For sale
First, and I don't know if I've already mentioned this: we lost almost 300k worth of investments after the business owner (who was my ninang and a close family friend too) died unexpectedly last December 31. The impact it made to me and my husband is pretty big, as the money we invested in there was meant to generate a monthly profit enough to pay for our car's amortization. Now we have to re-budget and allocate whatever extra we have to pay for the car for the next two years. Also, we placed our entire 13th month pay in there, so it's frkn depressing. Don't ask me about the black and white of this whole thing, there weren't any written contracts. We only have hand written "receipts" of the cash we put in. God knows how much fighting chance we have with that. Especially that we don't know what's left of my ninang's estate. But thank God we're not totally broke. Since my salary adjustment last year, we've been getting a pretty decent amount of extra money which, quite coincidentally, is just enough to cover for the car's monthly amort. How cool is that. But then that puts us at a break even phase right now, where everything we earn gets zeroed out in minutes. Hay.
And theeeeen. I already feel bad that we lost money, but I feel worse for my parents who lost much more. My family has been investing with her since 2007 and never did my ninang fail to return any profit. That long history of trust and reliance made them pretty dependent with her business. Putting in a lot of money, and looking forward to the monthly return. They even loaned an amount from their credit card, and invested it to further her business operations. My ninang never failed to pay the monthly dues. But now that she's gone, the liabilities all fell on my parent's shoulders. And they're paying close to 100k every month for that loan, which isn't ending til March next year. Jsqlrd.
It pains me to watch my parents struggling right when they're supposed to be planning for their retirement already. I wish I was earning a hell lot to cushion these kinds of unfortunate events, but I can only thank God we're not left empty handed. There's still hope, we just have to work harder.
And now, an unexpected trip to Singapore threatens to empty our savings. We could've opted not to push through with the trip but we didn't think that far ahead. Late last year my husband and I applied for a software testing role at New Zealand / Australia. I passed the initial steps and was invited for an exam at Singapore, hence the unexpected trip. With ticket prices soaring and Airbnb banned in Singapore, our budget has to be at least 60k in order for us to survive the week. And that's not something we're at a liberty to burn.
So another stress point apart from all our financial hulabaloos is reviewing for the technical exam, which will make or break my application. The exam, according to some tips I found online will test our knowledge of testing fundamentals, so I'm kindof cramming reviewing the entire ISTQB Foundation Level Syllabus. Why the heck am I not certified for this?! I'm not expecting to pass the test, to be honest, but I gotta try at least.
My fear is that everything goes to waste, specially our hard earned money. It's bad enough we're letting this trip eat up a big chunk of our savings, and what's worse is that I may actually fail the exam and not proceed to the next steps. Silver lining, we get to explore SG. Also, I get to read about Testing Fundamentals, which is a freaking eye opener. I'm learning a lot here.
If anything I think we're kinda rushing it. I should've waited for the next recruitment roadshow, and let my husband try again. Who knows he might get in this time, and then we can both take the exam together. That's the ideal scenario. But what have you, I already bought tickets before I realized that. I also didn't think they'd re-consider me for the next roadshow if I can't make it this time. Oh well. I'm like setting up myself for failure argh and also wasting money. Jusko babatukan ako ng manager ko if he gets wind of this. There's no harm in trying though!
My parents have been thinking of selling the house because of this whole mess. We can only hope to recover some of our money, but if I were to choose I hope they'd pay back my parents at least for the loan she made on my ninang's behalf. My parents need it more. They don't deserve this. Hay Lord.
Oh Lord, here's to hoping everything falls according to you will.
Lessons learned.