Alex @ April 20, 2008 | | Money, Sex and Relationships, Technology | Comments (5)
The problem with people with repressed childhoods (like me) is that we tend to overcompensate when we finally gain some independence and get some spare change from our wee salaries. I guess it runs in the family too. I remember my dad buying me an airsoft pistol only for him to play with it more than I had. (Oh yeah, he’ll be dead for eight years now in a few days.)
Anyway, people have been overly critical of my extreme miserliness. I rarely buy stuff and never spend a cent I wouldn’t earn back immediately or in a bad investment (not that I haven’t made a few, and surely, these drove me to wits’ end). Spending, for me, is a sin. My greatest luxury has always been treating my Dearest to something. I rarely buy clothes, gadgets, other effects and doohickeys for myself.
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Tags: DS Lite, Gaming, Nintendo
Alex @ February 18, 2008 | | Money | Comments (1)
After two sleepless nights of thinking whether my hard-earned money will end up with PayPal, I finally got my answer. They restored my account’s functionality. $715 is worth 3 months’ salary in UP, poor us minimum wage teachers. Now I can try to sleep, finally.
Personally, I hated the experience. By principle I never grovel and I believe in giving a person what the person is due. And a person is always due what is rightfully his, especially if it’s money. I am glad that I got my account back but I think this is a PayPal horror story on its own.
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Tags: Money, Paypal, Rant
Alex @ February 17, 2008 | | Money, Personal, Work | Comments (0)
Like many bloggers, I was really excited when Paypal finally had a withdraw option for Philippine banks. With a slightly higher exchange rate than Xoom and without the sending fee, it proved to be really attractive. I was supposed to get some dough from my problogging efforts two weeks ago. I usually get it via Xoom (which worked perfectly fine) but since I wanted to get a bit more extra through the exchange rate, I elected to wait until I get my monthly statement to verify my account before I had the money sent.
I finally got my account verified and I was sent the money. Charge it to first time transactions but the fellow sent me funds via credit card. One thing I just knew then was that, personal accounts has a limit on receiving funds via credit card and that there’s a charge. Since I was desperate for money, I decided to accept the funds despite the 5.4%-ish percent deduction.
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Tags: Paypal, Rant
Alex @ January 14, 2008 | | Business, Money | Comments (0)
The one reason why I didn’t believe in sending your car (especially if it’s a used car aging gracefully) to the dealership for repairs is the cost. For me, that was the sole reason why I avoided bringing our old Corolla to Toyota even if the dealership was located a lot nearer than my trusted mechanic.
Now that I’ve purchased my own car (which I’m turning into a budget project car), I have to give props to Nissan for changing that mindset. They’ve totally convinced me that all that dealerships are good for is for them to sell you a brand new car. Wrecking your old one might even be one of their marketing ploys.
I’ve joined the ever helpful Nissanbayan (don’t get me wrong, the people here are real topnotch and are very helpful to Nissan newbies like me) and I was quite convinced that Nissan Commonwealth was the place to go for great service from a dealership. Unfortunately for me, the old, larger Nissan complex is now being turned into an IBM call center thing. Only one company owns Prince Motors (the Hyundai dealership right next to the old Nissan complex) and Nissan Commonwealth, so they had a sign indicating that Prince Motors is now servicing for Nissan Commonwealth. They still bear that “Nissan Commonwealth” so I thought they be offering the same service. Boy, was I wrong.
Here’s the story.
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Tags: Cars, Nissan Commonwealth, Prince Motors, Rant
Alex @ January 6, 2008 | | Money, Politics and Society | Comments (1)
I’ve lost all desire to discuss Philippine politics. Not that I’ve turned to apathy but it’s just that thinking of how putrid politics here is on our shores ruins my day. What new is there to discuss, anyway. I bet MLQIII and Ellen Tordesillas have all the bases covered when it comes to politics from around here. And why dampen my spirits?
Anyway, probably one of the greatest personal tragedies that struck me for the past couple of days is the rapid depreciation of the dollar. The next day after oil hit $100, Xoom’s exchange rate fell below $40. And since I and my other friends receiving money over Xoom, (sorry, I still don’t have the money to open a new account at Union Bank to try that PayPal workaround), that meant another heavy blow to our budgets. And the irritating thing is that prices don’t drop anyway even if the value peso is surging sky high.
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Tags: Money, Politics and Society
