The State of Filipino Financial Literacy

by SARGE WARRIOR on JANUARY 28, 2012

Why Filipinos are poor? This is a question that some of us often asks and does not really know the answer. Some says because of the corrupt government and others would say because of the natural procrastinating populace. But I would say Its the lack of Filipinos Financial Literacy. Partly there are some shortcomings with the countrys education system but as a reasonable and responsible individual we should take it upon ourselves whatever the system cannot give us. Unfortunately, Filipinos who happens to be in these situations were unable to realize that what they have as habits or what they were unable to do were the cause of them being poor. Here are some examples of how our society pulling themselves into poverty

The Filipino Yuppies

The yuppies or young urban professionals compose of people who works in our urban areas, they enjoy good pays and perks from their companies and are considered to have brighter future than the rest of the youth. How do they spend their money? At least majority of them can be described as young professionals dressed in nice clothes, sporting the latest gadgets and are likely to be partying regularly. They have terrible spending habits. Since they are likely to own several credit cards, they also have mounting debt in each of it. Owing several thousand of pesos and having debts more than they could pay for.

Ask them if they have savings and investment, majority will likely to say yes for the savings but for investment, majority would be unfamiliar with it.

The Filipino Overseas Workers

Its a painful reality that most of our OFWs does not know how to handle their finances. It shows with some of the studies by financial institutions which tracks the spending and money habits of our OFWs. According to an article which was written in 2009 on how OFW families spend their remittance money, only 40% of OFWs allotted their earnings into various financial instruments, of which only 3% percent actually invested in stock, bonds or insurance. What do these figures have to say about our OFWs, only a small percentage of them knows that power of investing in enhancing the quality of their life and its ability to free them from working overseas for the rest of their lives. In actuality only a small portion are saving and investing in preparation for their retirement, and when its time for them to retire and go home, they end up broke because they have not prepared for it.

The Filipino Common folks

Mang Danny is a taxi driver who happens to be in his profession for 20 years now, he drives a taxi which operated by a large transportation company. He never got the chance of owning his own taxi because according to him, what he earns from driving a taxi is just enough to pay all the bills and necessities of his family. He sends his kids to school and he is relying on them that they will take care of him and his wife when the time came that he can no longer drive around the city. He has no savings and investment at all. He is only expecting a meager pension that he will receive after he finished paying contributions to GSIS. What will happen to Mang Danny after he retire? Do you think his meager pension can sustain his life after work? Majority of people is just like Mang Danny, they never save for their retirement and just pray and hope that their children will take care of them when they get old.

Our people below poverty line

In reality Mang Dannys case is much desirable that the rest of the folks living in slum areas who lives on a day to day economic survival. The government, in an attempt to lower poverty incidence, created a program that will give monthly cash or Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) in exchange for their hard work. But what is wrong with the program is that it will only make people rely more on the government for cash. What if it becomes unsustainable? Do you think these people will have grown enough skill and confidence to sustain their families. The government should have, I think, made the program into teaching these people how to make money instead of giving them money. How about a program about creation of livelihood? or any program that will open their eyes and minds how to combat poverty. It has been a regular sight for Filipinos to see poverty everywhere, its like an everyday part of our living. It became an ordinary sight and sadly majority are accepting it as what it is and never worry them at all. As an ordinary Filipino, you can help our society eradicate poverty by helping yourself. Yes, help yourself, study financial education and never become one of the population to be counted on poverty statistics. If you educate yourself how to invest or build business, in turn you are helping the whole country. What you invest can be an added money in the market helping it become more viable and any business that you build can give jobs to the people who needs it most.

7 Money Mistakes of Overseas Filipino Workers

by SARGE WARRIOR on JANUARY 23, 2012

I never experienced leaving my family even for a year to work for money abroad but as I can see it with my relatives especially with my brother who is an Overseas Filipino Worker, it must be so hard for them to leave their families knowing that they will be away for a year or two in a foreign land.

I love to see them staying at home, enjoying time with their families and never worry financially. Seeing most of our country men going away and spend the good years of their life away from their families just breaks my heart. Some of the reasons that these people may seem to be working for the rest of their lives endlessly on a foreign land might have something to do on their ability to manage their finances. They fall for money mistakes that digs them deeper into holding on to an overseas job. These money mistakes are my first hand observations with these people since as I have told you, some of them are my relatives.

Bad spending habits

This is probably the number one culprit of OFW financial woes. I was aghast when my brother told me that he has probably 20 pairs of shoes, some of them he only wore once and some he just bought it on impulse. I just told him that I only got 3 pairs of shoes and all of it I bought 2-3 years ago and I am not planning on buying new one since they are still serviceable to me. Just how Imeldific my brother is, and apparently most of OFW are like my brother, they spend tons of money buying non essential things but never set aside money to buy assets that puts money in their pocket.

Not saving for the future

If you ask them if they have savings, they would say their money are all being send back at home to support their families. Their salary is just enough to make both ends meet. This they do while talking to you holding an Iphone 4s or a Blackberry. They prioritize more gadgets than saving for the future, they would say after all, there still a lot of time to save, maybe they will do it next month, or next year or forget it. Their family needs money to buy new appliances.

