Financial Planning Guide From Cebu

Why You Need To Stop Depending On You Job

2010-07-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

It's a common notion around the world that having a job with good benefits is a good financial strategy. In fact, many even relate that if you are paid well, you are doing good financially.

The usual plan is to find a good company (with good pay and healthcare benefits), work hard, and move up the corporate ladder to more responsibility. And eventually it will take us to the golden retirement years and happiness.

The reality is many have followed this path, but only a few (about 2%) have really become wealthy. The fact of the matter is that a job merely supports the habits we have (like eating), but it rarely leads to real wealth.

Whether you agree with me or not, I strongly believe that a good financial plan must not only support our habits but our dream lifestyle as well. I've known many people (specially Pinoys), after just a few months of retirement they already start to have problems financially. And once they start to get sick because of their old age, they go back to depending to their family or the government for financial support. So if you want to get to the golden years of retirement, change your wrong financial belief about having a job.

No matter how much you love your job, expecting it to make you wealthy is like looking for gold in a salt mine. No matter how large your efforts will be, you still earn the same amount of salary at the end of each month.

Rather the answer is not to work harder but to work smarter. A job should be looked upon as a temporary inconvenience. It is a method of generating basic cash flow that will be enough for your living expenses, while you are setting up an autopilot business that will take you to financial freedom.

Thus, a job is necessary for while to put food on your table, but don't forget the bigger part of the equation which is making other sources of income. For me, I've already chosen my best option, and that is not to depend on a job but to create businesses that will create passive income (more on this in the future lessons).

Now change those wrong financial beliefs about a job, and further improve your financial life.

To our financial freedom......

Cheers!

What Are False Finacial Beliefs

2010-06-19T03:21:00.000-07:00

This month will be a special set of financial planning guide lessons. We will discuss how our false beliefs towards money will drag (even stop) our journey to financial freedom.

As we grew older we were all exposed to different kinds of influences. Influences from our families, friends, colleagues and specially the kind of media we patronize. Our core values and personal beliefs are define by this influences. These influences all aspects of our life, specially how use our money.

You see our brain is like a computer that stores all the experiences in our life. Slowly it creates a blue print of who we are based on all those experiences and influence. Slowly our brain is creating a computer program that we will be the basis of who we become.

Again like a computer program, our brain also has a sort of "software". So it acts, thinks, talks, eats, cries, works, earns, even smells based on our personal "software". This personal is so hard wired into our being that we think it's who we are. There are even people that think their life is destined to be that way.

Since this a "software", it involves all aspects in our life specially how we handle money. It defines how we spend, invest, save and earn money. The good thing with this since it is a "software", it is something we can reformat and install and upgraded version. Specifically it is an acquired habit that we have develop through our past and present experiences.

On our next coming financial planning guide, I will help you to personally identify this false beliefs within yourself that ultimately robs you of achieving true financial freedom.

3 Main Reasons Why Most People Are Poor

2010-04-28T10:27:00.001-07:00

This is now the formal start of my financial planning guide lessons. Since in our previous series of steps (for those who are new in my blog please click here and follow each step) we already talked about the necessary steps to take before actually planning your financial life.

You already have a dream life, a financial goal, and now it is time for the "apply lessons-fail-plan again-repeat until successful" part of financial planning.

Now let's talk about the three most common reasons why many people are poor.

1. Because most people do not really want to be rich.

Yup, you heard me right! We really do not want to be rich. I know many of you would react and say, "I have never heard a person say that he does not want to be rich". In fact if I ask you right now if you want to be financial free and be wealthy?

The common answer would be - OF COURSE!

Yet, I've crossed many people in my life that only say that they want to be rich yet their actions do not walk their talk.
Some even pray to God like this - "Lord make me rich and wealthy but not too much, I do not want to be bad."

It is this sick idea that when a person is rich, we are far from God's love. Maybe we have forgotten that many prophets in the old testament like Elijah, King Samuel and David were all very wealthy people yet they were very close to God.

I think many people view it this way because it was shaped by our culture this way. Today more and more media influences people in Sydney (for example) that romanticizing wealth is a sad thing. Many people even baffle the words like "I'd rather be happy than be rich" which is a good example of romanticizing poverty. In my life, I have always seen this as a wrong belief about wealth for whenever I had no money to buy my needs I could not sleep at night.

