Francine actually has several piggy/rabbit/bear banks which is fine for loose change and the occasional 20-peso paper bill. But since she has some extra money from random gifts and her birthday, I decided to make that money work. Here, I have two options: (1) put it in the bank, or (2) invest it. Out of practicality, I chose to utilize both.
For her savings and/or emergency fund, I looked around at the various stable local banks and their deposit account options. I narrowed the list to four banks, and here is my comparison of their relevant offered services:
Click on the image to enlarge.
The data are taken from each bank’s respective website. As you can see, BPI Family Savings Bank has the largest interest rate and smallest minimum balance needed to earn interest. So it’s pretty much a no-brainer where I’ll put the money. 😛 I decided to open two accounts: an Easy Saver account as emergency fund and an Express Teller Savings account as savings per se.
Why did I separate the two? Simply because the savings are absolutely not to be touched at all, which becomes more bearable a task if I can get the money from another source. And that other source is the emergency fund for, example, my salary’s delayed and Francine needs milk/diapers/whatever. The Easy Saver has no maintaining balance, so it’s just about perfect as an emergency fund account. That way, so long as there’s no emergency, your money keeps earning interest to boot. 😉
Now, the Investing part is more tricky since I am a total newbie in that particular field. But thanks to Best Friend Google, there’s a lot of references online so I could get at least the basic ideas. COL Financial seems to come up an awful lot during my “research” so I decided to check it out. I found some helpful blogs posts like this, this, this and this. Also, I found out that a close friend has invested through them and has positive feedback so that assuaged some of my financial fears.
Keeping my fingers crossed about all this. Excited! 😀
There was a phase in my life when I got so hooked on researching about investments and savings. Tapos kinalimutan ko na lahat kasi nastress ako sa anticipation. haha
I salute you for doing something like this for Francine 🙂 Such a responsible and fiece momma!
Anything and everything for the little one. 😉 Truth be told, I feel like I’m already doing this
toolate since I should have started this back when she was born. But, oh well. Better late than never, right? 🙂super cute kid! I’ve been trying to do this piggy bank technique with my younger sisters. but then they always end up spending the money that they put there haha! I think i should have started training them at a young age 🙂
by the way, I’ve been with Colfinancial for two years already. highly recommended ko rin sya because of their research materials there. and syempre, the platform itself (your portfolio will reflect net values already so you don’t have to stress out with the fee computation etc). Good luck sa pag-invest sis!:)
Sometimes I can’t help feeling that I’m too late in investing, but oh well. Better late than never, right? 😉 Anywho, thanks a bunch for the vote of confidence for COL Financial. Makes me feel even better about the whole thing, newbie that I am.