Not investing
According to a study conducted by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on 2008, only 48% of OFW are setting aside money for financial investments of which only 3% are actually investing in stock, bonds, insurance and other paper assets. What does the number tells you? They are like my brother who never believed me that I am investing in stocks in small amount monthly but at least I got to invest my money. They sometimes dont trust paper assets, but they love tangible assets which in truest sense is not an asset at all. My brothers greatest investment is his motorcycle, just like other OFWs greatest investment is his car or a house that they are paying on monthly amortization. The fact of the matter is that these things are not assets because it burns money on maintenance and other incidental bills that you will pay having these things.

Falling for investment scams

As far as I know none of my relatives have fallen to any investment scams, but for sure there are a lot of OFW who were enticed into get rich quick schemes by scam artists. It is a painful truth that some of our beloved OFW are not trained to evaluate what is real and scam investments. It all relates back to how our society and formal schooling does not offer a good financial education for everyone. Sadly, you can only learn financial education from books, mentors and from actual application.

Giving extravagant gifts

When my brother had his vacation last December, we were so happy to receive gits from him. Of course who would not be happy with that, you are just receiving, you never knew how did he worked hard just to buy these things. Of course my brother just wants to make us happy, but I would be happier if I know that he never used his hard earned money to buy the gifts. At his early age, I would be much happier if he will declare to me that he is already investing for the future. Some OFW are more extravagant than my brother. Buying all the gifts they can think for their families.

I knowgiving gift is not bad as long as what your spending is not the whole salary that you earned.

Overwhelming debt
These is probably one of the horrible mistakes of OFW can make, this can lead their lives into misery or the worst can lead them into jail. Just like my cousin who decided not to go back to the Middle East because he knows that he might end up in jail because of his overwhelming debt. Extravagant living which sometimes cannot afford by their salaries makes them the most desirable clients for credit cards. Easy credit makes them think that they can buy anything they want, just charge it with the credit card and will just pay the minimum charge monthly. They own several credit cards, of which all of it they have several thousand of dollars on credit. Unknowingly, credit cards are slowly drowning them into debt until they realize one day that it is impossible for them to pay all their debts within a short period of time. They all end up extending their tours in water forbidden land just to pay all their debts.

No plans after overseas employment

This is typical for most of our OFW, they never planned their life after working overseas. They live what they have at present and go along with what life can offer them along the way. My friends father in law was a seasoned ships captain in one of known international shipping company. His salary is in 6 digits monthly and because of it they were able to buy several properties, a beautiful house in an exclusive subdivision and several cars. After several years of serving as a seaman he decided to retire because he said he has enough to sustain his family. But guess what happened after a year? He is preparing again to serve at sea because all of his savings are already dwindling and several of his properties were already sold due to extravagant living he did during his short vacation.

Some of our OFW are like this Ships Captain, they dont have solid plans after they accumulated large money from previous employment. Maybe they have saved some money for their retirement but does not really know how to handle it properly nor consider the possibility of growing it so that they can sustain their retirement. I hope any OFW who have read these money mistakes would teach them a thing or two about their money habits, especially my brother which is my foremost reason why I am writing this. Learn financial literacy, read books and attend seminars so that you will not be victims of these money mistakes usually committed by our beloved OFWs. And please you can comment below and say your thoughts about this. The mistakes highlighted in this article are all applicable to people, in general, that have no financial discipline. Why target OFWs? If theres an employed individual in the Philippines who does exactly the same mistakes I am pretty sure they wont be able to retire early as well and work their ass off for the rest of their lives. Would you say that if your brother did not work abroad that he would have been more successful and retire earlier? I would think not. What would have happened is that he would have to work longer and get lesser if he had stayed in the Philippines. I am not against your advice but make it more general and not specific to a group of people. They are not the only ones who can make these mistakes.

REPLY

sarge warrior June 14, 2012 at 5:50 pm

Hi Grant, I see your point and thank you for highlighting it. I also see the same financial mistakes with people who are working locally but majority committing these

mistakes are OFWs since they have the means because of much bigger salaries and access to financial instruments such as credit cards which admit it or not,cannot be instantly obtained by majority of the work force in the country because of income qualifications. I can say my brother would be a much wise spender if he is working in the country since he would not have the kind of salary he is receiving now. Working abroad or not, I cannot tell if he can retire early, it will all depend on his appreciation of what I have been teaching him about personal finance. I made these article in the spirit of personal finance. I can see how painful for OFW to leave their families for years just to work abroad and in the end they dont have much to show for what they have sacrificed for. And I believe it is a much different scenario if you are working in the country since you dont have the anxiety factor of leaving the family. My intentions are to make our OFWs to realize their money mistakes and hopefully change for the better so that they can retire early and be with their families. Thank you for visiting, feel free to visit anytime = )

REPLY

Chills June 15, 2012 at 4:54 pm

Hi Sarge warrior I do agree that your article shouldnt be only specified to OFWs as it should make sense to all earning individuals and families who work long and hard but spend fast and easy. Though you are right, it makes more sensible and scary to OFWs like me because we could have more opportunity to save more for the future but we tend to satisfy temporal and earthly wants and caprices. You are exactly right -wishes do come true here abroad. Just a wink of an eye, we can get the high end bags and clothes we wanted change iphone and ipad every 3 weeksacquire cars and properties, get high end gadgets and eat breakfast,

