Paano giginhawa?

While drinking beer with a friend last week, my friend complained that life is difficult. Mabuti pa raw ako, “abroad” (his indirect way of telling me na ako ang magbayad, ahihi). His take home pay is 11,000 pesos, while his wife is 9,000 pesos for a total of 20,000 pesos a month. They have two young children, one is 5 years old and the other is 3 years old…..parehas daw malakas lumagok ng gatas, hehehe. May ATM debt pa raw sya sa opisina nya, which charges 10 per cent a month. Ano raw ba gagawin nya? Should he go abroad para daw lumaki ang kita nya? Paano na lang daw, pag-nag-aral na mga anak nya, tyak daw talagang kakapusin sila. His reasoning was, no employee became rich; most government employees get old and get deeper in debt. (unless corrupt, diba?), hehehe.

Hay…….ang sagot ko ay:

Kahit abroad ka kong hindi mo rerendahan ang gastos mo, ganoon din, wala kang maiipon. Kahit hindi ka abroad kong hindi mo rin rerendahan ang gastos mo, ganoon din. Sabi ko, try to save. I asked him to list his monthly expenses: gastos sa yosi – Marlboro, palitan mo ng Winston, bawasan mo beer budget mo, add more vegetables to your diet, kong OK pa cellphone mo, why buy a new one? blah blah…etc. etc. Sabi ko, isipin mo 16,000 lang take home pay niyong mag-asawa a month, and live on it. Budgetin mo. Now save that 4,000 a month for 6 months, and how much you will get? 24,000 diba? Now instead of you taking the loan at 10% a month, asked your fellow employees to get a loan from you at 8% a month. Roll that, and continue saving 4,000 a month and how much you will get, with the power of compound interest, after a year; what about after two years? Magaling ka sa math diba… magkano?

Ayan…. you will have a total asset of 0.25 million in two years, and an added income of almost 20K a month on interest alone after two years. Can you imagine how much will it be in 10 years? Magkano nga ba? Yayaman ka rin …….sabi ko. Just spend less than what you earn, and invest wisely. And most importantly, you have to start Now!

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Since we are on this, I am wondering how much the "bombays" earn in my City since they have been charging 20% (5-6), and their clients are almost all the vendors and small stores here, and they have been doing this since I can remember. In fact, one of my shop neighbors told me that she had been on a loan from a "bombay" for the past 15 years na "walang patid", and her monthly loans ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 pesos at a time, up to 10,000 pesos, and she had been paying the "bombay" religously- daily for the past 15 years!