Bank It!

My sibs and I challenged our niece to save up so she won’t be tempted to spend her leftover allowance money buying senseless stuff haplessly and impulsively. She accepted our challenge like a champ so we then decided it’s about time for her to open her own bank account since she’s already 10 years old (under our supervision of course) to teach her the importance of frugality and the value of saving at such a young age. I remember how aghast she was one day after watching a feature story on those who lost almost half of their life savings after termites ate off their precious banknotes as a result of improper safekeeping. The thought of losing the money she fervently saved made her decide to keep her bills tucked inside one of those plastic cups to veer away from mites which was of course an equally very poor way to keep your money. This served as an impetus for us to inoculate her to open a savings account for kids since some banks already allow kids as young as 10 years of age to open an account under their name which I thought was excellent as it will teach a child to save up for the rainy days. I decided to scour online for the best kiddie savings account around and by far BPI is the most hassle free in terms of requirements. I thought, the less requirements, the easiest to comply. I was disappointed though that BPI’s website did not help that much because aside from it's never updated, it was totally incomplete as well. So, I just resorted to blogs instead to know more how BPI Jumpstart works. 

BPI Jumpstart 

According to one blog post dated years ago, I only need to bring the following requirements to open a Jumpstart account for my niece—child’s NSO Birth Certificate, School ID signed by school head, Two (2) 1×1 ID picture, Initial deposit of Php100 & Utility Bill with your permanent address which I gladly prepared a day before my visit to the nearest BPI where I'm at. The next day, after waiting for my turn for nearly half an hour, customer service advised they only need the following requirements below and gave me this piece of paper to open a Jumpstart account for a child/minor 10-17 years of age:

I thought the requirements for students were quite vague say for example it says 'school ID (w/signature)' of whom?? It did not even clearly state School ID signed by school head. So what I did, I brought along a photocopy of each of the requirements just to make sure which I’m glad I did. I always come prepared to save time and money for fare or gas because I hate 'installment' trips. Below are the actual requirements I carried with me which were all submitted to BPI. Make sure to bring along all the original requirements with you along with the photocopies because the bank representative will compare the photocopies from the original ones or at least I think they will. I believe it's a way to discern if there's any alterations, falsifications or whatever.

student enrollment certificate
sample

1. School ID signed by school head + 1 photocopy of it = the photocopy should show both the front and back of your ID in one page to avoid hassle or so long as the school head signature is visible.

2. Certificate of Enrolment + 1 photocopy of it = You have to personally request this from the school and pay a minimal fee which varies from school to school. My niece’s school only charges P30 (again it varies). It will bear the name of the requestor (parent or guardian), school head/principal’s signature and school seal. I only submitted a photocopy to BPI which they were ok with.

3. Recent Proof of billing (original) + 1 photocopy of it = Any utility bill will do so long as it matches the child’s current address as this is crucial therefore it should match exactly. I gave the first page of my recent PLDT Home Fibr/dsl bill (original) to BPI because I forgot to photocopy it (I'm also enrolled in paperless billing anyways).

4. Two (2) colored 1×1 ID picture

5. Initial deposit of Php100

Sadly, because BPI did not indicate these things on their website for security reasons or whatever, I had to come back the next day to accomplish all of the requirements which sucks big time. BPI though did provide a bank form which my niece was able to partly accomplish at home. 

BPI Jumpstart ATM/EMV card

The next day...

Because I have all the requirements with me during my second visit, my niece was able to finally open her new BPI Jumpstart account and got her ATM/debit card the same day. All we did was accomplish some more forms and changed the pin of her shiny new EMV ATM/debit card and off we go. 

Jumpstart account FYI...

• Account balance must not fall below Php1000 which applies after one year (from the date you open the account) to avoid getting charge a fee.
• account must have Php2000 or more in order to earn interest (not mandatory) if you want your money to grow
• and last but not least...you must not empty the account otherwise it will automatically close. Furthermore, please refer to BPI’s website for further details. 

I hope this lengthy blog post of mine helps somehow (although sometimes bank requirements changes from time to time). As an end note, no matter how time consuming to visit the bank, if all the information that you need isn’t available online, you still do not have any choice but visit the nearest BPI branch in your area otherwise call their customer service line or shoot them an email first hoping they will respond soon. 

