If you have heard of UITF or mutual funds, then make sure you understand that past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last year when the stock market was riding on its wave of success, both Philamlife and Sun Life are bragging about the returns they provided to clients. Return are in double digits.

If you invested last year, then you’ll surely be disappointed just like me. Instead of earning high returns, these funds are earning huge losses. The best thing to do is to wait until the market recovers. And who knows when that would happen.

Again, another lesson learned the hard way. 

Inkjet printers have become very affordable. You can get a Canon, Epson or HP printer for a little more than Php 2,000. The problem is that the consumables or ink refills will burn a hole in you pocket.

I recently had my Epson C90 converted to a continuous ink system or bottomless ink system. I went to Save Inks in VMall and paid Php 2,050 for the conversion. Said service comes with a lifetime service warranty.

After two weeks, the red (or magenta) wasn’t printing right. The ink is not reaching the cartridge inside the printer. Had the system checked and the shop blamed it on the printer. My printer wasn’t brand new when I had it converted.

Ok then, so I bought a brand new Epson C90. Same exact model and had it converted again. Of course, they used the old conversion kit. Same problem after a few days.

Epson of course will not honor warranty on the printer. It has been tampered. It useless arguing with Save Inks on whose to blame.

I have spent almost Php 6,000 in a quest to save on printing. I am discouraged to try again as this will add up on cost.

Anyone there with a better experience?

Forbes has released their Philippines 40 Richest ranking. Topping the list are the usual, Zobel de Ayala Family, Henry Sy and Lucio Tan. Surprisingly, ranking 4th and 5th is Andrew Tan and  Manny Villar.

Both Andrew Tan and Manny Villar made their billions in real estate. Andrew Tan owns Megaworld and Empire East. He also owns a big share of McDonalds Philippines. Manny Villar on the other hand owns Vista Land, the mother company of various real estate company catering to various market segments.

What made Tan and Villar jumped to higher ranking is the value of their company holdings. Since their companies are public, the rise in stock prices have made their wealth multiply.

Interestingly, John Gokongwei is only at number 15. His fall in ranking can probably be attributed to the donation of half of his wealth to charity.

We were struck with two brownouts yesterday in the office. Rather than wait it out and distrupt our work schedule, I decided to call Meralco’s call center number, 16211.

As with other big companies, its an autmated system that greets you when you call Meralco. The good thing about browout inquiry is that the system can accurately provide the time when electricity will be restored. In the first inquiry, the system notified of an emergency line problem and that service should be back by 2pm. Electricity returned a little past 1pm.

In the next brownout, I called a few minutes after experiencing the outage. The system then gave a notice that service will be back at 3:30pm or 30 minutes after. Service returned at 3:20pm.  

In both instances, it was good for me to know when electricity would be back so we can adjust our work activities. Great service Meralco for this system!

Note: you need to have your service identification number ready to use their automated system.