lunch and dinners in a fancy 5-star hotel restaurants as we wish. Everything is within our reach because we think we can always have what we have and we can stay in this same place where we are. We forget nothing is constant and we are foreign in this land and just another wink of an eye, circumstance may change or we may lose our job and there -back to zero or even negative because of overwhelming debts. Its scary but its true and I can see it happening to a lot of Filipinos here in the middle east. I do remember my brother who is living with his wife and daughter in Singapore for several years. They live a very simple life that even buying KFCs and McDonalds will give him second, third and fourth thoughts. When they are malling around the city they would pack sandwiches and juices and candies to get away with unnecessary spending on foods. At first, it gave me a laugh but thinking again it do make sense! My brother is temporarily living a stingy life because he wants to retire early and go back home and start his own business. How i wish OFWs like me will start thinking seriously and realize why are we here in the foreign land in the first place? Its not wrong to savor the fruits of our labour as long as we dont go beyond what we are capable of. Learn how to invest your hard earned money wisely learn the stock market using the cost averaging and try mutual funds. And always learn how to spend it properly. Thanks, Chills
REPLY

sarge warrior June 15, 2012 at 5:11 pm

Hi Chills, i could not agree more with what you said. Thanks a lot for sharing your personal insight. Wish you good luck and more wealth in your life.

REPLY

ronel June 21, 2012 at 11:53 pm

nice insights..can i post this on our forum. of course with your name on it.

REPLY

Roselyn August 26, 2012 at 9:37 pm

Sage Warrior: A very excellent and well-thought of article. Let me add another audience to the readers as the Balikbayans. The worsening global economic conditions has caused dwindling savings for the near retirement group. I saw so many Balikbayans in malls in the Philippines who are still spending for their families as if they are still young. Im guilty as well. Articles like yours wake us up to reality. Thanks again.

REPLY

Lain September 6, 2012 at 10:05 pm

At last, isang article na nag reresonate sa mga sentiments ko about saving and living a contented lifestyle. Marami ako friends na OFWs na hanggang ngayon ay naghihirap pa rin dahil sa either kakulangan ng money management skills or kaya sadyang gastador lang na dahil na rin sa hindi alam kung saan ilalagay ang pera. Thanks sa post mo. Btw, for more information about personal finance. Gumawa ako ng libreng guidebook for download. Absolutely free. This is just my advocacy on helping my fellow filipinos. Just go here to access. http://www.personalfinanceblueprint.com
REPLY

kim October 2, 2012 at 8:06 pm

@ Lain Salamat sa link ..im staring to read it

Mind Setting Best Personal Finance Books You Need to Read

Before I got into financial blogging, I myself was in a financial mess.. You bet, I was a guy with a regular work, earning a decent paycheck, but without savings and investments. It never came into my mind that one day I will be literally without money and drawn into debt. I was like living the perfect life of a single guy then.. Instead of me hiding and running from my financial misery, I faced it by searching the answer to my questions why all of these things are being taken away from me. It led me to read books about personal finance and I was so glad I stumbled these books along the way. They helped me turn around my finances from being broke to having ample savings and promising investments. Here are my personal favorites and probably best personal finance books you need to read.

How to Improve Your Focus to Achieve Your Goals

by SARGE WARRIOR on MARCH 31, 2012

If your guessing what focus we will be talking about, its not about how to adjust lenses or focus of your cameras, its about your focus on your specific goals

Why Focus is important

Asking this question is like asking the importance of compass to ship or aircraft navigation. Focus gives us direction to the goals that we want to achieve just like the

use of compass to a ship or aircraft. Without focus, our goal will always seem to be impossible to achieve. There is a reason why a compass needle is pointed at its end and not bluntly shaped. It points to a single degree of direction and does not point to several. Because, to be useful, a compass should give direction to its user. That is what your focus should also serve you, to give directions on the goals that you have set for yourself. If you have realized the importance of focus in achieving your goals, you need to learn how to sharpen it. Here are some of the tips that I have been using to give me focus on the the goals that I wanted to achieve.

It should be the first thing that comes into your mind after waking up
Getting up in the morning has never been so exciting to me. I look forward every morning I wake up to check on the progress and the result of what I have done. What it does to my focus is that it makes me think about my goals the whole day as I do my other tasks and job. Doing it first thing in the morning gives me a lot of time to think about the whole day, ideas will always pop up in your mind as you think of what you have done earlier. For example, early in the morning when I wake after brushing my teeth and while sipping my coffee,I will then check my blogs and see how it performs the previous day, analyze my traffic and answer some comments that I have received. Once a week or once a month, depending on the market movements, I use to check my investments after my blogs and analyze the performance of my portfolio. When I see something that needs improvement on my blogs and investments, I have the whole day to think and research about it.

Dream of success before you sleep

Obviously there are a lot of things that could run into a persons mind everyday especially during bedtime. It gives you time to think of what have transpired the whole day.

While this time of the night might be your only time with your wife to talk something while in bed, it is a must that you should think about your success with your goals. Thinking about your goals and dreaming of success before you sleep will put a smile in your face. When I think about abundance and blessings it never failed to put a happy feeling inside of me because I always associate it with happiness. Associate your dreaming of success with happiness such as good family and friend relationships due to abundance, the feeling of happiness because you have the means to help other people who are in need. If you will do this, you will realize that you will never lose your enthusiasm to achieve your goals. You sleep every night looking forward to do the things to be an inch closer to your goals.

