Advices on how to be debt-free.

It is so easy to get that new cellphone model and charge it to your credit card. But it is even easier to accumulate a mountain of debt if you are not careful. Here are some tips on how to manage debt and finances…

1.) The first thing to do if you want to get out of debt is avoid getting deeper into it. “This means no more charging anything to a credit card. It means that you might have to put off purchases, find other ways of getting what you need or even go without to quit adding to your debt.”

2.) People in debt should put away their credit cards or even cut them up to stay away from temptation.

3.) A lot of money is paid on interest over the years with credit cards and other debts. She advised paying as much extra as possible on the credit card with the biggest amount owed while making minimum payments on the others. “When that highest card is paid off, start the process with the next card on the list. Carry out this procedure until all the cards are paid off.”

4.) Experts do not agree about keeping a low-interest credit card for emergencies. Dave Ramsey, author of The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness, said you need to cut up all your credit cards. “The bottom line is how you define an emergency. If it’s seeing a great deal on something you’ve been wanting like a new guitar and you don’t have enough money to cover it right now, that’s not an emergency,” he said.

5.) Experts said you should tell yourself the truth about your finances and be clear about your finances.

6.) Know about your credit cards. When you get the bill, look it over until you find the annual percentage rate, which is the interest rate. Credit cards sometimes list other percentages and fees but the annual percentage rate is what will get you in the end.

7.) It is always good to take a simple approach to money and getting into more debt to pay off old ones is not the way to go about it. “It may temporarily get you out of some of your debt, but it does nothing to keep you out of it”.

8.) The most important debts are the ones where the creditor has a drastic sanction like repossession (mortgage arrears), cutting off your supply (utilities bill) or imprisonment (council tax, child support). You need to agree repayments on these debts first before tackling your credit debts.

9.) Cutting down on expenditures like food, clothing and shelter. “It’s easy to underestimate the amount you spend on essential items like food and fuel,”

10.) Making minimum payments each month, paying high-interest rates and outrageously high-late and over-limit fees and transferring balances between credit cards all the time will definitely not get you out of debt. Bickell got himself out of heavy deby with a process called debt negotiation, where you negotiate with your creditors to pay off (or settle) all of your credit card bills at a reduced amount—often at a savings of 40-60 percent.

11.) Other ways of getting yourself out of debt, which include debt acceleration or paying off high interest bills first; transferring your balances all the time to different credit cards and bankruptcy, are not as effective as debt negotiation.

Why live in Pinas? The only place on earth where…… Every street has a basketball court.Even doctors, lawyers and engineers are unemployed.Doctors study to become nurses for employment abroad.Students pay more money than they will earn afterwards. School is considered the second home and the mall considered the third.Call-center employees earn more money than teachers and nurses.Everyone has his personal ghost story and superstition. 

Mountains like Makiling and Banahaw are considered holy places.Everything can be forged. All kinds of animals are edible.Starbucks coffee is more expensive than gas.Driving 4 kms can take as much as four hours.Flyovers bring you from the freeway to the side streets.Crossing the street involves running for your dear life.The personal computer is mainly used for games and Friendster.Where colonial mentality is dishonestly denied!Where 4 a.m. is not even considered bedtime yet.People can pay to defy the law.Everything and everyone is spoofed.Where even the poverty-stricken get to wear Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger (peke)!The honking of car horns is a way of life.Being called a bum is never offensive.Floodwaters take up more than 90 percent of the streets during the rainy season. Where everyone has a relative abroad who keeps them alive.Where wearing your national colors make you baduy.Where even the poverty-stricken have the latest cell phones. (GSM-galing sa magnanakaw)Where insurance does not work.Where water can only be classified as tap and dirty - clean water is for sale (35 pesos per gallon).Where the government makes the people pray for miracles. (Amen to that!)Where University of the Philippines is where all the weird people go.Ateneo is where all the nerds go.La Salle is where all the Chinese go.College of Saint Benilde is where all the stupid Chinese go, and University of Asia and the Pacific is where all the irrelevantly rich people go.Fast food is a diet meal.Traffic signs are merely suggestions, not regulations. Where being mugged is normal. It happens to everyone. Rodents are normal house pets.The definition of traffic is the ‘non-movement’ of vehicles.Where the fighter planes of the 1940s are used for military engagements, and the new fighter planes are displayed in museums.Where cigarettes and alcohol are a necessity, and where the lottery is a commodity. Where soap operas tell the realities of life and where the news provides the drama. Where actors make the rules and where politicians provide the entertainment.People can get away with stealing trillions of pesos, but not a thousand. Where being an hour late is still considered punctual.(Grabe talaga ‘to!) Where the squatters have more to complain (even if they do not pay their taxes) —- than those employed and have theirtax automatically deducted from their salaries….and where everyone wants toleave the country! 

