FMBM: Tapsilog Bento

My version of Japanese Tapsilog, well it's actually TapLog because I used plain steamed rice. Marinated the beef tapa two nights ago so I just needed to fry it this morning. It only took 2 minutes to fry this thinly sliced Tapa and a minute or two to make the rice sandwich with a nori smiley on it.

steamed broccoli, quail eggs(prepared the night before)

Used this hamburger rice maker I bought from Daiso.

place the hamburger maker on top of a nori sheet or a cling wrap (derek doesn't like nori)
then press to compact the rice, add the tapa on top

fold the sheet to place the other rice on top of the tapa

rice hamburger or sandwich! wrapped with a cling wrap

Limiting Toys to Encourage Creativity

A mommy friend asked me to answer a survey form for one of the children's museum here in the Bay Area and the theme is: as a parent how important creativity is for your kid. As much as I put importance to education and skills, I believe that creativity plays an important role on a kid's future because their creativity is the glue that puts their skills together to produce something that's their own. More than skills, Creativity is the key to thrive; to solve a problem, to create a tangible solution and to workaround whatever limitations and resources at hand. 

My boys love to buy play sets, those toys with all materials come in a box with instructions on how to put them together. Most of the time these sets work exclusively, meaning if one new character or version comes along it means we have to buy a new set. We keep buying until we didn't have space for them anymore in our tiny house. Husband and I didn't have a choice but to purge their old toys and stop buying play sets. I replaced them with wooden, and soft blocks, bought Legos and a big box of Duplos from a garage sale. I also made scotch tapes, markers, colors, papers, scissors accessible for them. Unlimited use and unlimited permission to mess the house. 

When they ask me to buy them a new play set that they've watched in Youtube, I just encourage them to make use of their blocks to build their own play set and they can make it as big as they want it to be. Until lately I noticed that they are becoming good in creating their own world for their robots and cars. They've made a race track, a science lab for their Rescue Bots, and many more. Husband and I just discovered a way to stimulate their creativity while keeping our pockets safe.

Kids nowadays don't get to play outside as much as we did before, but they can still use their imagination inside the home. 

Five Minute Bento Mama: TJ's Fish Sticks

I'm still reeling from a long, busy weekend and coming up with colds that's why I had to drag myself to the kitchen to prepare my son's lunch. Fortunately, I have prepared and kept steamed broccoli from two nights ago and added his favorite green grapes for healthy sides.

In the morning I just baked Trader Joe's frozen fish sticks in  375 F for 20 minutes. TIP: always keep frozen, instant food for days like this, when you are not feeling well but have to get up to prepare food for your school kid. The baking time exceeds 5 minutes, but within the 20 minutes it's in the oven you can still do other things like bathe him, prepare breakfast, make him eat breakfast, etc.. so technically, the preparation of putting the baked fish sticks to his lunch box takes less than a minute! This is not for mornings when you are running late, but it's for days when your body could only take a 'toss and go' prep.

Trader Joe's Fish Sticks

And because I still had a little time between waiting for my son to finish breakfast and for the fish sticks to bake, I was able to make something creative with carrots and nori. 

made a smiley using a nori sheet and a puncher

I just tossed crackers, cheese and his favorite Maple cookies for his morning snack because again, I was not feeling well the night before so I wasn't able to prepare anything, not even a sandwich. I can't stress enough that it's really helpful if you prepare steamed/boiled veggies days ahead so your kid can still enjoy something healthy even if you're feeling under the weather.

for morning recess

Five Minute Bento Mama: Green Mung Beans Stew

This must be the quickest lunch box I've prepared in the morning. I learned that the key really is to prepare the night before, particularly while you're preparing dinner. Just one swoop and you have dinner and lunch box for tomorrow.

I woke up around 7:00 am and before the clock struck 7:05, I'm done!

Cooked Green Mung Beans Stew or Mongos in Filipino the night before which I kept in the fridge for my two boys' lunch the next day. Cooked rice before I went to bed, and when I got up the next morning, I just reheated the Mongos, mixed it with steamed rice and put it inside the insulated food jar to keep it warm until lunch time. Green Mung Beans is a good source of protein.

rice and green mung beans in the Totoro insulated food jar from Japan

Also, the night before I made his favorite Cookie Butter sandwich and sliced watermelons for his snack. Just keep it in the fridge, Peanut Butter Jelly or Cookie Butter sandwich stay fresh in a tight container or sandwich bag for at least three days.

animal food picker makes a cute and easy food decor. put sliced fruits on a cupcake
liner so its juice won't spill to the sandwich

Five Minute Bento Mama: 5分で弁当ママ

When my son started Kindergarten, I have developed these fears before going to bed. I fear that I won't be able to wake up early to prepare his lunch box, worst wake up really late that my son will miss a class and what if the car won't start in the morning or we lose the car keys? Kindergarten is not just a whole new world for my son but for husband and me too. To lessen these fears, I start with preparing food ahead of time so that if ever we wake up late, my son will still have food in school.