Define your goals in concrete details

The best way to define your goals is to write it. in writing. Update it once in a while in case you have changed your priorities so that you will not completely forget about it. I once made my goals in writing but because I have not updated it for a while I forgot about it until my wife unearthed it from my old files. I found out that some are completely off from my present goals while some are completely on target. Another good thing about writing your goals in greater details is that it gives you a picture of what kind of life you want in the future. You will become aware of the path you should take to accomplish it making your focus sharper than ever before. The reason why you are writing it is that you can see and define it in greater details and its like you are mapping your goals

3 Attitudes that Makes People Poor

I always like listening to the wisdom of my superiors, and recently I had a realization of what my superior said regarding the 3 sources of evil. It was an accurate description

and moreover it was connected to my realization why people are poor and I cant help but share this to you. He used it to describe as a source of evil, and I dont know if we can infer from it that being poor is evil. Just my thought about this, I know a lot would not agree with me on this. Anyway, The 3 attitudes that makes people poor is the same thing that he describes as the 3 sources of evil.

Ignorance
People who are ignorant about investing and business are poor. Makes sense to me, since you dont do investing and business if you know nothing about it. Have you heard stories of people winning lotto for several millions and yet after few years they have lost all what they got and reverted back to their previous financial miseries. All of this can only happen because of ignorance on how to handle money.

Idleness
If you been practicing idleness whether at home or at work, you are definitely not doing favor for yourself. Notice how idle people at work progress in their careers, they never got the raise they want, they never appointed to the key positions in the company. Its because people who are idle are mediocre people. is not in their vocabulary. The worst form of idleness is procrastination. Even if you have good plans for yourself, if you are putting it off and never starting a thing on it or delaying things that should have completed it, you will still be on the same position where you have left yourself. Excellence or outstanding work

Indifference
Your lack of concern towards the society or people around you is definitely hurting you. If you are just thinking about yourself and no one else you will not strive to improve your financial status for what is the reason of having riches if you will not share it with others, especially those who needs it most.

Even if you want to be rich just for yourself alone, you will not succeed or prosper because you dont have the right reasons to have it. The reason for being rich is that to love others and share what you have with them. After our superior shared his wisdom about this, I realized that I have been doing some or all of this a lot of times in my life. I am most guilty about indifference. I know I have something to share about financial management but I was not able to share it to most people concerned. Or maybe I am concerned about their situation but afraid that they might question or reject my idea. If you dont want your life to be lead into poverty, try not to be ignorant with investing, business, passive income or any other things pertaining how to create wealth. Read books, attend seminars or ask questions to those who has the knowledge or read this blog and subscribe. Use your free time wisely. Dont be idle at your workplace, identify the time when you are going to have a relaxation and when you are suppose to be burying your head deep accomplishing something. And lastly, be concerned with the people around you. If you can offer help with moral or material support, it would be much better. But I think the best thing you can give them as a help is by educating them, like what I am doing right now with my blog, I can somehow help people educate about investing and business by blogging about these topics. P.S. Help yourself not to be ignorant. Subscribe to receive updates!

5 Warning Signs That You Have a Bleak Financial Future

by SARGE WARRIOR on DECEMBER 14, 2011

Ever wonder what would be your future? Are you curious and worried if you will ever live a life of abundance? Your present lifestyle or money habits might be a very good indications of what you will have in the future. There are signs that you might very well aware of but doesnt really know that it will affect you years ahead or subconsciously you are doing it without realizing you are destroying your future. If you plan to live a good life in the future, you have to look out for these signs and eliminate them. 1. Zero or minimal savings Savings is your finance security blanket. When your job or business goes awry this can save yourself and your family. It also serves as an emergency fund that you can use for any unforeseen events, and most of all this is your money that you can use for retirement. People who dont have or have minimal savings are the ones greatly affected by economy downturns, job downsizing or retrenchments. 2. Knowledge about investing and business- Knowledge on these fields is very important. In the near future, opportunities will show itself for you to invest or open your own business, but what if you are not ready for it because you dont know how? What usually happens is that you will decline any opportunity that comes around and you will miss the chance of improving your life. 3. Bad spending habits I must admit I am guilty of this one. I used to blow all my money and savings with unnecessary things, I did not realize that what I was doing can destroy my future. Instead of spending it with stuff that you dont really need try putting it in an investment or put it into savings. The money you unwisely spend today can be your source of passive income if you can invest it wisely. 4. Overwhelming debt This is the cause of buying things that is beyond your means. You tend to buy things on credit because you think you can pay it all with your income, sad to say some people may have over estimate their capacity to buy things. When these credits piles up on you and your income is not coping up with your expenses suddenly you will find yourself in a hole that you yourself dug. 5. Not committing to self improvement Stagnant people in terms of their career and self improvement usually falls for wrong financial decisions. Without the drive for self improvement, you dont have the reason to acquire wealth. Education comes hand in hand with self improvement, and people who seek this will usually touch the subject of money. When the time comes that money comes into the topic, that is the time that you will become aware of it and ultimately awareness on financial management.

On the other hand, people who does not desire to improve themselves will stick to what they usually does with their money because they have not come to know the right financial management concept. Now, you might have seen these signs at work with yourself, the good news is nothing in this world is permanent. Life is so dynamic that you can change almost everything in your life as long as you want it. Right now you can decide to reverse all these signs in your life after you become aware of it. Start eliminating these signs today and surely your future finances will have a much brighter and healthier future.