So I ask myself, how in the world can other people say that being poor makes us happier? Not being able to sleep at night is depressing enough.
Say this to yourself now - "I am rich because I know God loves me and he wants to prosper all the works of my hands, even my money".

2. Most people are poor because they are Financially Stupid.

Obviously many fail in their financial planning because they do not understand how money really works. They do not even understand the meaning of good debt and bad debt, so they just go around the mall wide sales and squander all their hard earned money to buy liabilities. (In our future financial planning guide lessons, I will go into the details of good debt, bad debt, assets and liabilities)

Much worse, when they do not have enough money to buy what they want, they used their credit cards and incur debt that they cannot pay at the end of their cut off. Hence, once they receive their credit card bill, they can only pay the highlighted box "minimum amount due", making them pay more and more due to high interest rates that credit cards offer.

Hey I don't blame you, there are even well known surgeons who can operate your brain but are also financially stupid. Engineers can create skyscrapers and compute all the necessary tensions needed to make these skyscrapers stable yet they too can be financially stupid as well.

Here's the key if by now you are already aware that you are also financially stupid, then directly learn to change your financial life. Go and burn the lines and ask people, call a financial adviser, read a book about basic good money habits, or better, follow my financial planning guide lessons (they are for FREE by the way) and apply all the lessons you learn here.

The important thing is to take action and commit to change your bad money habits. Focus on your dream life and set goals short term and long term.

3. Many are poor because we do not ride vehicles to wealth.

Have you ever tried comparing your travel time from using different modes of transportation to your office? Like what the difference would be if you walk to your office, ride a bike, ride a cab, use your own car, or ride the train?
Obviously among the transportation mentioned above, the train is the fastest and just like in our financial life we too must ride vehicles.

Most people are so dependent to the government that they are not even walking towards wealth. I'd rather compare walking to saving money in the bank without withdrawing it for at least 25 years.
However, walking alone will not get us to our destination. We must include in our financial planning the real vehicles to wealth like the mutual funds, paper assets, stocks, real estate, the internet, and other businesses.

Riding vehicles to wealth is the only way to attain financial abundance and without these vehicles, wealth will always be far fetched. Imagine if you can use an airplane as your vehicle to wealth. Or a jet plane to ride. Doesn't that sound exciting? Ride your vehicles now and reaching your financial goal will be alot easier.

To our financial freedom.....

Cheers!

Step 4 Present Your Financial Goal To God and Start Tithing

2010-04-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

Today, I will let you on a secret that not many financial planning experts will tell you.

Let me start by giving you a brief history.

As a Christian, I have a very good relationship with the Lord and although some of you may disagree but I am proud to say He has fully blessed my financial life because we are good friends.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a preacher or a priest (although when I was young I wanted to be one) but I firmly believe that there is really a higher power out there that really loves us unconditionally. Because of that of love, he helps us cope with our problems, gives us great families who also love us unconditionally, he gives us a way in difficult situations, he makes us smile in simplest ways, and He gives us ENORMOUS WEALTH.

Yet many people have really forgotten how our Father truly loves us. So we tend to focus on

our problems, our failing business ventures, our nagging wife, the new luxurious car of our neighbor that we envy..... So we end up being miserable and always needy for a lot of things.

Personally, I think all we need is to understand how our Father truly loves us.

As it is written in the bible, there were many instances that our Father tested the prophets and even our brother and savior Jesus. But to all who followed His will, they were blessed enormously.

Believe me, God really wants to bless you enormously in all aspects of our life. In fact, I even believe that He truly wants to bless you more by giving you a lot of money. (yes, you read it right. MONEY). Why you ask? Because if we have more than enough, we can give even more.

So here's how it really works...

To receive God's enormous flow of blessings be a SPONGE and not a STONE.

Imagine God's blessings takes the form of a rain. Then God started pouring blessings in your life but apparently you are a "stone-person" and you repel all the rain (blessings) that are coming at you. Now, imagine that you're a "sponge-person". Right there and then when God poured rain (blessings) you absorb everything because you are a "sponge-person".

What is a "stone-person" and a "sponge-person"?

To put it simply, a "stone-person" is a person who only cares about himself. He is shrewd and only wants to benefit himself and be alone.

