Home Hacks Design

Home Hacks Design for the bathroom such as Simple Hacks To A Prettier Bathroom. Similarly, this also feature Toilet Shopping Tips.

Another Home Hacks Design are for kitchen like Cleaning Tips For Your Dirty Kitchen and cleaning products that is perfect for cleaning.

Kitchen Hacks You Wish You Should Have Known Before like the other great use of paper towels.

Creating an effective cleaning schedule; divide it into categories; daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.

Cleaning schedule that you also need to consider are those that is done every 4 months such as air conditioner cleaning, pest control, and deep cleaning of windows.

Cleaning of roof and rain gutter are done every year. Cleaning/draining of the septic tank should be done every 3 years or 5 years.

Cost of home make over and DIY for cheaper make over ideas.

Bedroom decorations ideas and where to buy the cheapest bed lines.

Kitchen make over ideas and DIYs for cheaper make over ideas.

Tropical living room themed and where to buy cheap tropical plants.

Home make over ideas in the Philippines. Home interior ideas in the Philippines

Mommy Blog with home hacks topic in the Philippines.

Where to buy cheap wood furniture in the Philippines.

Price of Aluminum Screen Door in the Philippines. Price of the brown aluminum and silver aluminum.

Furniture stores in the Philippines. Abad Santos furniture store address.

Uratex foam custom cut online. Uratex foam price online.

Food Storage Solutions From Glad

During the Holidays, my freezer suffered a lot from my mom’s hands! Waahahahaha

The mister is complaining! How can he buy me a new ref daw eh ang gulo gulo ng freezer ko. Ah magulo ba? Sige ayusin natin yan!

Oh what do you think?!? Malapit na ba ako magkaroon ng bagong ref?!?

Actually, my freezer is not that organized most of the times. I usually use rectangular plastic wares for storage and expected, madalas hindi kasya sa freezer ang two weeks supply namin.

TWO WEEKS talaga? Yup! Di ba nga according sa 5 Financial tips ko, limit your palengke trips, that’s why we have ulam na for 2 weeks. Less palengke trips less gastos. Eh how about the veggies? I have a solution for that! We buy veggies in bulk too, and we store it by blanching it.

A few weeks ago, I received a package from Glad that contains some of their products (gulay not included of course!)

I love using the cling wrap! I used it for fruits like Pakwan:

Later on I discovered how useful the Glad Storage Zipper Bags. It’s now my most favorite Glad products ever! The quart zipper bag is the perfect sized zipper bag for our daily meals.

I love putting green peas on almost any dish possible.. fried rice, caldereta, chicken curry.. kung pwede lang pati sa sinigang! Sobrang perfect nung zipper lock for my green peas. Kukuha lang ako ng kaunti and I can put it back on my fridge without worrying na baka magkalat sila.

My buffalo wings and katsu are all safe inside the zipper bag. Most of these are for my kids’ baon.

Di ba I told you about blanching vegetables? This time, aside from blanching, I mixed my veggies na. Now I can have chopsuey anytime!

And my most favorite part: BACON! One pack of bacon is too much naman sa amin.. I divided two packs into three and store it using the zipper bag. Isang bag, isang lutuan!

Other than food storage, the zipper bag can also be used for marinating (no mess!), for packing lunch or snack packs and for small items that needs to be stored (check how Mommy Levy used Glad Storage Zipper Bags for Ren’s lego). I think I’ll be using the bigger zipper bags for the arrival of Marius (will be placing his 1st clothes).

Aside from the zipper bag (that comes in 2 sizes) and cling wrap, here are the other Food Storage Solutions from Glad:

Glad Cling Wrap
Glad Press ‘n Seal
Glad Freezer Zipper
Gladware
Glad OvenWare

The zipper bag can be recycled too! It won’t hurt the budget that much. Initial worry ko yan eh, do I need to buy Glad Storage zipper bags every payday?!? Hindi naman pala since I can recycle it. Space saver pa! I never imagined na mapapagkasya ko ang 2 week supply sa ref! Now I don’t think I need a bigger ref! OPS!

5 Financial Tips To Help You Stay On Track With Your Budget

Two years ago, we started paying for a house. Before that year ends, our monthly amortization increased because we wanted a bigger house. Naturally when 2015 enters, we’re almost out of money and we need all the Financial Tips we can get! We’re living paycheck to paycheck then.. no extra funds, no savings, just the basics. Ummh or so I thought… After listing down our expenses, I realized we are not using our money properly. The miscellaneous area of my notebook is quickly filling up as the day goes by. MISCELLANEOUS?!? We’re spending so much on things that we should’t! After a few months of experimenting, I finally learned how to budget our money properly.

And you know I don’t write or recommend anything that is not tried and tested.. not turning into a financial expert ha, just sharing with you financial tips that can help you stay on track with your budget.

5 Financial Tips To Help You Stay On Track With Your Budget

#1 List down your spending

List down where you spend your money and learned from it. If you know there is something wrong with your budgeting, don’t you want to know what it is?!? By listing down where you spend your money, you’ll be able to track where most of your money are. You need to list down ALL. As in even that 8 pesos pamasahe sa tricycle, ilista mo yan.

#2 Cut down your expenses

When I tried listing down where we spend our money, I realized we have been spending too much on dinning out, specially breakfast. Tama na ang mga pasosyal na breakfast at Jollibee! I realized how cheap it would be to just cook tuyo, egg and fried rice rather than order breakfast. We’re a family of 6 and our usual fast food breakfast consumption is P500. If I cook breakfast, I would only be spending P100 (or even less). From breakfast alone, our expenses were sized down to 20%!

If yours naman is during lunch or dinner, try cutting down on that too. Cooking veggies paired with a liempo or fish is way cheaper than ordering in a restaurant. If you really can’t do that, try skipping dessert and just drink plain water. Also, taking out is cheaper. Buy the ulam at magsaing ka na lang sa bahay.

