When your Insurance Company Fails

Salve at Money Smarts has made a couple of compelling entries about what to do when your pre-need company fails. Amidst numerous collapse of pre-need companies not only in the country, these kind of failure makes decision making regarding educational, health plans and the like more complicated.

So what should you do when your pre-need company fail?

1. As soon as the closure of the pre-need company has been made kown to the public, make sure you double check with the Securities and Exchange Commission for official announcements regarding your pre-need company.

2. Ensure your documents are in order. Locate all original documents and obtain copies of plan contract, certificate of full payment or receipts of payments you have made so far.

3. As per the advise of Money Smarts, planholders of Legacy Consolidated Plans, Inc., Scholarship Plan Phils. Inc., and All Asia Plans Corp., must file a sworn complaint on or before March 31, 2009 . This will increase your chances of getting back your money, so do this as soon as possible. I have yet to confirm if there are class action suit against these companies as of yet…

4. You also need to present your updated and complete mailing address and contact numbers. Go to the Non-traditional Securities and Instruments Department of the SEC. In Ortigas, the landline is 584-6058 and the head of the department is Director Jose Aquino.

5. Once the courts have approved the dissolution of the company, the SEC will appoint a liquidator and it is with this company that you will claim what is due you under your policy contract.

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Denim Quilt, Anyone?

Do you have some old denim jeans lying around unused for months in your closet? Here is another way of making something out from old clothing! Thanks to Green Daily, here is a DIY tips on how you can create your very own quilt using old clothing.

Do you have other frugal tips? Share them with us at Pinoy Frugal Living.

Making No Knead Pizza Dough

Have you tried making pizza by scratch? I have and I did it only once, and never attempted to try again. The kneading is just too much for me, and it is ven easier to just use the phone and call in Pizza Hut for delivery then making my own pizza at home.

But that was before I have learn from Life Hacker that there is a more simpler way of making your very own no-knead pizza dough! Here is the link to Tasting Table.

Money Folders

Like alot of Finance Bloggers, I also encourage the use of the “envelope system.” The envelope system is a budgeting method wherein your spending money is divided into budgeting categories and cash is designated for each category. I use an small accordion envelope for this purpose. But if you do not use cash, but use debit or credit cards, then Money Folders will certainly help you track down all your spending / expenses per category.

Lynnae of Being Frugal have a splendid review on the Money Folders and she gave out several reason why she liked the Money Folders. To read her review, click here.

The desktop application is worth $29.95– yes, sad to know that it is not for free, but there is a free trial version available, so you can try before you buy. Also, it comes with a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can be sure of your purchase. And thanks to Lynnae– if you enter the code ” beingfrugal “, you get 25% off the purchase price, bringing the total down to $22.46!

Are you currently using any accounting or budgeting tools? Share your experience with us here and win some cool prizes courtesy of who else? Me!

Spending Diary

SpendingDiary is another simple, functional web-based expense tracker that tags expenditures, generates reports, and gives good data on your money flow.

The site has a completely functional demonstration account available-a nice touch that makes it really easy to test drive without handing over an email address. SpendingDiary has a simple interface-for every entry you assign a name, a category, and the amount you spent. You can generate reports for the day, week, month, or a custom date range, and your expenses displayed in a slick pie graph, broken into the tags you’ve set up. Your data is also exportable to other formats, including the ever-friendly CSV. For more mobile expense tracking, check out the previously reviewed Xpenser-an SMS-friendly expense app.

Xpenser

Here is another spending tracker! It is now possible to track your spending via SMS, email, IM, Twitter or voice (via Jott) with web application Xpenser. After you sign up, you’ll need to set up your account with your IM and SMS information and set up Jott to use with Xpenser (if you want to do voice tracking). After setting up your account, adding expenses to a report is possible by sending a text messege to Xpenser (ie. “exp lunch 35.4 with Jack, Jill” to Xpenser). If you’ve ever had trouble keeping up with your expenses for the month, especially if you need to track your business expenses, Xpenser aims to be a simple, universally accessible solution for getting your expenses recorded.

Simple Ways to Save on Clothing

I am still learning the ropes and trying my best to live life frugally. One of my biggest mistakes early in life was using shopping as a means to unwind and relax. Ofcourse there are more reasonable ways to relax than spend thousands on clothes we hardly need and wear. Sometimes looking at my closet and shoe rack gives me the guilty pangs and headache… Nevertheless, I am learning and continues to thrive using frugal means to survive during hard economic downturns. If you have growing children, buying clothing can be a hurdle and a challenge.

Here are a few tips on how to save on clothing:

Mend and alter when you can. Fix small tears, broken hems immediately. I do minor alterations myself. For major alterations, I like to take it to my nearest mananahi, who does alterations for me at a discounted price.

