source: morguefile.com
I was thinking for sometime about why lots of young adults(the 20-35 age bracket)are always depress with their lives.
In an office or workplace, you can easily see who are those people who are not satisfied with life thus they tend to spend lots of time partying out every weekend only to have headache the next day. Others will be ranting in their social networks or with their group of friends about how bored they are and wanted a change. Others on the other hand are complaining about how much they earn and think of why life is so tiring.
Problems exist in life because if there are none we won’t have a life. Problems are there for us to solve and not to stare at and wait for it to move on its own.
Now why does a personal finance and stock investment blogger like me is writing about this?
Well one of the problems that young adults of today face is about their finances. Yes, even if this age group is the working or the salaried group having enough to support the kind of lifestyle they want to live is not met due to not having enough finances to do so.
Besides not having enough, another problem is the lack of defined goal in life. Lots of young adults in their early years dream of only having one thing like having a dream car, a dream job, able to make that dream vacation, and the like. They all dream when they were still in high school and passing the math exam is the hardest for them in life. Now come their working years. Are they able to fulfill those dreams they have back in high school? Some may have and move on but the rest are still dreaming instead of setting a solid goal. That makes a huge difference.
To be able to achieve, one has to plan and that plan leads to one’s goal. If you keep on dreaming and not make that plan on how to buy that dream car, how to make that dream vacation somewhere you won’t make it. Planning might be the hardest subject you have now in your young adult years but it is the best stage in life to prepare for nearly everything. At this age you are now able to make decisions on your own and be able to generate the funds you need through your employment.
Another problem of young adults is lack of creativity. Unlike when still younger, these group are always comparing themselves against the highest standard which foils their creativity. The simple ideas that needed just a little push gets shelved and locked in the closet because there is something better out there.
So how will you, the young adult of today, solve this so that you will live financially free and fulfilled?
Let’s start with your finances.
If you are already aware saving now is one of the greatest means of building your finances. But saving alone limits how much you can save that is why you got to make that savings work for you. Putting it in a bank would be your most likely choice to grow that money but at this era there are now several ways to do such. You can put it in a higher yielding time deposit, investment in stocks or mutual fund, or in a small business.
Having a small business is one of the most talk about way of really having more but let me warn you of a blind side of thinking that this would really change your life. Starting your own small business right away, that is quitting your job to focus on the business, is a wrong move. Many unfortunate fellows whose start-up foiled got depress and never really got back up to their feet. No business is easy to put up specially if you lack the know how on how to start and run it. So to make it work one has to do it in small steps and while doing that I suggest that you don’t quit your job yet.
Start with a sideline. If you have a good eye and a great DSLR camera why not make money out of your hobby on weekends or on specially occasion by appointment. That way you get to shoot not only two but three birds at one stone. You get to earn extra income, get to pick up know-how about the business you wanted, and at the same time enjoy your hobby(for further reading on investing in your hobby click here).
Now to the second problem: to come up with a plan one has to make an inventory of oneself to decide where you stand now. Knowing how much you have and how much more you needed will help you decide what you should work on; that becomes your plan. To have a clear picture of what you wanted to do which others calls visualization makes it easier and “doable” as they say.
Now with a plan at one hand and an extra source of income at the other who couldn’t say you have been creative? With the two problems solved you were able to solve your creativity problem. The best way to be creative is to know really the problem because the problem itself is an opportunity to be creative(I think I sound beating around the bush there).
So again let us recap how would you, the young adult of today, solve your problems:
| Problem | Solution |
| Financial | Save, invest, start a sideline as a source of extra income |
| No goal | Make an inventory of what you already have and what you need to work on |
| No creativity | Look at the problem and find ways to beat it |
About the blogger
Louis Delos Angeles is a Certified Public Accountant, blogger behind Investing in Philippines, and author of Investing in Stocks: Preparing for the future small amount at a time. Check him out in Google+ Learn more about Louis and his financial freedom advocacy here.
I’m still one of those young adults (not for long), but I have so many goals that I don’t have any time to be depressed, I’m always excited with some idea, many years ago I used to get bored and think only about partying, it’s all about motivation and the environment around us with his influence!
Yes Dalamar, I guess as they say an empty mind is the breeding ground of the devil’s evil plans. If we are not excited enough about life boredom will surely creep in. I see that in the Philippines, it seems the young ones are not creative enough to make changes in their lives and thus they resort to things that are temporary like having a party and drinking till they drop. I hope my advice helps. If you got other good ideas to help these generation’s youth please share it here.
Congratulations on having your own domain!
