Sunshine Blogger Award Nomination

Thank you Chrissy for nominating me for the first-ever Sunshine Blogger Award! I really appreciate it and it really made my day to see that my peers are appreciating and recognizing my effort in blogging.

What is the Sunshine Blogger Award?

The Sunshine Blogger Award is a peer-recognition type of award and it’s given to those you think inspires you, motivates you, and adds “sunshine” to your day.

There’s no formal, nomination process nor awarding ceremony but nevertheless, it’s an amazing feeling to be recognized by your own peers.

Sunshine Blogger Award Rules

Check her blog out! You can also follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It would be best if you also subscribe to her mailing list so you will not miss any of her posts!

Here are the questions that Chrissy asked me, and my answers:

What’s your number one tip for someone just starting out on their financial journey?

Just do it! Don’t wait for the perfect time or the perfect day to start your financial journey. Failure only becomes real failure if you don’t learn from it. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes! Just keep on going! (This is also what I keep on telling myself since I’m also new to this idea).

If you could start your financial journey over, what would you do differently?

If I could turn back time, I would have started early. Looking back, I should have started saving money when I was still in school and I should have taken more risks when it comes to my entrepreneurial dream.

If you have a partner (or if not, a close friend or family member) what’s one way they’ve inspired you to do better with your finances?

Most of my aunts and uncles and my mom are very frugal people. It’s just me and my siblings who often spend more than what we earn. Growing up, they’ve always told me to save money and live simply and frugally. I wished I had listened to them during those times.

Name one area in your financial life that you’d like to improve on.

Saving money! I don’t have huge savings since I use my money to finance my growing business. However, I know that I should maintain the balance between growing my business and saving for the future.

Can you share your top three money-saving apps?

I don’t use any money-saving financial apps like budget trackers etc, however, I do use a few apps that help me save money with my day to day normal expenses:

1. Shopee: Shopee is a shopping/selling platform in the Philippines. However, unlike most shopping platforms, Shopee incentivized its users by frequently giving out discount coupons and free shipping vouchers. I have saved tons of money buying my supplies and everything else I need using Shopee.

Related Post: How to Make Money on Shopee without Selling Anything

2. Carousell and eBay: Again, both of these are not financial apps but I find them very helpful in my day to day living. I use Carousell and eBay in buying second hand or used items that I often resell for profit or for my personal use. Seldom do I buy brand new items. Most of the time, I always buy second-hand items in order to save money.

3. Feedly: Feedly is one of the apps I always use on my phone. Again, it’s not a financial app. Feedly is an RSS Feed Reader. What I do is subscribe to the RSS feeds of PF blogs that I follow and read the posts using Feedly. It’s a great way to stay updated with all the blogs that I read and follow. Although it’s not directly helping me to save money, it does help me improve my financial literacy.

What’s your most unconventional money tip?

If you will spend money on one thing, then spend it on travel. Traveling is the only thing that I paid for that has given me so much. It helped me learned a lot about myself and the world around me. And it’s fun!

Other than blogging about money, what do you most enjoy doing in your free time?

Blogging for money is not my main gig. For now, I treat this as a hobby and as a medium to connect with people whom I can learn a lot about financial independence. My main gig is online selling second-hand stuff (mainly clothes and bags).

When I’m not busy with my online selling gig, I like to spend my time traveling to various places here in my country. I also like watching movies on Netflix and I love thrifting, that’s why I feel lucky that I learned how to earn money from something that I really love doing.

Tell us something about yourself that would surprise your readers. (It can be anything—it doesn’t have to be money-related!)

I like reading (and watching documentaries) about ancient civilizations. It fascinates me a lot!

What’s the most impactful eco-friendly (or eco-frugal) thing you do every day?

I try to re-use almost everything that I have at home, most especially plastic bags to maximize their lifespan and to minimize the stuff that I throw away (which we all know ends up in dumpsites).

If you had one environmental wish for our planet, what would it be?

I hope that we all learn how to live in harmony with our planet and treat our planet as our home (in its truest sense).

Which blog post of yours do you absolutely love, but doesn’t get enough attention? Also: why do you love it?

One of my favorite posts is How Positive Affirmations Changed My Life. I love it because I know how powerful positive affirmation is and I hope that anyone who reads it finds value in it.

My Sunshine Blogger Award Nominees

I’m not that much active in Twitter and the PF blogging community but I read and follow these blogs and I’d like to nominate them for the Sunshine Blogger Award:

1. 10 Year Target
2. One Frugal Girl
3. Backpack Finance
4. Nomad Numbers
5. Turtle Investor
6. Side Hustle Rich
7. Costa Rica Fire
8. A Dime Saved
9. Simple Sweetspot
10. Get Rich Brothers
11. Engineer my Freedom

I would have included Graham of Reverse the Crush because I also read his blog frequently, but Chrissy nominated him already.

My Sunshine Blogger Award Questions

1. What do you consider as your biggest financial mistake? (Follow up question on #2)
2. How did you turn the situation around?
3. What advice can you give to someone who’s just starting to save money a bit late in their life (like me!)?
4. If money is not a concern, what would you like to do in life (it can be a profession or anything you’d like to do if you do not have to work for money)?
5. Would you rather live in the city or in the countryside? Why?
6. What’s your biggest splurge this year?
7. Any plans to travel once everything goes back to normal? Where to and why?
8. Name three countries that you’d like to visit (Dream destinations perhaps?)
9. One thing that you can’t leave the house without (Except face shields, face masks, and hand sanitizers LOL!)
10. How are you coping up with the craziness of 2020?
11. Which blog post of yours is your favorite and why? I know this is Chrissy’s question, but I also would like to ask you this as well. I think this is a very interesting question for bloggers.

Final Thoughts

Again, thank you to Chrissy for nominating me, and to those whom I nominated, kindly tag me once you’ve posted your response (no pressure though) so I can share it on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

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