A "sponge-person" on the other hand, is a sharing and generous person. He understands that when he gives more, he receives more.

Try doing this.

Get a handful of rice and close your fist tightly. Then slowly try to pour more rice into it. Yup, not much rice will enter your hand. In fact, since you are pressing your hand very hard, some of the rice inside your hand slowly spills outside until you are stuck with the full capacity that your hand can only accommodate.

Let's do another method.

Get another handful of rice, but this time don't close it tightly. Instead make a hole above enough for it to flow when you pour it. Now call your kids and ask them to open their hands, form like a bowl. Then slowly pour 10% of what you have to their hands.

What happened to the handful of rice in your hand? It's not full anymore, right? So you then go back to the sack of rice and fill up your hand again. This time ask more members of your family to open their hands and pour 10% to each of them. Repeat the process until you have filled up all the hands of everyone in your household.

Now think. How were you able to fill everyone's hand with rice?

By opening a hole in your hands and sharing 10% of it to your household, right? This is the analogy of being a "sponge-person". You absorb more of God's blessings because you are not filled up to the brim, because you give a portion of what you have, and in return, you are always open to more blessings.

Being a "sponge-person" has greater effects than you think. Notice that you are always blessed but in addition to that, by sharing a portion of what you have you are also a blessing to a lot of people. Hence, you are creating a butterfly effect. A butterfly effect is making little consistent changes that eventually leads to a HUGE difference.

Through the little portion that you give every month you are actually changing the community.

Just like my rice example. You started giving 10% of what you have and ended up filling everybody's hands with rice. That 10% portion you gave at the start actually makes a HUGE difference wherein it slowly fills everybody's hands with rice. Hence, when you give and share what you have, you are actually helping many people's lives. (I believe, if only every human being in the world knew how to share that 10% of what they have, there will be no country that would be suffering from hunger)

Now to my financial planning guide lesson.

It is not enough to set a financial goal and present it to God. You have to be a "sponge-person" to reach your financial goal.

How?

Start by giving and opening yourself up to more blessing from God. The exact term of ths is tithing.

Present your financial goal to God then commit to Him that you are going to give 10% of what you earn every month.You can either start by giving your monthly 10% to your nearest church or a non government community that needs additional funds for their projects.

Just by following this financial planning guide lesson alone, you will never go broke in your life again.

Start tithing now, and be blessed.... and in the long run contribute to changing the world.

To our financial freedom.

Cheers!

Step 3 : Claim And Commit To Your Financial Goal

2010-04-13T00:20:00.000-07:00

I know that this may seem as a "non-contributor" in a financial planning guide lesson but I want to clarify this issue and how it relates to our financial life.

We often relate financial freedom to having lots of money, or how much money a person earns, spends, his cars, etc..... So in a natural way, we relate wealth to the amount of money a person has in his bank account.
For most people, if you don't have a big house, don't drive a Jaguar, or don't have the latest cellphone then you are not rich.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that we Filipinos have acquired an attitude towards how we view a person's financial life. Often when we set our financial goal, we only see the money involve and fail to realize that having money is just an external thing. (I know this is financial planning guide lessons so I should be talking about money, just wait for my punch line).

What do I mean by an external thing?

I actually believe that a person has two kinds of environment, his external and internal environment. (This was also mentioned by my mentor Bo Sanchez)

An external environment is where you are physically, how your life is currently doing, the situation you are currently in - in simple terms it is the NOW of your life.

An internal environment is your internal thinking, your view in your life, your values, - in simple terms your CPU (the main internal system of a computer). This environment will define your actual reactions to real-life situations that happens in your life.

Now that we understand both, what in the world does this have to do with financial freedom viewed as having lots of money?

The answer to that question is - EVERYTHING

Your internal environment will be the key to attaining your financial goal. In committing and claiming your financial goal, you must not only view your goal as an amount of money that you want to attain but a financial plan that you follow religiously.

Focusing on money alone is not a strong enough reason to attain your financial goal. You must commit to a dream, a financial plan, a love you want to pursue, etc....

Find the reasons why you want financial freedom and remind yourself of it everyday. Touch it in your thoughts, feel in your thoughts, envision it in your mind (that's what I call a healthy internal environment).

Now you go and apply this financial planning guide in your life right away.

