Cooking in batches

In a previous post, Goal for the month: No Fast Food, I wrote about the benefits of cooking your own meals vs. dining or eating out. Frugal Pinoy reader Jinoe sent the following comment:

I would love to do this also for similar reasons (esp #4). But lately Im in a rush. Cooking my own food takes more than an hour plus cleaning up. So fastfood was an option.

If you still want to cook for yourself, but don’t have the time or energy to do so every day, you can cook in batches.  On weekends, days off, or whenever you have a lot of free time, cook one big batch of food that you will heat up for the rest of the week.   (An exception to this might be the rice, which you can cook once daily with no hassle using a rice cooker.) Here are some pointers:

• It requires a bit of planning.  Since you’re cooking food in big batches, you need to plan ahead.  This includes ingredients, what meals you’ll be having, and the quantity of food.
• Use your freezer.  Most of the food you’ve cooked should be stored in your freezer to prevent spoilage.  Just pop them up int he microwave or heat them up in your stove when you’re ready to eat.  It’ll take roughly 5 minutes to do this per meal for one or two people.

Click here for a very informative article on batch cooking.  It includes notes about shelf life of certain foods, a list of foods that don’t freeze well, recipes, and more tips.  It’s like Batch Cooking 101.

Bloodlines as Credit Lines

(Thanks to Soli for the title and insight.)

Here in the Philippines, it’s ordinary to seek out the help of close friends and family whenever we’re in financial need. There are even cases where mere acquaintances ask each other for monetary assistance. We’re generally matulungin (helpful) as a culture, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Let’s take a deeper look into the idea of using blood lines as credit lines.

Why it works to ask friends and family for financial aid:

It’s part of our culture. From the concept of bayanihan to proverbs about being a “good Samaritan”, at an early age we’re taught to be helpful.

It’s easy. All it takes is a phone call, a visit, or even a text message. “Pare, pautang naman, o!” These people are close to us, and most of them are willing to do anything to help us keep out of trouble. It beats filling up long forms and attending interviews when applying for a loan.

In some cases, it makes sense. If you’re a fresh graduate, starting a new career, and need to help support the rest of your family, it’s hard to find the extra funds to save up for retirement or an emergency fund. Also, for people who find themselves in financial emergencies and didn’t have the foresight to plan for them, they are left with no choice except to ask for help. After all, it’s much better than using a credit card with steep fees and interest rates.

Now let’s look at the other side of the story.

Why it is also dangerous to ask family and friends for financial assistance:

Apart from the money you borrow, there will also be utang na loob. And that is a much trickier transaction to measure. One never knows when utang na loob is ever repaid in full. If someone lends you money and later requests for non-monetary help, you feel obligated to give in – no matter how uncomfortable you may be with some of these requests. Hey, it might not even be your debt, it could be your parents’ – but it doesn’t stop you from feeling utang na loob.

Unsurprisingly, the idea of utang na loob, intended as a display of genuine gratitude, has become one of the foundations of corruption in this country.

Sometimes too much help can turn into hindrance. Someone I know, let’s call her Ms. A, was surrounded by friends and family who gave her financial assistance whenever she needed it. Her loved ones thought that they were helping her. However, the core of the problem wasn’t really a stroke of financial bad luck – Ms. A just had such poor money sense. She spent too much money on unnecessary things. Because everyone was always there to “help” her, she never got around to addressing this problem. The result? Mountains and mountains of unpaid debt – with more on the way. She’s become completely dependent on others and doesn’t even feel the need to look for a source of income via a job or business.

It puts a strain on the relationship. When money comes into the picture, a new aspect of your relationship surfaces. I’ve known of families that have had near or completely irreparable relationship strains because of money. Sisters don’t speak to each other for decades because of unpaid debt. A father disowns a son who doesn’t want to pull his own financial weight. People who were formerly friends start avoiding each other. For this reason alone, I don’t think it’s worth it to rely on friends and family for financial aid.

What is the solution?

Consider what you know about the other person. When borrowing from a relative or friend, or when lending money, think about the other person’s financial sense and what kind of strain this might put on your relationship. Is this person money smart but just ran into some unexpected bad luck? If you’re the one borrowing money, ask yourself if the lender trusts you enough to repay the loan.

Think about other options. Borrowing and lending may not be the only solution to financial problems. Are there items that you can sell? Is there a regular expense that the borrower spends needless amount of money on? Long lasting help doesn’t come in the form of cash, rather it comes in a finding a system that works. That saying about teaching a man how to fish – that one applies here.

Every situation is different, but these are just some things to keep in mind whenever you come across a financial problem where you may have to use your own network of friends or family as financial backup.

Have you ever borrowed money from a relative or friend? Have you ever lent anyone money? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments.

Only 1 out of 10 Filipinos save up for retirement

A recent financial IQ survey by Citibank shows some frightening results about the average Filipino’s financial well-being. According to the survey, only 1 out of 10 respondents have saved up for retirement.

only one out of 10 Filipinos is consciously saving up for retirement. The rest have some savings but don’t know if it will be enough, others have no idea at all on how much they need or have not started planning. – Agustin Davalos, retail bank director of Citibank Phils.

Personally, I’m not surprised by this. I went to my bank a few months ago and asked one of the tellers what my investment options were for my retirement savings (they’re currently in a time deposit, but I wanted to move them elsewhere with bigger returns). Her reaction? She laughed at me. She said that I was only 24 and should not be thinking about my retirement. Many people have reacted the same way.

They can laugh, but I know the facts. When I retire, I’ll probably be enjoying a nice vacation in Fiji while these people wait for “allowance” given to them by their kids, who are working full time by then.

If you’re young, the best time to save for retirement is NOW. Compound interest is your friend, people! Plus, if you’ve got a retirement savings fund when you’re 20, you have more chances to “play with it” and put it in riskier investments because you still have decades of savings ahead of you. But if you’re 50 years old, you can’t do the same because retirement is only some years ahead.

A more concrete example: my mother only started saving up for retirement 3 years ago. She’s 52. I also started saving up for retirement at roughly the same time. If we both retire at 65, she only has 13 working years left, while I have 41 years. Since I saved for my retirement earlier than she did, I will have more money to support myself then.

Odds are, I might even be supporting her to make up for the money she hasn’t saved. I do not want to do that to my kids. I do not want them to worry about my financial needs when they already have enough to worry about on their own. Because odds are, my children will need to support their own families and their own dreams. I do not want to stifle them financially. I do not want them to lead anything less than the lives they want and dream of.

If you’re not planning on having kids, or if that seems so distant to you, think about your own future. What kind of life do you want to lead when you retire? Do you think you have enough funds set aside for retirement?

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