The market drop significantly this past weeks which triggered me to start my journey to buying my first stocks. When stocks GO DOWN eventually it will GO UP. :)

I bought my first stocks yesterday (September 16, 2015) but before I discuss the strategy I used, let's begin on how I chose my online broker.

In order to buy stocks online you need to have a broker and popular nowadays are COL, Firstmetro and BPI Trade. In the end my choices where between COL vs. BPI Trade and I choose BPI Trade because of the following reasons:
1. Easy to open a account
In comparison to COL, when submitting your documents you either have to visit their office or mail it to them but with BPI Trade you have the convenience of visiting any BPI or BPI Family branch nationwide. Also if you have a BPI account then adding money (deposit) to your BPI Trade account is as easy as using the "Transfer to Anyone" feature but be careful, make sure that you input the correct account number.
2. Earns interest per annum
You BPI Trade account will be like a BPI savings account wherein it earns interest per annum. Though it's not that significant at first but if you eventually your money grows then that interest will be worth something.

How to open a BPI Trade account
1. Visit BPI Trade website: https://www.bpitrade.com/
2. Select "I Agree" in the Disclaimer.
3. Accomplished all required forms.
4. Print those forms and prepare your proof of identification.
5. Submit all requirements to any BPI or BPI Family Bank nearest you.
*You may read through the instructions carefully in order to submit the requirements properly.

IMPORTANT: Please note that your initial investment will be the funds that you will use to purchase stocks and DOES NOT represent a balance requirement. The monthly average daily balance (ADB) requirement for your BPI Trade Bank Account is Php 500.00 to avoid the Php 250.00 standard monthly service charge.

Next post will be on how I chosen what stocks to buy and here's a clue:

After more than a month, at last my car loan was approved. EXCITED!!!! :)

At first, due to permanent address issue it was denied but with the banks help I was able to re-apply with the correct permanent address. But another issue arise, I was just regularized with my current employer.

My Suzuki Celerio 2015 GL 1.0L MT

So, I informed the bank of my previous employer and luckily they honored it and did a CI of my previous employment. And after another week of waiting at last I got a good news that my car loan was approved! It's driving time!!!!! :)

If you want some tips on how to get approve despite being new in your company (regular employee) and have a new address (just transferred) then you may be interested in reading my previous post: 

Car Loan Tips - Useful tips for New Employee with New Address

Also, I will be posting soon my review of the Suzuki Celerio 2015 MT. So, make sure to visit my blog again for the latest.

Early this year I was looking into some of the top web hosting providers for a client of mine. As I read through many reviews from different sites I came across Siteground which was top rated among other web hosting provider.
What they like the most of Siteground are:
#1: Excellent support (24/7)
My personal experienced: I've encountered technical and billing problems and I assure you even in just chat they respond quickly and provide help. I had some billing issue and after just a few minutes of chat support they immediately refunded me.
#2 99.9% Uptime
My personal experienced: I have never had any downtime and I am expecting no downtime in the future.
#3 Competitive hosting packages
My personal opinion: They have the best bang for your bucks packages compared to other providers which may have higher price packages or provide less support or uptimes are intermittent.

It's already one month and sadly I am still waiting for approval from the bank for my car loan. Well there were two major challenges or should I bluntly say issues with my application.

First, the permanent address that I wrote in my application was my current address. Well, I taught that if I applied for a car loan then my address should be the city where the bank is located but it was a mistake.

TIP#1: Address
- Make sure that you have lived at least 3 years in that address.
- If you just recently transferred to a new address/location (rented), instead of using that address then input your permanent address. It can be the address where you where born and live until you graduated in college.
- This is important because they will visit your address and investigate (CI) or double check.

Secondly, I am still new with the company but already a regular employee and that is clearly still an issue.

TIP#2: Employment record
- The bank requires that you have been working at least 3 years. But since I am still less than a year so they required the details of my previous employment.
- Certificate of Employment (COE) from previous employer is a big help together with the coe of your current company.
- The bank will also investigate the validity of your previous employment so they will require you to submit contacts of individuals whom you know. And so, make sure that those contacts knows you well or at least are close to you wherein they can answer some (personal) questions pertaining to your employment.

And so, I am still crossing my fingers whether my application will be approve. I will know after a week or two. I'll update as soon as I get updates from the bank.

Note: This tips are based on my personal experienced and so, it may or may not be applicable to you or with your bank or in your country.

We never planned a trip to Vigan but because our arrival at Baguio City was late, going to Sagada was no longer an option for us. Our only choice was either to go back to manila and have fun at enchanted kingdom or go to Vigan which I also like because I never been to that place. So, after much deliberation we finally decided that Vigan here we come! but honestly only one girl in our group decided for us because she really wants to go to Vigan and in compliance to her request we gave in, just kidding, we were all excited to visit Vigan ^_^. From Baguio City, we traveled by bus (Partas Bus Liner) and it took around 5 hours and had only one real stop in a karenderia. So beware, you should visit the washroom before you leave and don't worry about getting hungry because seldom vendors will either get inside the bus or sell their goods by the bus window.

When we arrived at Vigan, it was already lunch time and so we we're all very hungry. But because our Vigan trip was unplanned, we just ask a tricycle driver for a famous local restaurant in the City and he immediately said Cafe Leona and it seems the name sounds good or we are just really very hungry. We immediately traveled to the restaurant by tricycle and arrive there after 10 minutes. We went inside and we we're greeted by a very nice lady. We ordered a few of their specialties because we are on a tight budget but they have a buffet option as well. After eating, we requested the nice lady if we can leave our bags and pasalubong for a few hours while we roam around the city and she happily accepted our request.

We started our Vigan tour around 2pm already, we first visited the cities famous houses and streets. There were alot of Calesa roaming around the streets and waiting for passengers or mostly tourist and so, we decided to rent two of them for the whole city tour.

We then visited Bantay Belltower and Church and had fun taking pictures with the Belltower. Afterwards, we wen't to Baluarte, a private zoo owned by Mr. Chavit Singson but amazingly there was no entrance fee. It was about to get dark already so we just stayed for awhile and wen't straight to Hidden Garden which has no entrance fee as well. Now I can say Vigan is really a tourist friendly city.


And sadly it was already around 7pm when we finished our city tour but roughly we only visited a few of the tourist spots because of the limited time we had.




But we had a great time in Vigan and surely it was memorable for all of us. Till our next trip because Its more FUN in the PHILIPPINES! ;D