Misusing Your Money Means Destroying Your Future

by SARGE WARRIOR on AUGUST 13, 2011

We have seen a lot of these in the past and even at these present times, People who were not able to manage their money or finances get burned later in life. People who were so wealthy before who has awesome houses, flashy cars, dream vacations and all the things that a wealthy man should have, but now you see them broke or worst homeless and became bums in the streets. What happened to them, what the heck do these people had done in the past to deserve the kind of life they are living now? It only boils down to one simple answer. Money Mismanagement or misuse of their hard earned money. This story is typical to several athletes, celebrities and lottery winners who had a brief life of abundance and later turned it into life of scarcity. I am not saying that this only happened to people that I mentioned above, this are just the best example I can think of. There are also business people and investors who lost tons of money but unlike other people who does not have a background on finances, they were able to pull out from quicksand of misfortune, and rebounded to a much faster and determined pace. They used their misfortune to their advantage by learning from their mistakes. Exuberance or living beyond their means was one of the culprit that got these former stars and athletes. Because of the sudden rush of wealth into their life, this doomed stars and athletes couldnt help themselves but gave in to temptation of living an

exuberant life, buying houses with 100 plus rooms that themselves could not memorize how to get to their own bedrooms. Fleet of luxury cars that they themselves could not name them all. Aside from these mad spending they developed, they all thought that partying to the max in everyday of their life and breaking the law are one of the favorite past times of the wealthy and the rich. Well at least, later in their lives, they realized that those were not the favorite pastime of the true rich. But, who said that these only happens to celebrities and athletes? Average people are also subject to these kind of disaster if you will not manage your own finances well. The amount and style how you blow away your future by mismanaging your finances maybe different with celebrities and athletes but you still ruining it by spending your money with unnecessary stuffs. Unnecessary stuffs may vary depending on the lifestyle you have, a good example of this would be getting yourself addicted to latest gadgets while you know it yourself that majority of these are not a necessity for your work, family or life style. getting yourself an Ipad 2, to replace your Ipad 1, getting the latest model of LED TV to replace the LCD TV that you have, and worst of all, you all bought this on credit. These could be one of the bad decisions that ordinary people usually does. In my commitment to educating myself on managing well my finances, I recommend some of the things that I myself does to get to what we call Financially Free state of life. 1. Commit yourself to creating multiple streams of passive income This is number 1 on my list because this is where you get the action. I commited myself to studying and getting my own feet wet with anything that can give me passive incomes and this blog is one of the things that hopefully will give me such. I am not a writer but I love the idea of sharing my thoughts and plus I am slowly liking it. I usually pay coaches to teach me how to do things, for this blog, I enrolled with Jomar Hilarios Online Mentoring Club, pretty good online coaching that gives me courage to do blogging. You can also read my post Four Things That Will Give You Riches to give you some idea on what to study for creating passive income. 2. Educate Yourself Financially Now, this I think should come hand in hand or ahead with your endeavor of creating passive incomes. Basically, this will show you the way where to put your money, what

should you prioritize with investing and getting yourself deeper on techniques to further your investment and earnings. With these part, I love reading books on personal finance by foreign and local writers. I started with Robert Kiyosakis Rich Dad, Poor Dad and other series of his books. Now I find it very entertaining and heartwarming the writings of Bo Sanchez, it never failed to inspire me every time I read his books and listen to his audios. I am also a member of his Truly Rich Club, which gives me ideas where to put my money with stock market and help me save some time studying about stock market for a very minimal fee, plus an everyday dose of the word of God to lead you the way. 3. Do away with unnecessary spending One of the techniques that I usually does is to always utter the words delayed gratification when I see stuff that I love to have but I know it is unnecessary stuff. Like normal person, which I take comfort because no one told me yet otherwise, I love having nice things, but I know once I gave in with these cravings, I will be happy for a short while but what would it be like in the future? maybe I still have these stuffs which are all outdated already in a squatters house under the bridge , because I blew all my money with these stuffs sitting in my small house all worthless. 4. Hold your course until successful Maintain your direction, do not deviate especially if you already reach the point of no return. The easiest way to move yourself from one point to another is by following a straight line. You already drawn the line by committing yourself to do the things above, you just have to follow the straight line and success is awaiting for you in the other end. To know more of the tips on how to build passive income, you can subscribe to my email newsletter below. Hoping for your success, cheers!

disclaimer: some of the links above are affiliate links which earns me commission if you purchase through them, if you do, I surely and greatly appreciate it , and please send me an email if you have any questions.

How to Control Unnecessary Spending?

by SARGE WARRIOR on NOVEMBER 25, 2011

Often people sabotage their finances because of unnecessary spending. nowadays seem to be addicted with high tech gadgets, flashy cars, or anything luxurious.

People

Now, there is nothing wrong about it, I myself is a firm believer that life is meant to be enjoyed and things that will make you happy should be a no brainer to pay for. But what it makes wrong is that mostly, they cant afford having some of these stuff and what they do is to bought it on credit. Piling up credit cards debt, utilities and not to mention your monthly amortization for your house and car, makes your happiness a short lived one. Would you be happy receiving calls from people who are threatening to sue you because of your debt or a letter warning you of house foreclosure? I must confess, before, I am one of these people who spends lavishly on stuffs that I dont need but luckily it did not come to a point where I have to dodge some people looking for me because of debt. It just needed retrospection and education on my part to wane off this bad habit that I developed over the years and I considered myself partially successful in controlling my bad spending habit which I am happy to see the physical evidence on my growing savings and investments. How did I wane off from my excessive spending? This is actually the hardest part of it because it involves changing your lifestyle, your thoughts, controlling yourself, cutting back on shopping and even window shopping, but ultimately you are doing favor for yourself. Here are some of the things I did to get rid of this bad habit that I am following for almost a year now.