This is one big adjustment for me because for the past three years in preschool, hot lunches were served in school everyday. Now when I think about it, I will be preparing his lunch from Kindergarten to High School (worst case scenario). As much as I want to be creative like Japanese bento mamas I follow in Youtube (Okaeri and Ochikeron), I know I just don't have the time and I don't want to wake up earlier than 6 am to prepare intricate lunches because I will need energy for my little toddler who stays with me for the whole day. One time in summer, I tried to follow the Lego Bento and it was a schedule disaster! I spent too much time making the carrot blocks that I was 30 minutes late in picking up my toddler from gymnastics class and by the time I brought the lunch box at my eldest son's soccer camp, all his friends were already done eating! (and he gobbled the carrots Lego blocks in less than a minute because he was starving).

So doing away with all characters and graphic pizzazz of a Japanese lunch box, I'm keeping the healthy and appeal aspect of it without the hours of preparation. Hence, the Five Minute Bento Mama that I will occasionally add here in my blog to give mommies some ideas of a quick yet healthy lunch box that even the working moms can do. Of course there are times when the time of preparation will exceed the five-minute mark but rest assured that everything can be done before your school kid finishes his/her breakfast.

Today's bento is Brocolli, Apples and Rice-Tuna Onigiri. I've prepared the Broccoli Florets and Apple Slices the other night. Rice was cooked the night before. Steam/boil the broccoli, and soak the apple slices in pineapple juice  for less than a minute (because I ran out of lemons) and keep them in the freezer/fridge. I started slicing onions and cooking the tuna in can at 7:12 am, and by 7:14 am I was already forming the rice and tuna onigiri. For that touch of creativity, I just made a nori smiley face with a puncher to go with the star and bear shaped onigiri. Don't be fooled by these tiny star and bear, it's one cup of rice compressed tightly with the help of onigiri maker.

small containers are the best to use because they are compact
which keep the food intact no matter how much your kid shakes it.

Rice-ball maker and the smiley face puncher. Let rice overflow the Onigiri Maker
before pressing it for a more compact rice ball that don't break inside the lunch box.


Here's a snack that you can prepare the night before, a mix of cream cheese and cookie butter sandwiches kept in the fridge.
A good friend in Japan gave me this idea, cut the sandwich in different shapes using cookie cutters (which I also bought from Daiso). My two boys love these!

A 3-in-1 Today, is an Hermes Bag Tomorrow

In relation to the previous post, I remembered how we started.

Husband and I were still boyfriends and girlfriends, we were walking along Paseo in Makati.
me: "bili muna ako Starbucks"
husband: "bakit? anong occasion?"
me: "huh? wala gusto ko lang ng coffee jelly."
husband: "teka, di ba nag Starbucks ka na kanina?"
me: "yep. malayo na kasi ang CBTL."
husband: "alam mo bang P140 isa nyan? so nakaka P300 ka sa isang araw sa kape lang?"
me: "mga ganun"
husband: "alam mo bang P9,000 yan sa isang month?"
me: "mmm, oo nga noh. pero okay lang x bitaw sweldo ko!"

I literally saw his jaw dropped, I felt off for him asking me questions like that but at that time I thought he was just joking because I've never met anyone as calculating, thrifty, kuripot as he is. I never took that moment seriously until fast forward to 9 years after, once a year na lang ako nakakapag Starbucks. And one afternoon while driving he told me:

husband: "kanina bored ako sa office. gi-calculate ko yung mga coffee spending mo noon, alam mo ba if you invested it instead, may at least P800,000 ka na ngayon? pwede P1 M if you put it in a more aggressive fund."

Move on pa more. But he has a point din, I could have bought a lot in Davao or a car, (or an Hermes bag! ;p) with that money. To my fellow coffee addicts, it's something to ponder on. :)

Let's say I only drink coffee jelly during my morning and afternoon coffee breaks during my 2 years in Makati, that's 140 x 2 x 20 days x 24 months = 140,000 php. If I just saved up that amount for 10 years with a conservative 5% interest, my money could have turned 240,000 php today!

