A few weeks ago my boss and my assistant went out for lunch. Our boss notice that we have been working late lately due to the task being assigned to us lately. So went to this favorite place of his and we all ended up ordering his favorite dish.
As we wait for our order we kinda talked about how Metro Manila is deep in flood when it rains. And he said it right away that Filipinos has this bad habit of throwing small trash just anywhere. Like a small candy wrapper or a tissue after it was use. We don’t even bother to throw it in the trashcan, we simple let the wind carry it wherever that be which would likely end in the drain thus when it rains it clogs.
Same thing happens with our finances.
No matter how small it might be if we really have the discipline to save those small savings day-to-day chances are you will have a big chunk of savings in the future. With the economy booming and the upcoming ASEAN integration, I believe that we Filipinos must have more discipline in order to maintain this economic miracle.
Don’t equate saving to being a miser. That is one of the bad thinking we Filipinos have. When somebody in a group of employees is avoiding group lunch out or night outs others would tease that person saying that you are already rich and you have to share your savings. Others would say you won’t bring your money when you die so you have to enjoy it while you are alive. We should stop that thinking because it makes one who is in the direction of saving for the future think again and might be tempted to enjoy his big savings one day and all is gone like a puff of air in an instant.
The best way to save is not by slashing a big piece of your salary or earnings right away, but rather chipping small bits at a time until you get comfortable with it that after sometime it is not a challenge anymore living with your 99% of your salary. When that happens you start aiming for a little bit bigger like saving 10% of your take home pay and live the two weeks before your next pay on only 90%.
We these great sayings or salawikain about savings but I guess the young generation are forgetting their lessons: “Kung may sinuksok, may dudukutin” which literally means when you stick something you will have something to pull out. It simply means when you save up you will have something to use when in need.
If you noticed the recent advertisements of banks in television you will notice that they are not advertising their loans but rather they are advertising the value of saving now so that you won’t regret in the future. But saving is just the first step. As you may have already read from my past post and other financial advocates post, you have to protect the value of your money against inflation. The best way to do that is to invest your money that beats the inflation rate.
When you are young and still capable of earning much then invest aggressively today so that when you are old you can just sit back and relax without worrying where would you get your next meal. People tend to get sickly when they worry much and that goes exponential when you are already old and have no savings or rather earning investment that will support your retiring years. When you have enough savings and at the same time a form of investment that gives you your daily living expense without you needing to make effort(we call this passive income).
Discipline yourself to save little by little. As they say a legacy starts with a small habit that is done every single day.