To our financial freedom.

Cheers!

Continuation of Step 2 - Taking A Financial Retreat

2010-04-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Today is an exciting week for all us since this week is also a week of reflection for the Holy Week. This week is where we look back into our life and evaluate our sins and be reconciled with our Father in heaven.

Although many would consider it as a Roman Catholic tradition but the importance of this day all leads to looking back on how our Father gave His only son Jesus (our savior and brother) so that we can all be save. Out here in the Philippines, specifically in Cebu City, I see Jesus' sacrifice as a sign of love and compassion and that's how we Pinoy's are living it especially on the Holy Week.

Now what does this have to do on our financial planning guide topic - taking a financial retreat?

Well like what we do in the holy week, we go to a special journey. A journey towards understanding ourselves more.

I actually made up these following steps myself through the various books i have read and from listening to audio recordings from Robert Kiyosaki and Robert Allen.

Here are my personal steps in financial planning guide - financial retreat :

1. Set a specific date and make it non-negotiable

When we set our financial retreat, make it always non-negotiable unless someone in the family dies or a tsunami is about to hit California City and another will hit straight to Cebu City. Put it in perspective that it is your special "Me-Time Day". I know not many of you will agree but spending time listening and talking to yourself will definitely change your financial life's path.

2. Look for a place where you can think

In my financial planning guide to all of you, I do not point out a specific area but note that it has to be somewhere that you can be at peace, comfortable and undisturbed. It can be in a prayer room in your house, on your rooftop, in a quite beach (definitely not Boracay on a Holy Week or summer), heck it can even be in your own bathroom. As long as you follow my guide, your financial retreat will be very effective.

In my case, when I take my personal financial retreat, I chose an area that allows me to enjoy nature. Of course I prefer free nature parks rather than expensive hotels but since I am near the mountains of Cebu City, I travel there using my car and take my financial retreat.

3. Prepare yourself and your "equipment"

What I mean to say in preparing yourself is that you have to look forward to your financial retreat and get excited for the amazing results of your day. Also since it is a retreat, start thinking of your financial life now. Do not criticize or evaluate, just be honest to yourself and be aware of how is your financial life currently doing.

My "equipment" on that day is a beautiful notebook and a good pen. I also bring a calculator and a relaxing drink (mostly coffee from BO's Coffee Shop). These equipments are essential to me since I use all these in my retreat. The good thing about having a notebook is you get to go over it anytime since you can bring it anywhere you go. Although I will encode most of the results of my retreat in my laptop, but the feeling of writing it in a notebook gives me a sort of excitement to read those goals everyday.

Well I guess that's it for now, so we can move at a slow pace in doing our financial planning guide retreat.

Step 2: Taking A Personal Retreat - "A Financial Retreat"

2010-03-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

Now a lot of you would wonder how taking a personal retreat could affect your financial planning and how it could be included in my financial goal setting steps when it’s just going somewhere and thinking.

But here’s the catch - it has everything to do about your financial planning and financial freedom.

You see when I began to seek financial planning guidance I read a lot of books, attended seminars, join online forums, listened to audio teachings from world renowned speakers and all talks about taking a personal retreat to gain financial freedom.

I actually never understood what they all meant until I applied what they taught and took the personal retreat myself.

To make it more specific, I did it four years ago and now I really have appreciated its value.

The importance of this retreat is that it will open your mind and your heart. It will help you answer the most important question you’ll ever ask yourself – “what is it that I want from this thing called life?” Knowing what you want in life definitely makes you more focused and it will guide you in which things you need to prioritize.

Zig Ziglar calls this as having the “end-in-mind”.

Imagine if you join a race and during the start of that race the organizer tells all the contestants that in order to win, you must get to the mango tree and apparently you are all in a mango farm filled with hundreds of mango trees.

How long do you think that race will take?

Now picture a different scenario. What if at that same race the organizer specified the mechanics of the race? For example: In order to win this race, you must find the largest mango tree, it has 21 branches and that mango tree is marked with five red ribbons scattered on some of its branches.

Now let me ask you a question, which of the two races will finish faster?

Obviously, it is the second race. Why? Because the mechanics were clear and it had the specifics of how you could achieve your goal. All of the contestants had a clear vision of what they should be looking for and were able to picture out the needed mango tree for them to win.