But I admit, sometimes I slip off with these thoughts that sometimes I find myself holding things inside a store that would have sabotage my monthly budget.

Live within your means

You might have often heard of these words but sometimes, this is one idea that is hard to follow. If you have been a careless person when it comes to finances, this might just be your number one nemesis in controlling your spending. The key point here to remember is not to keep up with the joneses. Or if you dont understant that, it only means dont buy what others are having when you think its beyond your budget. Buying a brand new car because your office mates has might be a bad idea when the car amortization would eat up all your savings and monthly budget.

Decide if you really need the stuff

Do you really need Ipad if you already have your laptop? or do you really need the Ipad 2 when you still have a functioning Ipad 1? Or going back to the example above, do you need a car when your house is just few blocks away? Isnt it that it would cost you more in maintenance rather than taking the local trasport system going to your work and home? would the comfort having your own car will justify for all your car expenses? Those are some of the similar questions that I ask myself when buying things especially expensive stuffs.

Adopt a frugal lifestyle

Take it from the greatest investor of all time, Warren Buffet. Warren Buffet lives in the same meager house even before he became recognized in the field of investing. He never bought a mansion for his family or never had a collection of luxurious cars in his garage. As I said before, I was never good at managing my finances and of course I never adopted a frugal lifestyle before. I always see to it that I have the latest gadgets and all of my money goes down to the drain with the gadgets I bought.

But everything seem to change when I decided to cut back from being a gadget freak to basic necessity guy. I also have to lessen my mall trips and window shopping so as not to excite my spending senses.

Think of your future ahead

Imagine how would you end up after you retire. Would you be touring around the world or would you end up extending your retiring age because your out of money by the time you hit your retirement age? What you spend today affects your future financial standing. So be wise on how you spend your money and make sure that you are putting aside the money that will meet what you plan when you retire.

Follow a system of budgeting

One of the reason why you overspend is the lack of system for budgeting. If you dont know what amount you should be spending in specific areas you end up spending more with other items. Yes, I would love to watch movies every weekends with my wife as our own bonding and dating moment which I think is important for our relationship and we do eat out a lot as a couple before. But the question might be if your pocket is deep enough to provide for these activities, are you willing to spend all your money just doing these things? If your answer is no, then consider cutting back on these things and I bet your wife will understand because after all these is for your future as a couple or family. If you dont know any system of budgeting that will work for you, consider using theJar System of budgeting that I wrote in my previous post. It is easy to follow and you will be surprised with the result if you will be consistent. I had a hard time dealing with overspending but nevertheless, I was partly successful with it just by following the ideas above. I believe people who truly wants to improve their finances should adopt these ideas and put it into practice.

I am not an extraordinary person who can easily follow things that were not in my training and system but nevertheless because of my desire to improve things I did it little by little. And there is no reason that you cant do this too! Thank you for your time readingthis article and please subscribe if you like receiving updates from this blog.

Do You Despise Rich People?

by SARGE WARRIOR on JULY 11, 2011

Do you despise rich people? If you do, chances are you will remain poor for the rest of your life. If you think every rich person is crooked, then you dont want to be one of them, thats is a common sense since being crook is bad in the standards of present society. Innate goodness in a person unconsciously working that you do away with bad activities but it works to your disadvantage if you despise rich people. When you were a kid, you are looking up to someone to inspire you to do some stuff that you have seen in the television. When you saw Jackie Chan doing his Kung Fu, you tried to copy what you saw in the movie, and mimic his moves. Its a natural thing for an individual to copy what they see is good with someone and do away with what they perceive as a bad practice. When you saw the Jackie Chan movie, you realize that he uses his kung fu skills to fight bad people that is why you want to be like him and possibly wanted also to learn kung fu. All of this was a result of you idolizing him or admiring him. A family that share the same profession from the parents to the children and grand children is one manifestation of an idolazation and admiration of younger generation to the more adult member of the family. A family of doctors, lawyers, politicians, soldiers and so on and so forth, is a natural thing in our society, that is because the younger generation saw what is good with doing the same profession as what there parents or grandparents did, their younger generation end up doing the same thing as they did. And consequently, like idolizing and admiring people, we also have people that you abhor or despise, these are the guys that you branded bad consciously and unconsciously. You dont want to be one of them because your innate nature of goodness stops you from admiring or idolizing them. In many movies, the villain is

usually the rich guy, who has the goons and the plot of the story is that rich guy uses his riches to take advantage of the situation in the movie. They being portrayed as greedy, uncaring, and all other things that will make him an effective villain. This is what you see in the movies, the fictional portrayal of a rich man, and this is why you dont want to be rich because you dont want to end up like them. The sad thing is, because movies and other media that has the same story line of a rich bad guy are widely circulated, society tend to believe the fictional portrayal of the rich bad guy. This is the reason why majority of the people unconsciously dont want to be rich. No matter what they say in words that they want to be rich, it will never happen because they hate, abhor or despise rich people in their subconscious. So you want to be rich? do yourself a favor, read biographies of known wealthy man, and start admiring them. Find someone that you like and copy his moves just like you did with the Jackie Chan movie. And once you start thinking bad things about wealthy people stop at once, be conscious of what you are thinking about them and replace them with the philanthropic news about that rich man, with this way you might be able to eliminate what your subconscious tells you about wealthy people and increase your chance of being rich!

