Investing while working

Sometimes I feel so depressed about HAVING to work. But with a family to support, there is really no way around it. We really need to have money in order to pay for the basic needs of our family as well as self imposed essentials like a good education and good health care. That's why we occasionally also put some bets on the lotto, because we might just get lucky enough to be the recipient of a windfall. But, of course, such luck is "suntok sa buwan" or one in several million chances, which means that it is almost impossible. Almost, because you do have a chance of being lucky. But the really reliable sources of income are either actively working to pursue income, or investing.

Of course, investing entails risk, in a way it's just like gambling. But unlike gambling, it's a calculated risk. You decide on what investment to risk your money based on some available historical data and trending. Whether you buy gold bullions, real estate, stocks, mutual funds, etc., you need to study the investment instrument that you are interested, so that you'll know how much risk you are taking and you can determine how much you can risk for that particular instrument. You'll have to get a reliable agent too, because there are far too many scammers out there. The US Gold Bureau is one online resource for gold which look legit so I'm seriously considering buying from them.

I think the time for us to invest is now, when we still earn actively from our profession, as we can handle some losses for bad investment decisions. Of course for good long term investments, this will sustain us through the years that we would no longer be able to work actively.

And the tutoring for long exams start...

My son is going to have his first long exam this coming Tuesday, November 30.  This is the first time for him to have an exam that encompasses the lessons for a whole trimester.  He used to just have short quizzes. 

There's a first time for everything.  For my husband and I, this would be the first time for us to do marathon tutoring sessions.

I hope my little boy will be able to make it.  Keeping our fingers crossed!

A Christmas quiz

I took this quiz for fun, since December is just around the corner. I have to say that I didn't really do very well, just 5 out of 10 correct answers.  (Although the official results say that I know a lot...but diba passing is 75% :P).  I wish though, that they posted about the correct answers!  I do not know which of the answers I put in are the RIGHT ones!

You Know a Lot About Christmas

You got 5/10 correct You know tons about the history and traditions surrounding Christmas. When you celebrate the holidays, you never forget their true meaning - or all the little fun details. Random Christmas fact: The average mall Santa is 5'9, 218 lbs, and 52 years old. The average waist size is 43 inches.

How Much Do You Know About Christmas?

Blogthings: We're Not Shrinks, But We Play Them On the Internet

Lotto!

This morning, I bet on the lotto. I don't usually put bets, but then the pot money is a whopping 690plus pesos, so I thought, maybe I'd be lucky. Of course I was not lucky enough to get the windfall. Nobody won. So, the pot would even be bigger.

What would I do if I were the lucky winner of such a huge amount of money? First of all, I'd keep quiet about it. I won't tell other people. I'd set aside money to be sent anonymously to charities and foundations I believe in. Any relative who may need financial help may find some anonymous help too. I do believe in sharing blessings but I do not like to announce any sudden wealth to everybody else. It's too dangerous -- I might make my family targets of crimes. For myself and my family, I'd buy a modest house of our own near our current location. I'd set aside money to ensure my children's education. I'd put a certain amount in various investments like real estate, stocks and bonds. I think it would be prudent to buy gold too. And although bank deposits are not high yielding, I'd still put some money into it to ensure liquidity. And I'd still try to have my family live in around the same circumstances as we did before any win. No wasteful spendings just because we can.

Now, will I be lucky enough to win? Abangan!

Our laptop is back!

It's difficult to work if you don't have a regular computer. That's what happened to me. My hard drive crashed and for some reason, my laptop just wouldn't work. We thought that it was just the hard drive since my laptop is about 4 years old already and our hard drive is rather limited by now. I mean, 1tb hard drives were not exactly around during the time we bought this.

But even when we already bought a new hard drive and tried using the recovery disc, it still wouldn't work. Sigh. We really have to get it repaired. We were also advised to upgrade our RAM.

Figuring out that it would really be cheaper to have repairs done rather than buy a new lappy, we did so. Now it's back! And much faster too, thanks to the upgraded RAM! Woohoo!

Now our only problem is data recovery. Since our old HD is about 4 years old, it contains a lot of data, some of which are important. We really hope we can at least salvage some of them. Keeping our fingers crossed!