According to Manila businessman, Tonyboy Ongsiako, there is so much wit in the Philippines because ‘. . .we are a country where a good sense of humoris needed to survive. We have a 24-hour comedy show here called the government and a huge reserve of comedians made up mostly of politicians and bad actors. Now I ask you where else in the world would one want to live.  - sugarmaple07

Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on a route and started off the race.

The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he’d sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race. He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The hare woke up and realized that he’d lost the race.

The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race.

This is the version of the story that we’ve all grown up with.

But there is a new version of this story. It continues.

The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some Defect Prevention (Root Cause Analysis). He realized that he’d lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there’s no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So he challenged the tortoise to another race. The tortoise agreed.

This time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles.

The moral of the story! Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady.

If you have two people in your organization, one slow, methodical and reliable, and the other fast and still reliable at what he does, the fast and reliable chap will consistently climb the organizational ladder faster than the slow, methodical chap. It’s good to be slow and steady; but it’s better to be fast and reliable.

But the story doesn’t end here.

The tortoise did some thinking this time, and realized that there’s no way he can beat the hare in a race the way it was currently formatted. He thought for a while, and then challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different route. The hare agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometers on the other side of the river. The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race.

The moral of the story! First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency.

In an organization, if you are a good speaker, make sure you create opportunities to give presentations that enable the senior management to notice you. If your strength is analysis, make sure you do some sort of research, make a report and send it upstairs. Working to your strengths will not only get you noticed but will also create opportunities for growth and advancement.

The story still hasn’t ended.

The hare and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends and they did some thinking together. Both realised that the last race could have been run much better. So they decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team this time. They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till the riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the hare on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. They both felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they’d felt earlier.

The moral of the story! It’s good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies; but unless you’re able to work in a team and harness each other’s core competencies, you’ll always perform below par because there will always be situations at which you’ll do poorly and someone else does well.

Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership. There are more lessons to be learnt from this story.

Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after failures. The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after his failure. The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as hard as he could. In life, when faced with failure, sometimes it is appropriate to work harder and put in more effort. Sometimes it is appropriate to change strategy and try something different. And sometimes it is appropriate to do both.

The hare and the tortoise also learnt another vital lesson. When we stop competing against a rival and instead start competing against the situation, we perform far better.

E.g.: When Roberto Goizueta took over as CEO of Coca-Cola in the 1980s, he was faced with intense competition from Pepsi that was eating into Coke’s growth. His executives were Pepsi-focused and intent on increasing market share 0.1 per cent a time. Goizueta decided to stop competing against Pepsi and instead compete against the situation of 0.1 per cent growth. He asked his executives what was the average fluid intake of an American per day? The answer was 14 ounces. What was Coke’s share of that? Two ounces. Goizueta said Coke needed a larger share of that market.

The competition wasn’t Pepsi. It was the water, tea, coffee, milk and fruit juices that went into the remaining 12 ounces. The public should reach for a Coke whenever they felt like drinking something. To this end, Coke put up vending machines at every street corner. Sales took a quantum jump and Pepsi has never quite caught up since.

To sum up, the story of the hare and tortoise teaches us many things. Important lessons are:

• That fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady;
• Work to your competencies;
• Pooling resources and working as a team will always beat individual
performers;
• Never give up when faced with failure;
• And finally, compete against the situation. Not against a rival.