Go Vegan

I am not convincing anyone to go vegan just because I am one of the now growing population of individuals taking that route. I know how difficult it is to give up consumption of meat and dairy products especially if you have gotten accustomed to consuming animal products and by products practically your whole life. Being vegan is a lifestyle choice and it's not a fad.

I just have had enough...
I cannot eat anymore animal meat just to satisfy my palette and live the guilt everyday when you know very well another poor animal gets slaughtered and a mother cow taken away from her baby just to provide consumers milk and what else they can get out of each and every body part of every cow, pig etc. I cannot bear a sight of another lobster in a griller dying a painful/excruciating death right in front of someone's face just to give humans that tasteful and high on cholesterol buttered lobster meat, to look chic sporting one of those sleek leather bags or shoes made from animal skins (pigs, goats, sheep, alligators, ostriches and lizards). I think, as a compassionate human being, I can do better than that. 

Transition...
Transitioning to veganism isn't really difficult for me  (yes I'm still in the process) because my diet before consisted mainly of vegetables, dairy, white meat and little to almost no red meat so cutting these from my diet isn’t really that challenging so long as I have Tofu and mushrooms. The world we’re living in made us believed since childhood that meat is the main source of ‘protein’ and discarding meat from our diet would make an individual protein deficient which I recently found isn’t actually true since vegetables are excellent protein source as much as meat say for instance Broccoli, it has more protein than beef and so as Pease, Spinach, Kale, Mushrooms just to name a few.

Why Vegan?
I decided to go vegan for two main reasons--ethical and health. When my elder sister underwent an open cholecystectomy (a surgery to remove the gallbladder via a single, large open incision in the abdomen) because of a gall bladder enlargement since she no longer qualified for a laparoscopic surgery (a less invasive way to remove the gallbladder) the rest of the family immediately changed our diet (since gall stones form as a result of high on fat diet and genetic factors). We then eradicated the use cooking oil from our kitchen for vegetable oils such as olive, palm, corn, coconut and consumed less to no red meat because of our notion that white meat is less carcinogenic compared to red just again to find ourselves wrong as any meat is carcinogenic per se and being a meat eater makes us more prone to cancer compared to individuals on a plant-based diet. Going back, years later, discarding red meat from our diet 90% did not help neither to elude gall bladder stones as I also went through surgery only it’s laparoscopic and trust me, as you get older all other health constraints will start to emerge which are all related to what you eat so it's best to eat healthy as young/early as possible. 

a true sad story about animal cruelty...
source: PETA Vegan Starter Kit

Going Vegan...

I am a transitioning vegan and the myth that you can no longer eat practically anything because everything uses dairy or meat isn’t actually true neither because you can always substitute meat for Tofu, Jackfruit, Mushrooms and the list goes on. Just think of the usual sautéed recipes you have without the meat and fish sauce if you often use it to make it a vegan recipe.  The only sacrifice I had to make is resisting dairy ice cream (since I have no access to vegan ice cream where I’m based) but I have been successful so far fighting the urge to devour that sinful cold treat. I also love baking and chocolate chip cookies which main ingredient is butter so I now have to substitute it with coconut oil. If you haven't watched this Netflix documentary 'What The Health' then you should because it will blow your mind about the things we were made to believe concerning the role of meat and poultry/dairy towards the human body. However, what really stick with me after watching that documentary was how a persons health is able to dramatically improve in just a span of two weeks after going on plant-based diet and a year later the very same people featured on the documentary were off meds (believe it or not) which I am hoping  to be in years to come. If you have read my old blog entries I've been on lifetime hormone replacement meds for Hypothyroidism for roughly 5-6 years now and it sucks big time because I hate taking medications and if only given a chance to eat organic over taking medications I would rather just eat healthy because I think all medicated drugs always has side effects. I mean, why not just eat green/red bell pepper, oranges etcetera versus taking a Vitamin C pill considering both does the job right?

Vegan and Vegetarian

I know a lot of people confuses vegans from vegetarians so let me differentiate the two: Vegetarians do not eat meat yet consume dairy products as oppose to vegans, they totally avoid meat, poultry/dairy, seafood or to simply put, vegans avoid eating animal meat and consuming animal by products or they use cruelty-free make-up (not tested on animals), do not use leather bags etc.

As an end note, there are tough life choices worth giving a try and I think veganism is one of those because aside from it's good for our planet, you can also enjoy a guilt free meal by not eating animal meat. If you consider turning into a new leaf and is looking to be vegan you may check out PETA's Vegan Starter Kit here.