Goodbye Honda Cub C70 and Some Online Selling Tips

Yupi the C70

I just sold my 1997 Honda Cub C70. I named him Yupi. I got Yupi about a year ago from his previous owner in UP Los Banos, Laguna. I bought Yupi for the use in my food delivery business. I was able to make use of his service for a few months, but only after spending a few thousand pesos for his repair and maintenance.

Some of you might ask why I spent money for an old beaten up motorcycle. For those who are not knowledgeable of  this type of motorcycle, Honda C70's are rated the number 1 greatest motorcycle ever by Discovery Channel! C70's are cheap, economical, and classic looking. You may view this Discovery Channel documentary here.

I never really wanted to sell Yupi. I wanted to restore and make him look like a brand new version of him. But due to the costs of restoring classic bikes, I opted to sell him and give him a better chance of being restored to his optimum beauty. 

I enjoyed my rides with Yupi, and I hope the new owner will be able to restore you beautifully until you become really the greatest motorcycle ever! 

Just to give you guys an idea on how I sold Yupi, I made use of free ad listings like OLX.PH

The market for used classic bikes is quite small that is why its quite long to sell. The secret to selling online is to make sure that you post honest descriptions of your item. Make sure also to communicate with prospective buyers all the time for proper scheduling and location meet ups. Do not get disheartened if you do not sell your item right away. Just make sure that your post is up and running and answer queries all the time. I'll post more about online selling soon!

Back on the Bike and Gym

Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with slipped disk on my lower back (herniated disk). This event was a big downer for me. I live an active lifestyle, going to the gym, running. playing football, and biking. However, I had to let go of all of these because the doctors (YES, doctors, I consulted two of them) recommended and advised to rest and sort of protect my back from incurring further damage due to strain.

I forced myself not to do any of the activities I love, it was hard and depressing. Since I couldn't do any physical activities, I turned my gym-time into chess-time! My football weekends became family-weekends! My morning runs or rides became walking the dog trips! I had to change my ways for my own benefit. Change is hard to accept, but it is part of life and we should just keep on doing what is best for us.

Although I badly wanted to play football or ride my bike, I kept at staying at home and doing non-strenuous activities. It was okay, but I really missed sweating out and releasing my stress through exercise. However, a for a few weeks now, I have gone back to the gym, and begun riding the bike (stationary)! Since I felt that my back has become stronger from all the core and back stretching exercises I've been doing, I became confident that I could start doing some light lifting and stationary biking. I asked the doctor if I could do these stuff and he allowed me to :) Since then, I have allocated some 30 minutes or so everyday doing these endorphin releasing exercises, and I love it!

Being back on the gym and bike even for small amounts of time, gives a lot of benefits. It's a free way to release stress, recharge my focus, and basically be healthy. Physically sweating out releases all of my stress be it from work, finance, and general life, sweating out gives me the chance to exhume all the strains that I have. Exercising also recharges my focus. I like it when I start to sweat and be in the zone that I start thinking of things that I want to do and how I will do it. I get to think clearly while on the bike. Lastly, of course all the benefits of exercising and sweating out points to a healthier life. All of these benefits comes from doing something I love, and best of all, it's free!

How I Repaid My Debt

I was thinking of what to post for today, and since it's a Monday and a start of another week, I thought of sharing something a bit grand and inspirational, well for me at least :)

Let me share how I was able to payoff my debts. Earlier this year I wrote that I was in a pile of debt, amounting to around Php 400,000. This is a lot! For an average office worker, having this amount of debt is a large burden, Something like David and Goliath!

I vowed to myself that within this year, 2015, I will payoff all of these debts! These debts comprised of credit card dues, home loan amortizations overdue, and some personal loans. All of these debts came from my "not-so-failed-business". I call it not-so-failed because although I did lose money from it, I learned a lot and now a better business person. More on this on another blog post.

Let me now share some of the things I did in order to repay these debts tantamount to more than half year's cash flows in.