Re your post, I couldn’t agree more. Now that I have my first out of school job, I seem poorer than when I was just a student (when I could reimburse anything to my parents, and had no bills to pay yet). It guess to solve this, the individual must first align his/her perspective/mindset
Thanks Arlet. I remember the days when I graduated and reviewed for the CPA board exam. Sad to say I failed the first take. I felt so shy to my parents of course because everybody was hoping that I would be the very fist of 5 boys in 10 siblings to be someone(not that may brothers didn’t achieve anything only that I was the only one who was gunning for a certified profession). I started at a job that pays around 8,000.00 pesos a month and it was kinda depressing. And then I got a new Job and took the exam again, got conditional and pursued it until I passed it. With that of course I get to get a better job with a better pay but it seem there was no difference or worse yet I was saving more with the 8,000 a month pay. Thus it came to me that I got to be creative enough to survive life.
Now I am gunning to live financially free and retired from being employed at the age 40. I got 9 more years to make that dream. Putting a deadline to things keeps you motivated.
Congratulations in having your own domain..To avoid duplicate content you can actually redirect you old blogspot blogs to your new domain..
Thanks Dexter! I am still organizing this new blog I am still learning the ropes of WordPress. Thanks for the support
Dear Sir Louis,
Tanong ko lang po, kasi po ay may FAMI Mutual Fund na po ako, sa equity din po ako nag invest, kung halimbawa po kukuha din ako o mag applay sa First Metro Securities Brokerage Corporation at bibili po ako nang stocks pero pariho lang nman po sila Metro Bank group, hindi po ba kaya masyadong risky? kasi po ay pagkaka alam ko po sa stocks equity din po yata yan di ba Sir? Sana po ay mabigyan mo po ako nang magandang kasagutan. More power po Sir and God blessed you po always. Bonifacio N. Fe.
Hi Bonifacio Navarro Fe,
Thank you for asking. wag mo na ko i-sir baka Louis na lang po.
Anyways we have to differentiate the things that might be confusing you. First what you invested in sa FAMI is a MUTUAL FUND that has its investment mainly focused on EQUITY. You are actually invested in a mutual fund which is a pooled fun and run by a fund manager by investing sa mga ibat ibang klase ng investment which in your case or ung type ng mutual fund na nakuha mo is invested in equity like stocks. Pwede mo itanong or better yet check the FAMI site kung ano anong stock nakainvest ang mutual fund na nakuha mo.
Technically hindi ka directly nag-invest sa stock market kasi nag-invest ka sa MUTUAL FUND.
Now ano naman ung sa First Metro Securities Brokerage na sakali mong iopen? This time you are directly investing in the stock market which sa kaso ng Philippine Stock Exchange are mainly EQUITY. In case mag-open ka ng account sa FMS(First Metro Sec) hindi ka bibili ng group of funds(which is in the case is mutual fund sa FAMI) in your FMS account ang bibilhin mo ay ung isnag stock mismo like MBT(Metrobank), AC(Ayala), EDC(Energy Dev. Corp.) and others.
I have a post about mutual funds which you can check it at http://investinginphilippines.com/what-are-mutual-funds/
Remember this para mas malinaw:
If you own a stock of a company you are a shareholder of that company and thus you earn from it from both its dividends and price appreciation. If you invested in a mutual fund you are shareholder of the mutual fund company you invested in and not to the stocks your fund manager invested the money you pooled in with the rest of the mutual fund shareholders. Basically your earnings in a mutual fund come from the net earnings of all the stocks your fund manager invested your pooled money less his fee for managing the mutual fund.
If you are not yet ready to directly invest in the stock market, investing in a mutual fund is the best way you can if you can’t find good interest rate in any of the banks.
Now since we are discussing this I would like you know that ETF or Exchange Traded Funds are now being prepared to be available in the Philippine Stock Market. What are ETFs? Well to give you an idea they are like mutual fund but are also like stocks because they are directly traded in the stock exchange.
Maraming salamat po Sir at naliwanagan na po ako nang husto regarding sa pag invest nang stocks. may tanong pa po ako Sir, kasi po ay may addopted po ako ngayon na baby girl 7 months old palang po siya, puydi ko na po ba sya kuhaan nang insurance? sana din po may ma i rekomend ka po sa akin na maganda na insurance company. maraming salamat po Sir. God be with you always.
May yumaman na ba sa pag invest sa UITF?
I guess there are anna but I really cant give an example for you. There are Pinoys out there that have already surpassed being an employee and business owners and are now earning completely passive income from their paper investments. Those who can live day by day with passive income from stock investments, mutual fund, and UITF are those who have already accumulated a considerable amount of money that their small gains are already enough to support their kind of lifestyle. As for us aspiring millionaires why not di ba. We have to do the same as they did and that is accumulate capital to invest for passive income. UITF are better than deposits because they give better returns but of course be mindful as well with the risk na kasama sa pag-iinvest.