Bitter Sweet Life

A collection of my life (mis) adventures on being a wife, mom, daughter, friend, and anything in between.

Good morning sunshine!


When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. - Marcus Aurelius


One Sunday morning, we wake up early than the usual coz you told me we are off to go somewhere. We wear the helmet,  I wrap my hand around your waist and you started the engine. Minutes of a long ride, we stop and you let me captured the beautiful sunrise at the highest peak of the road at Antipolo. I gazed to the eternal blue sky, with beautiful sunrise and sea of clouds and thankfully whispering to HIM that it is indeed a blessed day.  I have witnessed one of the beautiful sunrise in my life.  I must admit I like this new experience, wandering through the city with your hand in mine. 

Good morning sunshine!

9 Tips On Saving Your Money

It's been half a month now after we welcomed 2015. Most of the people tend to put on their new year resolution the goal of saving money. It always a cycle yearly - save money, invest, live within our means, etc. But honestly, how many of us turned this goal into reality? Anyway, below is the list of simple tips on how to save some money.


1. Record your expenses. So grab a notebook and jot down all your day-to-day expenses since the first step in saving money is to know how much you are spending.

2. Plan on saving money. Actually, our savings should be deducted first once we got your salary. It's like paying our self first. Standard formula for us to save is Income - Savings = Expenses not the other way around which is Income - Expenses = Saving.

3. Set savings goals. Be sure to know, why you are saving. Is it for your child education, retirement or anything? This would really help you achieve your goal.

4. Make a budget and do stick with it. Do create budget for your grocery, your daily work expense, etc.

5. Decide on your priorities.

6. Live within your means. Always!

7. Make saving money easier with automatic transfers.  This can be tied - up into your payroll account so you'll have an automatic and force savings. - Wasn't able to do it since the company's bank branch is from ParaƱaque while our office location is here in Taguig.

8. Different savings and investment strategies  for different goals. Do create different account for your saving purposes. I actually have an ATM account for emergency needs, then another bank account for short term saving goal & and I have a VUL - a mutual fund and life insurance at the same time for long term saving goals. I am also planning to venture into Mutual Funds and other investment products. I hope budget will allow me. =)

9. Last, watch your savings grow.



Also, be sure to have discipline and continue doing the tips above so your savings will double up. Hope this might help you! How about you, what saving tips you can share to us?

On Being Lucky!

My friends often told me that I am very lucky on raffle and even giveaway since the day that I received the iPad mini from last year company's Christmas party raffle. To tell you a short description of mine, I love joining blog giveaways/raffles and luckily, I won some of the blog giveaways that I participated in.

Here's the picture of awesome things I receive this year:

collection of giveaways/raffle items that I receive




I am very thankful for this year because of these awesome things I received unexpectedly. Also, thankful for the bloggers who hosted those giveaways. This actually help me save some money. I hope God will not get tired of giving me some of these favors.
Don't think of the things you didn't get after praying. Think of the countless blessing God gave you without asking.
How about you guys? Have you receive any items that you haven't shed any amount?

January: On Being Healthy

If you're actually gonna ask me how was our January. It is actually a rough road. The whole entire family got sick - I was included on the list. Maybe, it was because of the humid & cold weather. So cold that almost all the Filipino got flu and colds. Anyway, My baby boy was the one who got sick the most . He's fever was on & off plus the cough, colds & diarrhea. We already went to his Pedia but unfortunately looks like he doesn't get well. Last January 15 (during papal visit), we rushed to the nearby hospital because he has a high fever with lots of red spots on his skin. We actually thought that it might be dengue since the symptoms are relative to it. But after the health specialist examined his blood and stool, thank God that it wasn't caused by dengue nor his diarrhea wasn't caused by amoebiasis. So how was that incident related to money? Do you know the saying that "Health is wealth" right? It's very very true! Health really ensembles our wealth. If you're super duper rich yet your health suffer, for sure your money will be gone to soon. Yet when you are happy and healthy, you could acquire much more wealth and spend it on the things you've ever wanted. Anyway, that incident actually cause us almost 5k - prescribed milk & medicines only. It's one big "uh" to our family budget - you already know the reason why. So what measure do we do to prevent this things to happen again? Below is the list of things of staying healthy and happy:
  1. Always making sure that the 2 kiddos drink their vitamins including us, adults.
  2. Eat healthy food always. We almost eat vegetables, fish and fruits everyday.
  3. Lots of lots of water to drink since it helps us to wash away the toxin in our body.
  4. Have an enough sleep - so we are making sure that they get 8 - 10 hours a day of sleep plus a nap time in the afternoon.
  5. Make them play outside. This will serve their exercise.
It is really hard when someone in the family is sick. So let's should be wary of the things we do to our body. As the saying says, "Health is wealth". I hope this February will be very good to us.So how about you guys, what have you experienced last month?