Growing up, I heard that investing in a real estate property and renting it out is a good investment. I didn’t understand why. Especially where the required capital is intimidatingly high, I couldn’t even imagine how to earn that much.

We’ve been incredibly blessed though. We got in a position where we can afford it. I also had a goal to purchase each of my kids a property while I still can. The idea is whatever happens to me, at the very least they’ll have a place of their own. But since they are still very young, we thought of trying to rent it out for the mean time.

We were able to purchase and rent-out our first property last year. That’s when it hit me why it was a good investment.

Investment options

When our savings started to grow, I started looking on where to put it. I knew that keeping it in a savings account will make its value slowly eaten by inflation (which is 2.64% last year). So I had this urgency to make it productive. These are the investment options I considered:

BDO Savings  (for comparison)	0.125% (2021)
Retail Treasury Bonds	2.375% (2021)
CIMB UpSave	2.5% (2021)
Pag-ibig MP2	5.62% (2020)

Pag-ibig MP2 is most often recommended because it has a high interest rate and relatively safe. It’s interest rate last year was 5.62% and it has a maturity of 5 years.

For our rental property, we were able to rent it out at 1% of the total cost. That’s an annual gross of 12%. Setting aside 2% for tax and maintenance. It earns 10% yearly. Higher than other safe investment options I considered. At the same time, the property itself appreciates in value overtime (I have no idea how to compute real estate appreciation though).

To be concrete, let’s say the property costs 1,000,000. And we’re able to rent it out for 10,000/month, that’s 120,000/year. Then set aside 20,000 for tax and maintenance, that will result to 100,000 net income yearly.

This made sense to me.

When fiber internet was rolled out at my Mom’s home, I had this itch to provide internet for the whole compound. She have an ice cream business and she provides housing to ice cream vendors (sorbetero) together with their families. Around half the compound are sorbeteros. Most of which will benefit if they don’t have to add another expense for internet.

Fiber made bandwidth cheap (P2699 for 100mbps). I knew that a 100mbps plan is more than enough for everyone there. The bottleneck is the device the comes with the internet plan. The device PLDT provides is actually an all-in-one that combines a modem, router, switch, and an access point (WiFi).

To increase coverage, I need to split out the access point and use a separate device.

Project goal

• Share internet that covers the whole compound
• Performance should be adequate for remote learning or work-from-home (Zoom, Google Meet)
• Have the same experience as having their own WiFi
• Roaming-capable (when people move, their device will automatically switch to the next nearest access point)
• Minimal restrictions

Implementation

I opted to go with a business-grade solution. Big factor is a single dashboard to manage all access points. I was initially considering Ubiquity, but then found out about TP-Link Omada which is half the price.

• I get notified through Omada app if the internet is down or if any of the access point stops working
• There are only 2 SSIDs (WiFi name) for 7 access points. One personal and another for the free WiFi. Each has it’s own subnet.
• Free WiFi’s subnet is limited to 50mbps to guarantee that the personal network always have bandwidth available
• Each device is further limited to 20mbps (initially this was 10mbps but utilization rate was low, I bumped it up to 20mbps)
• I had to block Mobile Legends because kids from other compound started coming to our compound to have a tournament until late night. Blocking is just another ACL rule to block port 30000 to 31000. ML stopped loading after this has been applied.

Interesting metrics

• 7 access points covered more than 20 households
• Average internet utilization is only around 20{5fcd3cbc9de14e1587c4b983f08e4837fa7ae8985dc66bae235a2c5aa0d68677}
• Average traffic is around 180GB download and 15GB upload daily
• Max connected clients so far was 90+ devices
• It’s been running since May 2021. Things has been relatively stable. Downtime was only when there’s no electricity.

Cost

Item	Unit Price	Qty	Total
TP Link Router R509	₱2,180.00	1	₱2,180.00
TP Link 5-port PoE Switch	₱1,440.00	1	₱1,440.00
TP Link EAP110-Outdoor	₱1,400.00	2	₱2,800.00
TP Link EAP225-Outdoor	₱2,900.00	4	₱11,600.00
TP Link EAP235-Wall	₱2,900.00	1	₱2,900.00
Thinkcentre m73p	₱2,500.00	1	₱2,500.00
Omni plugs	₱442.77	1	₱442.77
Waterproof Junction	₱580.23	1	₱580.23
305m CAT6 outdoor cable	₱2,250.00	1	₱2,250.00
Total			₱24,443.00

I could have implement the whole thing 50{5fcd3cbc9de14e1587c4b983f08e4837fa7ae8985dc66bae235a2c5aa0d68677} cheaper but it’ll be a pain to maintain and less fun to do. Since I’m doing this for free, I might as well enjoy haha.

Why

I see this as a hobby. I’ve always been fascinated with computer networking for as long as I can remember. 

The 25k I spent could’ve easily been another gadget where only I would benefit (and add another stuff to my life). Spending it on this instead accomplishes two things 1) I had fun planning, figuring things out, and setting it up 2) It has good net effect because a lot of people are getting value from it. And that makes me happy. 

I also learned a lot. I finally understood how VLAN works. It’s nice that I can map an SSID to a VLAN to have it’s own network. Power-over-Ethernet was also nice because there’s only one cable for power and data (CAT6).

Overall it was worthwhile.

My role at work is partly DevOps. This means that there are rare instances that even if I’m not at home (where internet is reliably available), I might get an alert where a server is not working as it should.

I have mobile data plan from Globe for that. Globe is usually good within cities. The more remote I get though, the less reliable it becomes. My initial solution was to get another phone and line from Smart (competitor).

However, I have minimalist tendency. Paying for two plans monthly feels wasteful. Especially during this pandemic where I barely use both.

I also didn’t like having two phones with me all the time.

Solution: Globe eSim + Smart Magic Sim

My primary network is Globe. I don’t mind paying monthly for this because it’s the same number I used for years. Good thing that they offer eSim which is supported by my phone.

The process was easy. Go to Globe store, ask for conversion from physical sim to eSim. They will then provide a QR code a phone can scan to register the number. That’s it. The eSim solution eliminated my need to carry two phones all the time because I can put in another sim to my phone.

For Smart, I recently found out that they are offering a new product called Magic Sim. It has non-expiring data at P399 for 24GB. Non-expiring! I only need to pay for it when I use it. I dropped the Smart plan I used to have which I was paying for P3500/monthly (easy to justify pre-pandemic) and replaced it with this one.

End result is I have a single phone with two sims from different network. I’m only paying monthly for my primary network. My phone auto-switches network depending on availability of internet.

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I know this is borderline penny-pinching (which I try not to do). But I like keeping my personal lifestyle low-cost. I also enjoyed eliminating the waste I feel every time I do my budgeting.

I used to be too critical with grammar and spelling (on myself and other people). I had instances when if I’m not sure I’m absolutely correct, I’d choose to stay silent than say what I wanted to say. Out of fear of being wrong.

Misspelled words here doesn’t mean I’m better than this person. I couldn’t even do anything listed here myself. I don’t have his skill.

I understood that “scoop” meant “scope”, “high silling” meant “high ceiling”. I understood the breakdown of work and it’s cost. Which is exactly what I asked for.

Words are just tools for communication. If another person was able to convey what he wanted to say, then the tool served its purpose. No need to be too critical. That’s what matters, right?