1. I think the most important thing in order for one to accomplish paying debts is to VOW and PROMISE to ones-self that you will pay your debt! I made a promise to myself that I will repay all of the debt I had as I was sick and tired of having to pay extra finance charges for my credit card and home loan amortization dues! That is one motivation for me to quickly repay all of my debts. From the start of the year, I made a promise that I will repay my debts within this year, and fortunately I was able to do so by the third quarter of 2015! Promise and follow-through!

2. Adjust and adapt. With the continuous charges I was receiving from the banks, and bills coming left and right, I was suffocating from all facets of my financial life. Since I vowed that I will repay my debts within this year, I had to change my lifestyle as well. One example I did and still doing is cutting down on my weekend drinking sessions with friends. Ever since I did so, I was able to not spend extra for beer and booze. I also minimized my travels to the malls. This is one tip for people who would really want to change their lifestyle and not spend. DO NOT GO TO PLACES WHERE YOU WILL SPEND MONEY ON! It's as simple as that :) 

3. Allocate and stick to it. Once you have figured out how much money you can spend to pay for your debts, allocate is strictly to that account and stick to paying it, on time! This requires a lot of discipline and reminding ones-self that you have vowed to repay your debt. There comes a time in this part of paying debt that you will get tired of repaying the debts you have because you will feel deprived of all the money you could have been spending for yourself, but instead is paying back for the debts and charges you owe. But remember that this is a part of the promise you made. NO PAIN, NO GAIN, well for this case, NO PAIN, NO ZERO BALANCES! Allocate your finances for repayment, be disciplined, and stick to paying that account.

The above are just some of the things I did for me to repay my debts. These are all of course in the broadest sense.... If you keep on your promise, adjust your lifestyle, and keep on keeping the balances to zero, sooner or later, you will be debt and interest-charges free! *Sigh of relief :)

  

Packed Lunch (Baon) a way I save

I bring baon (packed lunch) to the office - instead of buying food from the cafeteria or pantry, what I do is bring food from home. Reasons and tips why I bring baon:

1. We think that it's cheap to eat in the local cafeteria and the cost/benefit (hassle of cooking) of bringing food and buying from the cafeteria is slim. BUT! It is not! Believe me, bringing food from home saves a lot of money because, you will not have to physically shell out money in the cafeteria where additional food costs additional money. Come to think of it, I you have packed lunch you will have to finish it because it will be a waste if you do not! But if you go to the cafeteria for your lunch, you will have to bring out money from your pocket to buy whatever food you want. Just the mere act of not getting money from your pocket is already a saving technique!
2. Bring dinner's leftover for your packed lunch. This is what I actually do. I cook more for my dinner so that the extra will be my lunch the following day! This saves me from buying from the cafeteria, and saves me cost in the actual cooking.
3. Buy from your "cheaper" store. I used to shop from SM supermarket/Savemore, but after comparing the prices from there to Puregold/Palengke, there's still money to be saved. So all my groceries are coming from Puregold/Palengke now.
4. Buy in not so bulk. Of course you would want to save from saving yourself the cost of going back and forth to the grocery but you also want your food to be fresh. So I would suggest that you buy food good for a maximum of two weeks. Anything more than that will already but too frozen (unfresh).

And so, those are the things I do for my baon, I hope you would try bringing your own food too and start to save money!

Home Loan Repricing

I just saved my self Php 40,000++!!!

We all know that it’s not easy to make/save Php40,000++ in a few days’ time.

But I was able to save myself that amount from being spent just by doing some simple analysis and some good old negotiation.

I will tell you exactly how I was able to save Php40,000++

First of all this Php40,000++ is a form of savings on my part. This is with regard to my monthly amortization for my condo unit.

I was in the midst of another yearly repricing (interest change) for my home loan, when I decided to check out other bank’s offerings in home loan refinancing.

Luckily there’s a promo for home loan refinancing from HSBC. They were offering free administration fees of up to 1% of the total loan amount! That means that I only have to pay a few thousand pesos if even I want to transfer my loan to them. But, that’s not all, they were offering extremely low interest rates as to the one I currently have on my BPI home loan….

