This is part 2 of a series of articles on online buy and sell options for Filipinos. Click here for Part 1 of the series.

Today, we’ll look at two other buy and sell options online.

Sulit is a thriving community with thousands of members logging on each day to sell or shop (as of this writing, it’s 5,000 plus). You can even create an ad if you’re looking for something in particular - a feature that Bidshot and eBay.ph don’t have. For example, if you want to buy an Asus EEE PC for a specific price, you create a listing about the item you want and how much you’re willing to pay for it.

I posted an ad selling my old videocam in both eBay.ph and Sulit, and nobody contacted me on the eBay ad. As for the Sulit ad, I had at least 10 responses - although all of them preferred to contact me via text rather than the ad page itself. I don’t think this is an isolated case, since it’s obvious how active the Sulit community is.

Of course, the downside is that all transactions are done manually. If 10 people respond to your ad, it’s up to you to select the final buyer - whether it’s “first come first served” or you select the buyer with the highest offer.

Sulit also has a messageboard and a shoutbox. This probably helps in maintaining a strong community. The site also offers several means of contact - you can send a private message, or see a user’s Yahoo Messenger status. Since Sulit has a large community, it seems a bit chaotic at times, and interested parties will contact you for the slightest questions, even if you’ve written everything in your ad. The site itself doesn’t have the sleekest interface, because there are several banner ads at the top banner and sidebars. Still, it’s functional and I haven’t encountered any bugs.

Overall, I recommend Sulit, especially if you’re in a hurry to sell something. But like any Pinoy buy and sell site, expect people to negotiate lower than your asking price or even propose swaps.

TipidPC’s niche is limited to computer and technology gadgets, but just because they offer limited categories of products, it doesn’t mean there’s less activity. As I write this article, there are 736 users online. Because of it’s popularity among the computer-using crowd, it’s definitely the go-to place to buy and sell those items.

One thing I don’t like about TipidPC is the cluttered layout. There are many flash elements on the homepage, from the banner to some ads. This isn’t good news for those with dial-up connections. Also, the ads here seem more distracting than the ones in Sulit, mostly because they are animated and catch more attention. Plus, with hundreds of members online at a time, they don’t need to list the user names of online members.

Another downside to TipidPC is that you don’t see photographs of the product until you click on the ad itself. eBay, Bidshot, and Sulit let you view a preview pic when ads come up as searchr esults or you’re looking at products in a category.

Despite these weaknesses, TipidPC ads generate a lot of response if your offer is good enough. I’ve successfully bought products from TipidPC in the past, and I’ve never had a bad experience. Again, expect price negotiations and offers to swap.

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I’ve been making money on the web since 2004, and have had some experience buying and selling things online. Some of you have probably considered doing the same thing, whether you’re looking for a good deal on an mp3 player, trying to sell your own handicrafts, or you need to dispose of some unnecessary possessions for emergency cash. However, most people don’t know where to start.
I found that the online buy and sell landscape for Filipinos is very different from that of most Western cultures. With that said, I’ve evaluated some popular online buy and sell sites for Filipinos. This is the first part of a series of 3 articles on the subject. We’ll be reviewing the following sites:

• Bidshot
• eBay.ph
• TipidPC
• Sulit.com.ph
• Other ways to sell online

Without further ado, we’ll start with a couple of auction sites:

eBay.ph Our local eBay is a little different from the US version. First of all, it seems to be the least populated among our other online buy and sell options. There seems to be less activity here compared to TipidPC and Sulit (reviewed in the second part). eBay.ph did integrate itself with the rest of eBay.com, but how many people are willing to make international transactions? They often aren’t cost effective because of shipping and price differences. Also, it’s more risky to deal with someone internationally rather than locally.  So whenever you’re looking to buy an item locally, make sure you select the box that says “Show items from the Philippines only”.

One of the good features that eBay.ph has is its rating system - be cautious when buying from anyone whose rating is below 98%. However, in the site’s earlier stages, there were many people who were giving out false negative ratings. Wala lang, nanggugulo. So try to read each comment and decide for yourself how trustworthy a buyer or seller is. The same goes for the user ratings you find on Sulit.com.ph.

Another advantage that eBay has is that among most of the popular buy and sell sites, it has a cleaner, more professional look. However, eBay doesn’t seem to get the way Filipinos make transactions. Most of the products for sale are just listings, they aren’t really auctions. If you’ll notice, bids are quite rare on that site. Filipinos don’t really participate in auctions. In fact, you’ll find that most buyers will privately contact the seller and start the tawaran process, and the price will be negotiated. True, there’s a “Buy it Now” option that overrides an auction, but how many people actually click that button? I’m willing to bet that it’s less compared to the number of those who text or send a private message to the seller to show an interest to buy.

