How do you measure happiness? Let me count the ways… Satisfaction, contentment, spiritual connection, wellness, and closeness to family and friends are just some of the emotions we usually relate to being happy.

I keep asking myself whether I’m happy, probably a sign of getting old. How about you? Have you asked yourself that question lately?

The National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) has tried to remove the guesswork in determining when Filipinos are most happy. The Happiness Index unveiled last Wednesday shows we are most happy when our family life is going well, when we are not sick, when spiritual connections are not rusty, when we have good relationships with friends and, in fifth place, when we have income and financial security.

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How difficult is it to get personal information from the owners of 5 million Philippine-issued credit cards currently out there? It just takes a name, a credit card number, the bank’s name, an ID with a signature and anyone can have a shopping spree charged to your sanity.

It’s not just the Internet that made this all too easy for anyone with a fraudster’s gene in his system. The urge to have everything at the snap of the finger has made a lot of us too lazy, too lax and too careless with our personal information. And don’t think that you’re free of high tech scammers just because we are in the backwaters of the Philippines. The best hackers were born here :-/

Sometimes, even those that are uber careful get victimized. I know a finance professional who almost fell off his seat when he got a call from his credit card company confirming several hundred thousands of purchases in SM Bicutan. He doesn’t even know how to get there. Good thing the credit card company flagged the transaction and called him immediately. The scammer in the gasoline station must have made an extra swipe and got all his credit card information, transferred them into a new credit card and presto – the gas boy’s wallet just got bigger.

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Dan Magallanes, CEO of Headhunter Manila, says your salary should be four times your age. Meaning if you are 30 years old, you should be getting P120,000 monthly – at least.

Bink, blink, blink.

I make a mental roll call of my acquaintances and close friend and find that I can pull out only 10 percent of the names in my roster that meet this rough rule of thumb. CEOs, senior management in a multinational firm or entrepreneurs who have already made it big in their chosen businesses are what their calling cards say.

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Movements in currency markets — whether of the peso versus the dollar, dollar versus the euro, yen, or other currencies — have tremendous impact in our lives. From debt servicing to import costs and, closer to home, the value of 8 million Filipino workers’ earnings as well as other dollar earners like call centers. As a result, millions of eyes follow each little blip and hiccup in the forex markets every day.

Much as financial journalists would like to meet the daily challenge of making each article understandable to grade six students, sometimes that task becomes extremely difficult due to limitations of time, space and, well, ability. As a result, reading currency news can be so confusing.

So here are small tips for beginners who want to understand forex articles, and more to the point, turn this understanding to better money management.

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The peso has been hugging the headlines lately since our little peso-dollar forecast game, so I thought I’d show how your fearless forecasts stacked up with institutional players in the foreign exchange market. 

Some financial investment analysts initially thought the equities, bonds and forex markets will go haywire over the ZTE hearings. What do you know, trading hardly skipped a beat! Stock analysts said the whole thing was just entertainment for them. Where are the tantrums, the excuses to sell, the overreactions and highly dramatic one liners that market players normally reserve for times like these? Is this a sign the local markets are finally maturing? I await with bated breath for more signs. At least, it eliminated volatility and made our guessing game easier.

We had 28 bloggers who gave their fearless forecast for the peso-dollar yearend exchange rates! Here they are:

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Believe it or not, there’s always some hapless individual who floats on cloud nine during his vacation, then comes home not only to dirty laundry but also to huge credit card bills and finance charges.

That mad rush to “get away from everything” can cost you quite a lot if you’re not careful – and make it easy to forget how dreamy that vacation was.

Here are some banking traveling tips from our personal finance feature today:

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A career in financial advisory services appears to be a hot move these days. I used to be a bit unenthusiastic about this because of how lopsided income distribution is in this country. Read: there’s too many poor people for every Lance Gokongwei or Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala.

I even asked a couple of bank staff who have to comply with HSBC’s quota for wealth management services, if it’s hard to find people who have at least P3.6 million ($80,000) to play with. “You would be surprised,” they said, looking at each other quite conspiratorially, I thought. Hmm.

In various interviews, industry leaders are saying while the Philippines still has to play a catch-up game with China, Taiwan or South Korea, banks are definitely growing their wealth management services in the Philippines.

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That’s easy. Get your Harry Potter books autographed by J.K. Rowling and sell them on e-bay. I’m not kidding! Check out this link.

J.K. Rowling, your kung-fu is supreme among all writers. The Harry Potter series has turned more kids into readers than any other book series, in a world where libraries have turned into museums.

Photo Caption: After purchasing the book shortly after it became available at midnight, Jennifer and Jessica of Manassas Virginia made their way to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to read it. AFP Photo.

Now, how do we turn them into readers of books like Great Expectations. Hmmm.

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An employee for Japanese toy maker Sega Toys displays the world’s smallest “Grand Pianist - Hello Kitty Version”, which has 88 working keys and can automatically play 115 pre-installed musical songs, including 15 Hello Kitty related pieces. The original version of the Grand Pianist started selling in Japan in April and the new white Hello Kitty version will be put on the market next month.

Eighty-eight days to go before Christmas! Many of us scrimp and save the whole year, only to lose it all in December. Parents go crazy buying the best Christmas gifts and serving the best Christmas dinners, mostly to assuage our own guilt when we feel we haven’t spent much time with our kids the rest of the year! I’m guilty here too hehe.

If we wait until December to decide on a limit for Christmas spending, it’s easy to be swayed by great commercials and amazing packaging. Hubby and I used to have a “skies the limit” attitude when it comes to getting gifts for the kiddos, but lately, we have decided as a family to lie low on consumerism and focus on what’s really important – family, togetherness, and of course a gift that doesn’t take away the spirit of what we actually celebrate on Christmas time.

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Sorry guys, the company policy does not allow posting of personal information in INQUIRER.net blogs. This is for your protection . Although I would like to think we are a close-knit community here in MoneySmarts, I know for sure that there are fraudsters out there ready to pounce on loyal readers. So be careful!

If you want to contact anyone, shoot me an email at lightdream@gmail.com (*I’m* used to spam) and I will see how I can help.

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