Why Working Will Get You to Nowhere

by SARGE WARRIOR on JANUARY 3, 2012

I once pursued a career that I thought would fit me. I originally wanted to be an architect when I was in college but my parents wanted me to take up Electronics and Communications Engineering (ECE) which was a new and an in-demand profession that time. Because I just wanted to follow my parents wishes, I took up the course with my eyes closed and hoping the best would happen and thought of just enjoying college life, after all this is what normal people should do, study and became professionals. And the expected thing happened, I failed almost all of my basic engineering math subjects and passed other major subjects poorly. At first I thought I was just dumb and below average IQ student

But as I was listening to Bo Sanchez talks, I only recently realized that I lack emotional why to finish the course because I did not want it. I dont imagine myself burying my head studying circuits and electronics. I wanted to design beautiful buildings, paint on a canvass and interestingly be a military officer and lead people, be a rich man and help people, build projects that will help communities. These are the things I always wanted and be successful with it.

Why working will get you to nowhere

Success belongs to people who enjoys what they are doing. They make their job or work as their playing field, they enjoy every bit of it. On the other hand, people who regarded their jobs as a killing field will never be successful with their career because they never wanted it. Observe people who enjoy doing their jobs, they are usually the people who are passionate about it, who loves the field they are working, that is why quitting is the last thing in their minds. We can find a lot of these people in arts industry, the ones who are successful are the ones who have the passion about it and not just a talent. They may possess the right skills or talent but if they lack passion, they seldom stay with it.

How to play and not work

If you love what you are doing right now, chances are you are enjoying it. You dont consider what you are doing as work, you are merely playing. I remember when my boss tasked me to develop a 3D models of ships that can be used for our simulators, at first I felt it was such a big task for me to undertake because I did not know how to do 3D modeling. But it turned out like I was born to do it. I enjoyed making the models that I made the first model in no time and run it in the simulator.

It did not felt like I was doing a job at all. I literally spent many hours in front of the computer making the models without worrying any deadlines or boss to ask me about the project. It just came out smoothly. That happened because I was doing the things I enjoyed most, making drawings of structures of blue prints which for me is close to being an architect. According to Bo Sanchez, if you want success, you must focus on your core gifts. It could be anything that you are good at. It could be the thing that you enjoy doing, or a thing that you are passionate about. And because of it, it just crossed my mind to make a business or website based on the thing that I love doing..designing buildings, houses or anything involving design. How about you, are you doing the things you love most and plan to be successful with it? Let me know what you think, please comment below.

10 Philippine Websites that will Make You Rich

by SARGE WARRIOR on NOVEMBER 30, 2011

The clamor to teach Filipinos about financial literacy has been around for few years now and this blog was built in the same perspective of teaching people how to manage their finances and accumulate wealth through building businesses and investments. As a private person and as another concerned individual on the skills of Filipinos in handling their own finances, there could be only one way we can influence and teach people how to do it, and that means writing our knowledge through blogging or building website. Hence, I give to you Philippine websites that teaches investing and building businesses for Filipinos. I am one of the thousands avid readers of few of these websites that I must admit shaped in a way how I take charge my finances.

1. Foreclosure Philippines
The famous blog for real estate investing from a point of view of a professional and experienced real estate broker and investor Mr Jay Castillo. This blog offers a variety of listing of foreclosed properties in all provinces of the Philippines. You can learn how to be a real estate investor by just reading articles from this blog, you can also find real life experiences with real estate investing written by the owner himself.

2. Pinoy Money Talk

A very informative website when it comes to business, stock investing, mutual funds, UITFs and earning online. Aside from helpful articles that you can find from this website, you can also join the forum which has thousand of active members interacting in the forum. Virtually you can get advice from people in the forum who are surprisingly helpful and very knowledgeable in the world of investing.

3. Ready to be Rich
A personal finance blog by Mr. Fitz Villafuerte which has topics that ranges from money saving, freelancing, business to stock investing. The blog started in2007 and since then it had grown to be one of the popular finance blog in the Philippines with 11,000 facebook likes or followers and more than 4,000 subscribers.

4. Pinoy Bisnes Ideas

A real website that focuses on business ideas you can have on Philippines setting, topics in this blog includes small type of business, home based businesses, food businesses, etc. You can also find articles on start up guides and other businesstools that you can use building your own business. I have to say this blog is really a must read for everyone out there who plans to start their business, you can pick ideas from this blog.

5. Finance Manila
This is probably the longest running blog about stock investing in the Philippines, accordingly, the site started wayback 1998..you can just imagine how many articles and resources you can read from this site. This site offers not only articles you can enjoy but it also boosts a forum that tackles about stock investing and the market over all. So you can say you will always be updated with the new developments in the Philippine market with this blog.

6.BusinessTips.ph
Generally this blog tackles everything about business, finance and investing, management as well as earning online. This blog is a great source of business tips and other occasional articles separate from the topic but might be of great interest to their

readers, and by the way this is the only blog I read that has articles regarding leadership which falls on their management category which I think kind of important when you are planning to build business.

7.Learn Financial Education

This is another personal finance blog of which it tackles financial management, saving tips, investing in mutual funds and stock market, how to earn online and even how to open your own bank account. All I can say with this blog is splendid and excellent source of information.

8.Millionaire Acts
This another blog by an advocate of financial freedom, like other bloggers he encourages his readers of journeying towards financially free life by investing and building businesses. The blog owns by Tyrone Charles Solee and was started through the inspiration of the movie The Secret which by the way is also one of my favorite movie. Anyway this guy has a lot of credentials for this kind of topic, he claims to earn his first million at age 26 which is a rare instance in our society.