Bidshot. The selling point that Bidshot has is that it enables cellphone notifications whenever someone bids on your item. This site has several things in common with eBay:

• Popular categories are for electronics, home video and audio, computing, and cellphones.
• They have an auction format with a “Buy it Now” feature.
• There are ratings and feedback for buyers and sellers, so you’ll know how smoothly their previous transactions went.
• Clean interface.

Although both Bidshot and eBay have a neat interface, the Bidshot page loads much easier, making it dial-up friendly.  Also, there seems to be more activity on Bidshot compared to eBay.  There’s not much else I can say as their new site is still in Beta (meaning it’s not the final version yet).   However, once their final site is up and running, I’ll write a more thorough review.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2 of this series, where I’ll review TipidPC and Sulit.

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There’s a free personal finance ebook available at Mytwodollars.com . “Money Matters for All Ages: A Guide to Taking Control of Your Finances from Birth to Retirement” is a comprehensive collection of personal finance and frugality tips that may prove to be useful, no matter how old you are. This includes infants and young children, teenagers, college-aged people, and people in their twenties up to the sixties. This ebook also covers advice for retirees. This series was even featured on MSN Money.

Here’s a description from the website:

This e-book is the culmination of sixteen different personal finance bloggers who got together and decided to write a financial guidebook that spans an entire lifetime. From the innocent little infant to the older retiree, all the different stages of life are covered here. Whether you are in your 20’s or 30’s or any other age — you can benefit from reading this book.

I’ll be taking a quick look myself, and I might even post a review. So far, it looks like we can all learn a thing or two from this handy resource.

Click here to download the ebook. Once you’ve read it, feel free to share your comments with us.

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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.

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Pinoy Money Talk

(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.

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Pinoy Money Talk

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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Pinoy Money Talk

I think it’s about time that I wrote an “introduction”post in this blog that gives readers an idea of my personal ideas about money, how I make my financial choices, etc. This might help some of you understand why I’ve written some posts the way I did and why I make certain choices. Please share with us your own personal story about money in the comments.

I don’t like money for money’s sake. Some people say “I want 100 million pesos!” or “I want to win the lotto!”, but when you ask them what they want to do with the money, they tell you they don’t know. Or they’ll buy the same standard set of things - a big house, some cars, etc.

When I make personal goals about money, I have to know what the money is for. I don’t believe in getting rich just to get rich and buying things just because they are uso or everyone has them. The money means something else for me. It might mean security, adventurous travel, and doing the things you want to do - not necessarily having the things you want to have and saying to yourself “Basta, yun ang gusto ko eh”.

See, most of the time, when we really reflect on why we want some things, we find that the real reason behind the want (or a part of it) is that we just want to keep up with others. Or for the cool factor. It’s okay to admit these things to yourself - I’m guilty of them sometimes. Just be aware of them.

However, at the same time, while I believe in making frugal choices, I still believe you should make the purchases that are important to you - even if the price tag seems a bit heavy. As long as you can afford it, of course. Frugality is different from being cheap. You should still be able to buy the things you enjoy.

An example: I always need to have some tea around. Although I have some inexpensive Jasmine Chrysanthemum Tea (Healthy Lifestyles, P15.00 for a small box of 10 teabags) my favorite tea in the world is the Twinnings Apple Cinnamon Tea, which is roughly P220+ for a box of 20 teabags). I love the Twinnings Tea. So I buy it.

In other words, for me, being frugal isn’t about living so well below your means that you don’t get to enjoy the things you really enjoy. It just means being mindful of where your money goes and the value you get for each purchase.

One final thing - I think wealth is relative. It all depends on what your values are and how much your time is worth.

For example, Juan Dela Cruz earns almost P1Million a year. However, he has to work almost 18 hours a day to earn it - sometimes even on weekends. I’m not impressed. That, to me isn’t wealth. I prefer a per hour measurement of income compared with how much income it takes for you to live the life you want. If you do the math, you’ll see that Juan only earns less than P200/hour.

For example, if Maria DelaCruz earns P1000 an hour, but only works 7 hours a week so she can spend her time with her kids - I think she’s wealthy. At the end of the year, she’s only made P336,00, but I think she’s still wealthier than Juan.

How about you? How do you define wealth and frugality? Please share your ideas with us.

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Pinoy Money Talk

I had this problem - my house was a collection of over 20 years of clutter. My mother and the other people who lived in my house, they kept everything. Even if it was broken, rotting, didn’t work, wasn’t used, can’t be repaired, or better off with someone else. In other words, I had over 20 years of junk on my hands.