The HSBC home refinancing scheme was giving out the following rates:

4.99% fixed for one year 
6.24% fixed for 3 years 
6.49% fixed for 5 years 

Imagine that! I was paying an interest rate of 7.5% in BPI and there was HSBC giving out free administration transfer fees and low interest rates!

And so my journey to saving Php40,000++ has begun!

I hurriedly contacted HSBC about the promo they have and true enough it is still on.

A friendly HSBC loan officer contacted my right away and gave me full details.

I was about to send all my requirements for them to start my application when I thought of negotiating with BPI my current rates….

And so my negotiations for a better rate has begun!

I contacted my loan officer to inquire about rates adjustment options, who then gave me a number to contact.

Someone from the line answered and told me to email them regarding my inquiry.

I then emailed them my case which they swiftly replied to.

TIP: let them know that the other bank is offering the free transfer fees and lower rates!!! If needed, attach the email from your contact from the other bank!

The consumer loan officer replied right back to me regarding rate readjustments, and offered me:

“We may request for approval to grant you our lowest possible rates for existing loans as follows: 

6.50% - yearly re-pricing 
7.00% - fixed for 2-3 years 
7.50% - fixed for 4-5 years “

The rates provided were terrible comparing to the one provided by HSBC!

I then replied to his email and attached the rates from HSBC and asking them if they can give me the same rates….

Alas, they replied with:

“6.50% is already the lowest possible rate and we can not go any lower than this.”

I was ready to get their 6.5% yearly re-pricing rate when I thought of giving it another push and try to haggle for a better rate!

I asked them if they could give me any of the two options I wanted, all the time giving them the impression that I was ready to move to HSBC if they didn’t give my requested rates!

“As a loyal BPI customer, I really want to have my loan standing in BPI. 
However, with the offering of lower rates by other banks, I am really considering to move my loan. 

With that, could we please request for lower rates, perhaps at  

6.25% fixed for 3 years  
6.5% fixed for 5 years 

Please let me know if this is approved. “

I think with the last push I made, I was able to convince them that I will really move my loan to the other bank. Remember that our loan interests are the bread and butter of banks that is why they wouldn’t want to lose customers to other banks.

The next thing I received from the officer was that he would escalate my request to higher managers, and asked me to be patient because it would take around 10 days to process.

And so I waited anxiously about the approval or disapproval of my request.

Would I have to move my loan to HSBC and adjust my payment methods for my loan?

Or would BPI give me better rates to work with and stay as a loyal customer to them?

The wait was long and it took more than 10 days too!!!

After more than 15 days of waiting, the officer replied to the email thread and said:

“The Management has just approved  the applicable rate for your loan at 6.50% effective 09/12/2015 (starting 10/12/2015) until 09/12/2018 with Php 3,000.00 processing fee.”

That is effectively 6.5% interest rate for 3 years fixed!!!

Using a simple amortization calculator, I computed that I will be able to save around Php1,150 monthly for three years which equates to a whopping Php41,400!!!

I am thrilled to have saved myself that huge amount!

More than the amount I am really happy to have exercised my negotiation skills and a little bit of financial savviness to my advantage.

And so for anyone who would want to have their loans repriced, try these steps and who knows you might just save yourself a large amount of interest charges!

If you want more tips you may email me or comment below to start a discussion! Good Luck!

Update

Hello there!

I have not updated this blog for quite some time now! I know that I should have but I couldn't find the time and topic to write about... Perhaps just some quick updates from my financial world:

1. NO MORE DEBT! I have successfully paid all my bank and credit card balances :)

2. PIGGY BANK! I know this sounds a bit childish but using the piggy bank is the one that works best for me. I started using a piggy bank to keep my extra coins saved for a few months now, but since then I have bought a bigger piggy bank and have made it a point to keep paper bills in them as well! The smaller piggy bank I have is almost full now :)

3. Passive Income - My source of passive income for the past couple of months have slightly slowed down. My rental business of Scooters has not been working for the past months but my room rentals is still on going, thankfully :)

4. Business - I am more and more thinking about going bank into business. Not sure yet what it would be but definitely something that I am interested in pursuing in the coming months.

That's it for now, hopefully I can put more into this blog in the next few days.
Keep well and save well people!