9. Financial Planning Philippines

A blog which is owned by Mr Gary de Castro, which features a mixed topic of personal finance, stocks update, mutual funds, insurance, saving, and of course investing. I have not honestly came across with this blog until I searched it in google, but my first impression is that it offers a wide variety of reading with similar topics of the blogs I mentioned above.

10. Business Accent

This blog caters to small and medium businesses and boosts topics about business in general, marketing, business ethics and self improvement. I really like their vision which you can read in their about page and I think this site is a must read by business owners and people who wanting to start business. Their are a lot of topics in archives portion and you can literally be overwhelmed by the information, but the good thing is that this is a blog and you can read the topics by category so as not to confuse you with other topics. Now there is no reason for you not to learn how to take charge of your finances as well as start your journey to your first business or investment.

These blog owners who labored to put together their websites just to teach people about making money and managing finances should be recognized for public service for their selfless acts on improving the lives of the people especially Filipinos. So what are you waiting for, visit their blogs and subscribe to their newsletters including this blog to receive updates for free.

Why Build Multiple Streams of Income

by SARGE WARRIOR on SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

Many people are solely relying on their salary from working off their butt 9-5 everyday, and still a lot of them do not consider other source of income. Majority takes pride that they are more stable with having a regular job rather than taking the risk of putting their money in business or investments, but recent financial crisis has debunked this belief when thousands of employees around the world suddenly lost their job overnight. So are you still thinking that you are safe with your 9-5 job? Think a thousand times, as we have seen a lot people, even those we thought indespensable to their organization got fired or downsized by their companies. What should we do so that we will not be affected with this twist and turns of global economic meltdown? Build yourself multiple streams of income that is not dependent from other business, that means you should have the control not other people. If you build your source of income that is dependent on other people or organization like your job, chances are you will be included in the statistics of people who lost their jobs when recession hits. Why Build Multiple Streams of Income Security You will never get scared of recessions or downsizing. You have your own source of income, they can fire you thousand times but they can never take away your other source of income. That means you will only lost your meager salary but can still live a comfortable life with your family.

Flexibility Aside from being secure in terms of finances, you have the option to retire or work if you love your job. Not many people have the choice to leave their work since it is their only source of income making them stuck forever in their chosen career and sometimes it is not their chosen career, they just have to take the job or else someone will and they will be left with no food on the table. Chance to be your own boss Experience running your own affairs unlike your boss dictating what time you are going to start working and what kind of work you should be doing. With your own little world, you dont care what time you want to work your butt off and what kind of work you want (usually the work you like), and an added bonus, often times you can do your work without leaving your house. No Limit You can climb the corporate ladder if you have the qualifications but you cannot demand as much salary as you want, this is still dictated by your work and your boss. Unlike building your own streams of income, you can have as much as you want depending on the hard work you can put in and the technique you can employ. By the way, multiple streams of income are usually passive incomes too. Free to choose We should accept it that some freedom can be derived from having multiple streams of income. Aside from freedom to choose to take a job or not, you also have the choice to what type of income stream you want to have for yourself. Start off with what the skills you have and transform it to a money making machine.

If you are good in writing start blogging and write informational ebooks. Some skills needed for creating an income stream can be acquire through studying while some are already present in you, it only needs nurturing to be up for a money making machine. Action always beats inaction. If you think creating multiple streams of income is hard, think how hard it can be if you got fired today, how are you going to make both ends meet. So start acting(actually more on studying first) on how to create passive income, it sure will be slow at the start but like any other movement, it will gain momentum as it being pushed forward.

Why Giving Can Make You Rich

by SARGE WARRIOR on SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

Earlier today, I happened to come across two old beggars in the street, the first one was an ordinary old woman with gray hair sitting around the corner of one known hotel in the city, after seeing her I did not hesitate to gave her my spare coins. The second beggar was a blind woman of about 70s in age and sitting in front of the city cathedral, again after seeing her, I stopped and put down what I am carrying both on my hands and gave her my spare coins. Before, I give people especially beggars out of pity and realization that I am more blessed than they are plus I always felt a happy feeling inside when I give something to less fortunate people. Last year, as I read through books on how to build wealth, I was surprised that one of the important habits of people who accumulated unimaginable wealth in the course of their career was giving or in the words of religious people and organizations as tithing. The more you give, the more you will receive, this is the philosophy that embodies the habit of giving to people what you have. People who are ultra rich did not save every penny they earn, they give large amounts to charities, causes and foundations that they support. Take it from the two known wealthiest man in the planet today Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Through Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation they helped people in developing countries to fight diseases and hunger , while in the US the foundation is geared towards enhancement of libraries or access to education of the youth. The book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind recommends that you give at least 10% of your income to the needy, but ultra rich people dont want to give 10% of their income, they give more than that. Warren Buffet, gave as much as staggering 85% of his stocks to his favorite foundations. Even the bible encourages people to give to the needy, we can site numerous passages in the bible that encourages giving, but I tell you, God wants every one of us to be rich so that we can give something for other who needs it, this is according to the bible. 2 Corinthians 9:11

You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God So are you dreaming of becoming one of the ultra rich people in the planet? then start by sharing what you have to less fortunate people and prepare yourself for the flooding of blessings in your life, it may not be in a form of material possessions, but it can come in a form of everything that might be of importance to you like wonderful relationships with your loved ones.