Always Shop for Quality Clothing . I have always stressed that being frugal doesn’t necessarily mean you have to by cheapest thing in the rack. More often, buying the cheapest thing in the rack will not necessarily save you more. If you like buying clothes during a sale, sometimes, stores like to include produce with some minor imperfections, like missing buttons, zippers that don’t work, and even uneven hems, and imperfect collars.

Give or sell unused clothing. Do you have tons of unused clothing in your closet? Perhaps it is time to segregate your clothing and give away or perhaps even sell some of the clothes you have not used for over a year.

Buy basic or classic style clothing. I am not really into fashion clothing. If anything, I like to buy classic style clothing that I can wear all year round. I have a pretty healthy closet and keeps classic cut clothing which I have been wearing on and off for years. Like jeans, I keep 3 blue jeans bought several years ago from Marks and Spencers and 2 blue jeans by Levis. For formal wear, I have 3 black bootleg pants from Marks and Spencers. I also own several plain black blouses, including classic cut white blouses. I do the same with my children. I do not buy them those fashion bottoms but buy them durable blue jeans from Guess. I have found Guess jeans for children to be durable and long lasting.

These goes the same for shoes. Like alot of women, I just adore shoes and I buy only quality and branded shoes. For almost 2 years now, I am still enjoying the use of my Nike Cross Trainers. I simply love Nikes and one thing I know, to make your sneakers last long, you have to constantly use them lest their soles begins to crumble like dust. I also have a very durable Coleman hiking boots bought almost 5 years ago, which is still looks new until now. I spent almost P6,000 for that but heck, the shoe still rocks!

Encourage the use of hand me downs in your family. This is something I can really vouch. I have 4 children with 2 years gaps in between. I keep their baby clothes in good shape so the other siblings can still use the clothes– this is one of the reasons why I live by buying only quality clothing for my children.

Do you have other ways to save on clothing? Share them with us here at Pinoy Frugal Living and the best tip will receive a special gift from me! So make your comments below.

Crazy Little Finger

One of the challenges of having to work at home is the fact that children are around me all the time. The main room has 1 PC and a laptop, and I sometimes have to use the PC as it is connected to the internet. Sometimes, my son, who is three years old and my youngest daughter who is one, likes to play with the keyboard whenever I am not around to ward them off.

Boy, was I glad to find this from LifeHacker! Crazy Little Finger is a nifty program for Windows XP. It ables you to lock all the keys on the keyboard, except for the ones you need to use to exit the program. I love the fact that whenever certain keys are pressed, the PC will emit animal sounds and the screen will display a goat or a cow. Not only that, you can add your own images and music. Neat huh?

Rid of Disposables

Having decided to live the frugal way, I have changed alot some of our product choices especially my dependency on so much kitchen products which mostly are disposables, and instead opted for more environment-friendly products.

For example:

Kitchen Towels- I used to horde alot of those Bounty Paper Towels. Although Bounty is proven to be biodegradable as it is made of 97% cellulose, these paper towels are expensive here in the Philippines. Our local paper towels cannot even compete absorbency-wise, but heck the imported ones are just too expensive and yes, you get to throw them out too. I have opted for those hand towels I bought years ago from SM Department Store. Not the “Mabuhay” towels you see on the street, but those nice knitted ones that cost P60 each years ago. I have bought several on one go two years ago, and they are still around. To make them last longer, I do not use bleach on them during laundry and I do not overuse them around in the kitchen.  I colored coded them per use and area.  Ie. the checked ones for hands; blue ones for the kitchen counters; yellow ones for the bathrooms; tattered blue ones for the floor, etc…

Ziploc Bags- I keep several boxes in my kitchen of this wonder plastics. I use them to store fish, meat and other food inside the refrigerator. I just wash them after each use.  I  air dry them and reuse. I preferred these bags than those conventional plastic bags usually sold in the market. I am careful to use only food grade materials for my food in the kitchen. I liked it in Thailand wherein plastics are classified and labeled properly– food grade and non-food-grade. You wouldn’t want your food to be covered or contained within a non-food grade plastic where harmful materials could contaminate your food.

Plastic containers- I store left over food in the refrigerator inside those plastic containers. Sometimes, I use ceramic containers and cover them with those disposable cling wraps– perhaps the only disposable I cannot live without here. Why? I found it convenient to cover leftover food with cling wrap. I know some people use those plastic dome-like food covers to ward off insects, but I found the cling wrap protects the food better especially from ants and smaller indoor pests.

What disposables are you still using in your household? Are you having a hard time finding reusable options to replace?

2009 Action Plan by Suze Ormon Available for Free

One of the things that stuck me with famed Suze Orman is that she give straight answers, on the butt, at most times. Her new book, Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan is available for free courtesy of Oprah. You might find the book interesting as it promises to provide Action Plans for Credit, Retirement Investing, Saving, Spending, Real Estate, Paying for College and Protecting your Family.

To download the book, click here. The offer is only until January 15, 2009.

Thanks to the Consumerist for the tip.