Matters

Secret Civil Wedding: Becoming Mrs. Villanueva Part 1

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It was supposed to be a “secret wedding”… We wanted our partnership to be legal and official even before we lay out all the plans for 2023, one of which is being able to do our dream beach wedding. Blame it to my “segurista” and OC personality, I just want everything ironed out on the legal front before the year ends. And I’m very grateful for the fact that Mahal has always wanted to marry me and supports me all the way, til forever and beyond… ❤

Actually, if we didn’t have the funds to do a beach wedding next year, a simple, “secret”, intimate civil wedding one is what we’ll really do. We are both introverts after all. I was even content to just have a piece of thread tied to my finger as a promise of his love. But thank you, God, for blessing us with a beautiful engagement, complete with an engagement photoshoot and engagement video shoot, and even an engagement honeymoon in Camotes Island which I’ll share here soon. We really feel so grateful plus I feel like such a celebrity (lol!) doing 2 kinds of weddings. Actually, even before J.Lo and Ben Affleck did their two weddings, doing the same had always been my plan… the two stars just beat us to it! Lol!

Didn’t JLo say

“Life is an art… and we are the artists… make it as beautiful as you want and create exactly what you want it to be…”

So that’s what we did!

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Thoughts About Real Estate and Mortgages in These Trying Times

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Hello, hello, hello!

I’ve been catching up on a TON of work since we got engaged!!! A lot of things have been going on in my personal life as well but I’m hoping to share more of our adventures real soon. And one of these adventures that I’d like to share here with you now is not just about travels that we’ve been doing but more importantly, stuff that we’ve been accomplishing to help fulfill those goals we’ve set out for ourselves for this year and the next. I gave you some ideas before about how to reach your goals for 2022 and I’ve also shared with you some financial tools if your goal is a financial one.

So, this other adventure that I want to share here with you is also a bit related to finances. As you may know, Mahal and I are getting married next year and we are in the works of fulfilling our dream of having a beach wedding in Mactan, Cebu. Even if what we want is just an intimate one with only a few guests, it would still be considered as a big spend for us frugal folks so we’re doing everything we can to augment our income. We don’t want to spend so much on the wedding because we have a bigger fish to fry so to speak. Or shall I say “fishes”? Teehee.

And these “fishes” are:

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3 Ways to Use Home Equity to Generate Passive Income

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When one is at the point in their life asking themselves “Should I rent or buy a house?” many questions are going to come to mind. They might be thinking about whether where they are looking to buy is where they really want to settle down and if not, will it be somewhere that’ll be easy to rent out. It’s also more than fair to think about what the market is going to look like for the coming years and what that’s going to mean when they are looking to sell. 

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10 Financial Tools and Tips That Can Help You Stick to Your Budget and Grow Your Money This 2022

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We’re heading to the 3rd week of the new year. Have you started working on your 2022 goals and dreams yet? Perhaps, my previous blog post can help you as I shared there 3 strategies I use to reach mine —> How to Get Anything You Want – 3 Strategies to Help You Achieve Your Goals in 2022

If your 2022 goal has something to do with finances like mine, then stick around because I’ll be sharing with you some basic tools and tips I’ve used and continue to use to keep my finances in check, stay out of debt, thereby helping me save more, invest more, retain a good cash flow, and let my money grow. 

I think even before one thinks about the more complicated nature of finance, it is best to tackle the basics first which is HOW TO BUDGET RIGHT. I believe this is an area where many of us fail from time to time, if not every single time! I’ve been there in my 30’s. I’ve always wanted to budget well but I’ve always ended up in debt… huge debts to the point that my precious house – the product of my own blood, sweat, and tears — almost got repossessed by the bank!                                    

Good thing I was able to start getting out of that rabbit hole and just before I hit my 40’s, I was finally debt-free! I even managed to finish my home mortgage payments back in 2017 making me a proud home owner of a two-story townhouse in one of our capital’s central business districts where real estate prices go high! I’m about to turn 44 next month and I’m happy to say that I’ve maintained my debt-free status ever since. Perhaps you might think it was wisdom that comes with getting older coupled with discipline. It’s both, but it’s also more than that too. I’ll share with you the basics below. 

The financial tools and tips I’ve used to help me budget well and which can help you stick to your budget too are as follow:

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How to Get Anything You Want – 3 Strategies to Help You Achieve Your Goals in 2022 

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As we begin our journey this New Year, many of us think about having new goals, new dreams, and basically how do we get about achieving them. I’ve thought about these things myself. Mine in particular is about increasing my net worth to a particular amount and this involves budgeting all of my money and assets well. This thought has been ringing in my mind since late last year, especially after Typhoon Rai hit us and I knew in my gut that I should make this financial goal my number 1 priority. 