Obviously, I had to clean it all up. This “whole house cleaning” was something I’ve been postponing because of the laborious hours it would require. But I finally had to do it to make some space for my home office.

While I was cleaning and sorting out the junk, I noticed that most of it was metal, Tupperware, various plastics, paper, and cardboard. All of these can be sold to junk shops.

So I called up the nearest junkshop, and they were more than happy to pick up the stuff from my house.

I earned P 1,000 from selling most of my junk (The other, still useful, things were donated) . It took 2-3 days to purge the house of all of it.

You’re probably thinking “One thousand pesos for 2-3 days! That’s not worth it!” If you’re going to look at it that way, I agree. I would never accept a job that offered that kind of hourly rate (roughly P60 per hour at most).

However, this was something I had to do. These things were gathering dust and eating up space - the space that I needed to be more efficient with work and to earn more money.

Getting P 1,000 in exchange for something you were gonna do anyway is an ok deal by me. Try it the next time you do a complete house cleaning project.

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These slices of Chive Butter Toast accompanied my Valentine’s day dinner with Scout.  It was yummy.  Here’s the recipe (again, not exact measurements).

Ingredients:

• 3 slices of bread, cut in half
• 3 onion leaves (chives), cut into 1/2 centimeter pieces
• 1 small clove of garlic, minced
• 1/4 of a block of butter

Directions:

1. Slightly melt butter (in a microwave, saucepan, whatever) but take it out of the heat while it’s still a bit lumpy.
2. Add the chives and garlic in the partially melted butter.  Mix well.
3. Spread butter mixture onto bread slices.
4. Toast bread slices until light brown.

This is great when eaten with soup or pasta, or used as croûtons in salad.

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For Valentine’s Day, Scout and I had pasta in tomato, basil, and mushroom sauce accompanied by chive butter toast. It was obviously delicious, as there was none left over. Here’s the recipe along with the approximate price of each ingredient.
(Note: Since some ingredients were “cut” from a bulkier amount, I’ve reduced some of those prices according to the portions we took. Halimbawa, kung kalahati lang nung pack yung ginamit namin, kalahati rin lang yung presyo.)

Ingredients:

• 1 pack tomato sauce (P 14.00)
• 1/2 can of mushrooms (P 19.00)
• roughly 90-100 grams of cut macaroni (P 14.00)
• a handful of crushed fresh basil (P7.00, would’ve probably cost less if I had my own plant)
• some butter
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• salt, dried oregano, pepper (preferably the course type - yung di masyado durog)
• cheese

To be honest, these measurements aren’t precise - I’m not that kind of cook. I just go with my tastebuds and come up with the measurements on the spot. I don’t follow exact recipes, and I encourage you to add/subtract the measurements of the ingredients as you please.

Also, you may omit the mushrooms for a minimalist sauce.

Directions:

1. In a pot of water, boil pasta with a tablespoon of oil and some salt.
2. In a saucepan, saute the garlic in butter until light brown.
3. Stir in the mushrooms and fry them until they’re a little crisp on the edges. Add some salt and pepper in desired measurements. I add some of the oregano in this stage, too.
4. When the mushroom, butter, and garlic mixture is hot enough, slowly add the tomato sauce. I said “slowly” because it’ll be harder to mix it with the butter if you dump the tomato sauce all at once.
5. Wait until it boils then let it simmer for 5-8 minutes.
6. Stir in the basil.
7. Taste the sauce. If it’s too sour, then add some butter until it suits your taste. See, the sourness comes from the tomato, and the butter counteracts that. If it’s too bland, add some oregano and basil. If it lacks “oomph”, add pepper.
8. When the pasta is done, take it out of the pot, drain it, and mix it with the sauce.
9. Serve on a plate and sprinkle with cheese, according to your preference. For this particular meal, we used grated parmesan (the affordable but ok kind, not parmigiano reggiano from Italy).

Total cost of dish: Main ingredients cost P54.00 You can add an additional 10-20 pesos for miscellaneous side expenses such as the salt, pepper, garlic, butter, water, oregano, cheese, and the gas that was used. So the total cost is roughly P64.00 - P74.00

Not bad, especially since it got to feed 3 people with really generous servings.

If you notice the toast next to the pasta, it’s chive butter toast, but it merits its own blog entry. Click here for the recipe of the chive butter toast.

Did you have a special meal with a significant other (or by yourself) this Valentine’s Day? If so, what did you have and how much did it cost? Share it with us in the comments.

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