If You Can’t Find the Holes, You Can’t Fix a Leaky Bucket

Marriage is a union, and financials shouldn’t be exempted from that. Anything not united tends to pull a couple apart, so I’ve challenged Ria (the non-believer) to get our financials in order. Its a story that started 9 years back when we were both working in Japan, starting simple lives as husband and wife.

The Simple Model

Ria coming from a completely opposite family setup, thinks her money is hers and my money is mine.  Simple right?  Well I, the pragmatic one didn’t think it was simple in the long term- assuming of course you plan to get married for 50-60 more years.  So on the ‘simple’ model with who pays for the future mortgage, future car loan, tuition -- (oh wait, that’s actually the easy part since they’re regular expenses) you could split that based on income capacity, right?

Problem is ‘simplicity’ doesn’t really mean ‘scalable for life’.  Example, who picks to buy ‘steak’ for dinner? but what about in cases when one has no work?

Assuming your partner will work for life is not really a strategy, since you’re overlooking accidents, health and a bunch of other future issues. Now the simple model basically means in a single income home, I, the prime breadwinner, get to make all the calls in the family from what to eat to which car to buy to what house we’ll get.

It doesn’t make a sound marriage does it?

I pitched this idea, everything is pooled and since I’m no billionaire I’m fine moving my pre-married life savings as our life savings. Paid all her debts, since they’re mine now too. We started a real marriage and a financial marriage too.  Everything we buy is now tied as a conjugal decision from what house to buy to the smallest of things, like the type of salt we buy (actually I have no idea why we need to buy Kosher salt but whatever).

You might be thinking -- oh my God that is incredibly complicated!

Well to be honest, it wasn’t easy initially. Her needing to ask me if the shoes she likes to buy is something I think is a good buy was a paradigm shift.  But see, marriage is a paradigm shift. Its not just ‘you’ anymore, its ‘us’. It took us maybe a year until we got a ‘couple-normalized’ sense of what’s a good buy or not. I got her to shop less, but she got me to spend more. I think, getting a couple talking about the small stuff sets a foundation for the real big compromises you make later in life.

Scaling Up

Jumping 5 years forward, we were able to get a hang of everything together decision-making. That makes even bigger decisions more streamlined, like “wanna move to the US?”  Or “is Prius the right first car to buy?”. Its not that all decisions need a rubber stamp of the other, its because you know what the other person wants, and that’s why you can make decisions based on ‘us’ rather than just ‘you’. You won’t get it perfect the first few times though, but that’s fine, you’ll learn along the way. (Being able to return items here in the US does help a lot though!)

But wait, there’s more!

Here we are 9 years later, still doing pooled finances and what was all that effort for?  So that you can set 1 real budget. Not the ‘in your head’ budget, but a real tracked one. Spanning years of expenses.

Big Data for Expenses and Lifestyle  (BOOM…  a good startup idea don’t you think?).

In all sense of seriousness, having data to explain what you have been spending over the past 3-5 years will give you fulfillment. Basically the dumb look on your face once you get the year-end payroll numbers as to where all that money went -- well, goes away.

Here’s a visual picture of that:

Below is our Grocery spending in the last 2 years.

You could say that our lifestyle is ‘flat’ and not increasing, but take a look closely:

On the average, our Groceries spending on the average is a 15% jump YOY (year-over-year). Now that you have that number, you can plan for the future. As a family, there’s at least 30 years of grocery remaining.

Here’s what our future looks like:

This is assuming our current budget is $1000 growing at 15% YOY. So unless as a family we earn $60,000 a month, were not going to be eating 3 meals a day. :)

Of course, your sensibilities kick in and say, that’s insane!  But that’s the whole purpose of this exercise. If you don’t know what’s growing in your budget, you can’t fix it.

So to wrap up.

• A marriage is a financial union, which enables the next point.
• A single budget, then gets better on the next point.
• A fully tracked budget so you can check if you can really follow it, and after some time it becomes:
• An analyzable budget so you can make a fix for which one is leaking the fastest so you can plug it BEFORE it becomes like the graph above.

There are more graphs and visualizations in HelloWallet, our tool of choice for our tracking.  We did start with Buxfer in the Philippines & Japan then Mint until last year. But through all that we kept moving our data forward to get all the financial history we have.

written by Dan