So, to help me dissect the process of how I’m going to achieve this particular financial goal of mine this year, I listened to a podcast by Marie Forleo discussing the topic “How to Get Anything You Want?” This can actually apply to getting anything you want this year — whether it be getting your life back together, having the kind of relationship you want, traveling to a particular place, getting the job or career you want, setting up your own business, winning a nobel prize — you name it and the strategies here will help you make it happen.

I’ll share with you below the notes I took so that you too, can have some ideas on how to achieve your goals for 2022, especially if it’s a financial goal like mine. 

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New Year's eve

My Little New Year’s Eve Diary

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When I think about what 2020 has been for us, I have nothing but prayer of thanks. 

Though this pandemic did affect some aspects of our business, we were able to pivot, adjust, and not only survive but thrive. Truth is, in the 3 years that we’ve lived in Cagayan de Oro, 2020 has been our most successful year. And for that, THANK YOU, GOD! 

A huge part is because living and working from home is not new to us. We’ve always been the introverted type and my work has always been online, so it didn’t really change our routine much. And because most of the world turned online, business has never been better.  It also helped that we got out of our tiny pad. Since travel was restricted, our original plan of living somewhere half the time and living in the tiny pad the other half of the time was no longer possible. I needed space to breathe and just be and I’m so happy we got to experience living in a cozy house here in Cagayan de Oro City. Before the year approached its end, we even got to host online and overnight parties. 

But don’t get me wrong… There were dark days, yes. Days when I felt like the world was going to end as if we’re entering the era of zombie apocalypse…

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Christmas

Unexpected Christmas Wishes Coming True

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It’s true what they say… when you least expect it, that’s when the magic happens. For the most part of the year, and the last 3 years before that, I thought we will have the same Christmas as before — we used to live in a tiny pad, so decorating our home for Christmas was not an option then. Instead, we’d go to a hotel resort here in Cagayan de Oro City and spend an overnight stay for both Christmas and New Year. Although on our first Christmas here in 2017, we celebrated it at our farm with our people. I’ve still yet to blog and vlog about those amazing hotel resort stays we did but I really plan to (next year, hopefully, as throwback features). Oh wait, I did blog about our Seda Centrio New Year Stay.  

Well, this year, (in a way, thanks to this pandemic — we got to transfer to a cozy house — looking at the silver lining here), my long overdue wish of spending Christmas in a beautiful, cozy home I personally decorated, hosting a party if possible, and just chilling and pigging out over a simple Noche Buena feast in our pajamas — finally came true!!! I’m so happy, I really can’t stop expressing it! I’ve been saying it on my social media posts and even offline to Mahal. I’m just really so happy. Hallelujah! 

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YouGov

YouGov Survey – Is It Legit? Yes! They’re the Survey Company That Really Pays!

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If you want to skip reading my blog post and get on to registering at YouGov for free, just head to this link: http://bit.ly/2ZUk1vP

 

A LITTLE INTRO

Are you familiar with the law of attraction? I’ve been applying it to the best of my ability since I learned about it in 2008. It was this law that gave me the courage to quit the high-paying government job I had for 5 years at that time because I wasn’t happy about it anymore and it was taking the life out of me despite earning 100k-250K a month (depending on the schedule of bonuses and RATA)… yes, I was only 24 years old and I was already earning that much, but I let all that go…  It was this law that propelled me to believe that there is life after the corporate world; it was this law of attraction that led me to my first million pesos in cold hard cash a few months after I retired from the government in 2007; it was this law that led me to this this laptop, VA and online lifestyle I’ve been living for almost 12 years now which financially helped me with so many  other things — buy my own house, buy my first car, set up a mushroom farm in the mountains, beach bum and take long vacations whenever I want to, finally have a baby the moment I wanted one (coz all my life before that I never wanted a baby and I never did until I wanted it), build a life with my best friend, get my previous marriage annulled… and so many more, both big and small things. It really is like magic! And whatever I set my mind to achieve, no matter how small or how big, as long as I genuinely believe it will happen, I really achieve it and it really does happen. The secret? GRATITUDE. (You can read my blog posts about gratitude here: https://momtraneur.com/tag/gratitude/) Continue reading →

GetBlogged

Earn From GetBlogged! They’re For Real!

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OMG! OMG! OMG! GetBlogged just paid me!!! I feel like such a newbie blogger but the truth is, it’s been ages since I last got paid for being a blogger (perhaps the last one was in 2009 when Dr. Gerba visited my house and did the Safeguard campaign… and other little paid links from a decade ago on my Sexy Nomad blog) Like I usually tell you on my old posts, my blog is my passion, my online diary and I don’t really earn from it. It’s just middle of this year that I thought of why not try to earn something from my passion, right? If I get some cash from doing what I love, then thank you, God! If not, the happiness I feel from being able to do what I love is still priceless. I love writing, I love sharing my stories and that should be enough.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I received a little amount on my Paypal account as payment from GetBlogged! I just joined them last month and now I got some payment for doing so. I know it’s nothing; it’s such a super tiny amount, but still, it’s something!

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