All About Kwarta

Well, it's the end of another quarter. Or should I say, the end of the first quarter of the year. And boy, what a quarter it was! There sure a lot of things going on, mostly the bad kind. The instability of the Middle East and North Africa, the devastating Japan quake and tsunami that killed a lot of people, and in effect the world in the verge of an oil crisis In the local front, everything seems to look a bit ugly too. The Armed Forces' pabaon issues which led to the suicide of the former Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes, the Ligot couple's blatant display of arrogance, the Merci Gutierrez impeachment, and the death penalty of the three Filipino OFW's in China who were convicted as drug mules. On the extreme side of the spectrum are the "activists" who we're blabbering incessantly of how the government has deprived them of all the rights in the world. I mean, come on! These news get into my nerves sometimes that I wish I had that notebook that kills all

UPDATE 2018/01/31 : The ROHQ's 15% preferential tax rate is now officially dead! The provision has been vetoed out by the President in the final TRAIN Law ( BIR Tax Advisory ). ****** A few years ago, while I was still with my first company, our company HR then and the admin in general had this dilemma (as most HRs in the IT industry) - the worsening employee retention rate. In other words, rampant resignations. One of the major causes apparently (as usual) is compensation and - by association - benefits. The usual dilemma is in addressing the compensation issues while not compromising the company's profitability. I could imagine that the admin must have studied the existing laws to exploit the taxation that has been a major setback in enjoying our respective monthly salaries. I mean who wanted a 32% void in our respective payslips, right? In perspective, that's a little more than a quarter of work without pay yearly! And so the idea of an ROHQ was born (That wa

Yesterday, I showed you a personal graph of my assets and liabilities minus the actual figures of course. But I'm pretty sure you get the idea. I just included the part where I reorganized the figures so that it will account every single centavo in credit and debit. But if I had to stretch the graph farther to the left - way back several months - I'm sure you'd come to conclude that I'm a hopeless case. Seriously, the hobo on the street has a far more higher networth than I was then (that is to exclude any future earnings in the equation). There's always a turning point. And like most turning points of this kind, it's ugly. Everything doesn't stop in realizing that everything is in mess and a plan to stick to my budget this time around. It involved a lot of cutting off some of my expenses to avoid defaulting on my debt which was constantly haunting me like forever. So it was some kind of a clearance sale. Food budget 30% off! Entertainment 90% off! Come

Wow. Time surely does fly fast. This blog had just turned 1 year! And it's almost an instinct to assess in retrospect what have I achieved so far... financially that is. We've got lots of things going on in the world right now - with Japan quakes and nuclear threats at its doorsteps and all that (Nikkei is down by 10.55% today! ) and in effect threatening our market as well (and the world's in general). Despite all this, I've got a lot to celebrate about. Exactly one year ago, I mentioned here how much I owe the credit card companies . I hardly could not believe what I read. A hundred and twenty thousand in credit . However you view it, it doesn't look good. I mean, REALLY?! Sadly yes, that much. It was sad but yeah it was a bit of reality that I was since trying to correct. Fast forward to today. I had around almost the same amount, but this time, it's biased on the positive territories. That means I was able to wipe out that much of a debt and accumulate

... AFPSLAI has distributed dividends at a whopping 17% pa rate for the last quarter of 2010 ? The dividend was released last Jan 25 to members. The best part is that, it's tax free!! Unfortunately, only the following are eligible for membership. For regular membership: Military Officer Military Enlisted AFP/PNP Retiree/Pensioner AFP/PNP Pensioners (Widow/Widower/Orphan) Inactive/Reserved Officer (with one term of three continuous years) PNP Officer/Non-Officer Civilian Employees (AFPSLAI-accredited institutions) Resigned from Service/Honorably Discharged (for AFP/PNP military/police) only BFP/BJMP Officer/Non-Officer Associate Membership: Legitimate spouse of regular married member Legitimate children of the regular married member (21 years old and above) Philippine Veterans Administration Office (PVAO) pensioners PNPA/PMA/PAF Cadet Candidate Officers (OCS and NOCC). I'm an associate member by the way ;)