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I’ll be posting tipid ulam tips and ways to prepare your dishes in advance to save time. Stay tuned or better subscribe!

#3 Make a shopping list and STICK to it!

Emphasis on STICK!

I have to admit, whenever we do our grocery, we always end up with 2 full grocery carts 🙁 and we’re doing the grocery twice a month! There is always something in the grocery that we need! Since we cut down on our expenses, I started making a grocery list and we really try hard to stick with it. Hindi sya ganun kadali!

As I have said, there is always something in the grocery that we need that is not on the list. And the kids! My goodness! They always something more than the basic. Pabili ng stick-o, pabili ng chocolates, pabili ng notebook, ng pens etc etc.. never ending pabili! So that’s another tip, don’t bring your kids as much as possible! Or if you have to, don’t give in to their pabilis!

When you start giving in, you’ll realize, ay si Mommy din may kailangan pala.. ay si Daddy din! One time, the husband bought 2 pairs of socks (which was not on the list) and he ends up spending 3000 Pesos more.. Kase naman, the kids need briefs din pala.. and mommy needs some socks too (which actually can wait harhar). You get the idea? once you give in tuloy tuloy na yan!

Aside from the list, try to limit your trips down spending lanes! AKA shopping malls, groceries, supermarkets and yes even on palengkes and talipapa. The more you are exposed to this temptations, the more you’ll spend more. Let’s not talk about discipline muna ha.. that’s really hard to achieve. Kaya instead of trying to stop yourself from buying whenever you’re inside the grocery or the mall, limit your trips na lang.

#4 Plan your indulgence (do not deprive yourself)

This is something that we can’t let go easily. Most of you will agree naman di ba? It’s hard not to give yourself a reward after 1 week or two of working really hard right? Lalo na ngayon that the traffic is really baaad! Parang ang dami dami mong hirap sa mundo tapos magtitipid ka pa? Most financial advisers would tell you na it’s a matter of long term happiness (investment) or short term (no savings naman). Ako, I’d say go for both. You can still indulge and reward yourself pero plan it.

Set a budget for your reward, maybe like, once a week na kain sa restaurant or a short trip to your wasteland (National Bookstore for me!). Get back to Tip #3 to guide you with your spending.

#5 Sobre system

Last and I really saved this one.. kase saved the best for last!

Buy a plastic envelope or something to that effect. Segregate your money based on your budget list. Alam ko ito pinakamalaking problema ng mga nanay eh.. ung pambayad ng kuryente nagagamit sa iba. Ang pang grocery na dapat 3k lang, nagiging 5k na! Eh san mo naman huhugutin ang kulang or san ka kukuha ng pang abono sa nagastos mong pangbayad ng kuryente.

With the sobre system, you’ll know if you still have enough money for grocery and you lower down the risk of spending money allocated for your bills.

We’re still working out the savings part. They say the best way to budget your money is INCOME- SAVINGS = EXPENSES. They say you have to develop saving first before spending. Maybe a few more cutting down on our expenses and we can finally use that simple math of savings.

Now it’s your turn to make kwento! I know ang bulsa na burned out din from the Holiday spending, how do you plan to “recuperate”? Also, have you tried any of the of the financial tips I mentioned above? Care to share your experience? I want to hear from you!

What You Need To Know Before Looking For A House

As most of you all know, we’ve been renting an apartment since we started our family. It was only in 2013 that we decided to purchase our own house. We moved to our house just last year, imagine we’ve been renting an apartment for 10 years! It’s not that easy to buy a house here in the Philippines. And it’s not easy to look for the perfect place/ community to grow a family. We even considered going abroad and see if we can start anew.

Out of all the places, we fell in love in Australia. Melbourne is ranked as most liveable city! The city is filled with parks, perfect for big family like ours. It’s also considered as UNESCO City of Literature, so many books to fill my kids’ curious minds! And of course, the houses!

We both wanted a house and not a condominium. It’s a big factor that we’re both raised in rural communities and not urban communities. The houses are lovely! Even the house and land for sale in Victoria, Australia were lovely and we can also imagine living in that area.
If only we can have a house there! But our house search though was limited to the places near us. We started our search in communities near the place we were renting. And while looking for house, we’ve learned that there are different types of houses and each one is priced differently. There’s duplex, single attached, and detached.

Duplex type of house are the kind of houses that shares a common wall usually on both side of the property. Its facade sometimes can be confused as one house but it’s actually 2 houses built but shares the same wall. Based from the houses we’ve seen, most duplex have their own parking area. We found this kind of house not suitable for us.

Single attached type of houses are the kind of houses that also shares a common wall but only on one side of the property. This was the kind of house that was offered to us. It seems very ideal for our family since it has parking space and a small space for kids to run.

We decided on buying a detached house as what we always prefer since we’ve seen those fabulous detached houses for sale in Melbourne. As the name implies, this kind of house is a stand-alone. It does not share a common wall in any side of the property, in fact it has its own fence. It also has its own parking and an ample space for gardening or whatever suits the house owner.

The house that we bought is not RFO or ready for occupancy. We paid the equity first and they started building the house when we’re done with the half of the equity. If you’re planning to have your own house, you’ll face the same question as we had before, RFO or build your own house?

From our experience, RFO (or like our arrangement) can be more expensive than building your own house but it is less stressful. We just need to take care of the payments as the house is done and ready to be occupied. The only disadvantage we’ve experienced so far is that we have no say on the style of the house or where things should be. It was minor in our case. I think, it would have been more difficult for us to build our house from scratch.

If buying a house for the first time, knowing the type of houses as your first step is very important. This will give you a glimpse of what kind of house is best for you and your family.