Goals! Update for First Quarter of Year 2016

I just got back from a vacation last week and it was fun! We had a lot of first actually. Jami’s first airplane ride was the highlight of it. Next na lang yung beach and our first major trip as a family ever! Hehe.. We went to Boracay for 3 days and 2 nights which I’ll tell you about in the coming days. =)

Anyway, sobrang bilis ng panahon ano?! Grabe we’re halfway thru May and ilang tulog na lang, June na agad! OMG. Hindi ko ma feel ang panahon!! For some Mommies out there, feel na feel nila because another school year is about to start! I heard from some of my officemates na nag papaaral ng kids, grabe na talaga ang tuition fee ngayon! Kaya I really have to do something about our finances to make sure na maka cope up kami sa gastusin later in life especially kapag nag school na si Jami.

Well, I am going thru major changes now especially in our finances since it’s the very first time that I understood how to budget our money. And because of our recent family getaway, mejo kailangan munang magtipid. Hehe..

This post is just a look back on what I want to achieve this year. From time to time, I wanted to be able to understand how our life is at this point and what we can do to change to plan B if plan A isn’t working. At the start of this year, I have posted my goals here in the blog and even printed it out to make sure that it’s accessible whenever I want to focus.

Financially

**Savings - I wrote about continuing the 52 weeks money challenge that I had last year. This was a fail since I never get the chance to save following this. I was actually putting the money in a cooperative in the office and we're about to get the money by the end of June. It was a mid-term savings that I had (since it's 6 months) from January and I am so glad my money earned Php500 the last time I was checked. I had 2 shares so it was a total of Php1,000 for both shares. Not bad isn't it? Saving Php600 per month in my atm savings won't give me that much of an interest diba? So I am quite happy with it. I was thinking of adding more shares pero there might be some changes in the coop on the next term raising the amount from Php300 to P500 a month so I might have to think about adding a share.

**Junior Savings Account - Back in 2014 when I started a Junior Savings Account for Jami. It was a form of a passbook to basically just put in money as long as I can and give it to Jami when he's older. It took a year before I realized that I am not making progress on this part so one of the plans I had this year was to actively put some money in it. Since this passbook doesn't earn a huge amount of interest, I minimized the amount being placed to Php1,000 a month. Later this year, I have decided to make this as our emergency fund. I have read in a book that Emergency Fund should always be accessible anytime for any emergency situation that may arise. I am aiming for a 3 month worth of my salary and hopefully, I can pull this off by the end or at least first quarter of next year. At this point, I am still far from the goal but I am loving the progress that we're making. =)

**Loans - I am still working on paying these loans from government agencies (Pag-ibig and SSS). By the end of June, once the coop was released, I'll use the money to pay off the Pag-ibig loan. I hope I could manage to pay both of them this year.

**Additional Income - I am so glad I was able to use some of my 13th month pay last year to buy a convection oven that I am using to bake goods. I sell them in the office and I am so glad that it was a hit. I am looking forward to grow the business although I stopped last week due to our vacation. Hoping I could get back this week and moving forward. =)

Family

**Staycation - It is still one of the plans this year. I was thinking of having a staycation on my birthday although there were still plenty of bills to pay due to our recent trip. I still have couple of more months before the year ends so hopefully, this can be made possible. =)

**Travel - Early this year, I was able to score a seat sale for a roundtrip ticket in Boracay. At last! It was Jami's first airplane ride and family's first out of the island tour? Lols. Although traveling could really be fun but expensive, I'll be planning our travel carefully in the future and make sure that it's only one major travel per year only. Hehe. We also had the chance to go to Baler in March so we had 2 this year na. =)

**Househelp - This is definitely the least in my priority at the moment. I can't accommodate another expenses (yaya's salary, food, electricity etc that she's going to use). Since Daryl's not working at the moment, sya na lang ang mag aalaga for the time being until he finds a new job.

**Daryl's Passport - Second least priority since we're not leaving the country anytime soon anwyway. So this can wait.

**Family Photo - As the days are passing by, we are getting to use with a family photo. It started when we traveled to Boracay. It was really fun taking pictures of us so this will continue and I hope we could post more of this in the coming days. Ang hirap lang because walang magpipicture lagi so it has to be selfies lang lols. =)

Blog


**Renew blog domain - yes, I was able to renew this in January.

**Blog Event - I was able to attend an event although it wasn't as plenty as last year so I hope I could attend more in the coming months.

**Earning - I failed to blog often since I was really busy with baking and office so earning is one of the least that I could expect in this blog. =)

 **Projects - there was a project being offered couple of months ago but never heard anything from the client yet.

**Giveaway - yes! I had my first giveaway which was sponsored by Trisopure. May isa pa ngang hindi na claim. Lagi ko kasing nakakalimutan! hayyy.. Tomorrow, I'll drop by in 7-11 para mai ship na talaga.. Sorry Jing. :)

**Improve Blog Photos - nothing has changed. Camera became one of my least priority so sorry na lang sa basher ng blog na ito. Pagtyagaan muna ang photos for the meantime. :p

I saw some improvements in some part of the plan. I am so happy at least I made some things possible and I can't wait to accomplish all of these that are remaining. There were some additional plan/goal though, like getting a VUL from Sunlife which was my very next priority. I am looking to start probably around July. =)

How about you Mommies? Did some of your goals came true?