This is also how it is in our financial life. Honestly, I think this is the main core of the financial planning guide that I will continuously share with you.

On my next post, I will share with you my personal "financial retreat" set-up and steps. It will be a sort of a sequel to financial planning guide - setting your financial goal steps.

Step 1: How to Compute Your Net Worth

2010-03-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Now going back to the Steps of Setting our Financial Goal, we start with step 1 which is:
"How to compute your Net Worth"

I know a lot of people hate the subject of accounting (that includes my wife), but it is a necessity when it comes to taking control of our financial life. Although in this section we will discuss a few points in accounting but we will discuss it the simplest and practical way I can possibly explain.

Net worth is simply defined as your Assets less your Liabilities. To make things simple, "it is what you own minus what you owe". For example, if the total of what I owned is 1million and I owe 500thousand, my total net worth is also 500thousand. Now to complete the financial planning guide that you need, it is better that I give you an example done in a bit of accounting format.

Let's say Mr. Tony Stark (watch Iron Man 2 Trailer if you want click here) has the following assets:

Home -------------------------------------------------- $ 13, 500.00
Mutual Fund Investments ------------------------------ 5, 500.00
Personal Savings ---------------------------------------- 1, 200.00
Car (current market value) ----------------------------- 650.00
Fixtures and Furniture ---------------------------------- 850.00
Retirement funds ---------------------------------------- 6, 500.00

Total Assets --------------------------------------------$ 28, 200.00

Liabilities:

Car loan balance ---------------------------------------- $ 150.00
Credit card loan ----------------------------------------- 3, 400.00
Amortization balance (split 2yrs more) ------------------ 6, 890.00
Retirement Plan Balance (5yrs more to full -------------- 1, 200.00
Education loan ------------------------------------------ 799.00

Total Liabilities ---------------------------------------$ 12, 439.00

Mr. Stark's Net worth = $ 28, 200.00 - 12, 439.00 = $ 15, 761.00

Now it's really nice to think that everyone around the world will have this kind of net worth, wherein gaining financial freedom will be a lot easier given the positive net worth, however, in most people's financial statement, their net worth shows a negative value.

I think it doesn't matter whether you're from Melbourne, Australia or Cebu, Philippines as long as you have a positive net worth, moving to financial freedom is easier. It is also important to note that in the financial statement above, Mr. Stark did not borrow too much money just to buy liabilities, instead he borrowed for an educational loan, a housing loan and a small credit card loan.

The above example only shows that Mr. Stark has good financial literacy and knows his limits when borrowing money. In looking after your finances it is very important to plan your expenses so that you don't end up buying your wants, instead you buy what you really need.

Moving forward...

Computing your net worth is a very crucial part of your financial growth. I personally do this every start of the month to check on whether my net worth has increased or decreased, so that I can do necessary corrective action.

This is my suggestion for you. If you find yourself too biased or find it too complicated to compute your net worth, hire someone who can or if you don't have the extra money to do so, look for an accountant who is retired and ask him for a detailed advice.

Now go and start computing your net worth, and as soon you do comeback to this blog for the next financial planning steps.

Setting A Financial Goal

2010-03-14T08:52:00.001-07:00

Based on our previous discussion (please click here for those who have not read it), we all belong to a financial stage and all the steps that we should be doing should take into consideration where we currently belong.
Again, the goal is financial freedom so I guess we all agree that, that is all our "end-state".

Now let's start with setting a Financial Goal.

I know most of you will complain and say - "not again, why don't you just teach us the techniques to plan our financial life, where to invest, how to do business, etc".
That is a very common reaction among us (specifically Pinoys) when it comes to financial planning, yet in my financial-life-experience, until I made a goal and set specific dates for my financial freedom, I never achieved anything specific and tangible.

Let me explain in a story.

Once a upon a time in a city in Australia (Melbourne to be exact), there was a Filipino (His name was Juan of course) who hungered for financial freedom and a better life for his family that he left behind in the Philippines. He tried saving 500 Australian dollars every month yet whenever he was able to save-up about 2000 Australian dollars, a relative would call asking for help for an emergency and not being able to take the guilt of not helping the relative, he ended up giving his savings instead. Again and again he started to save, but the more he saved the more emergencies kept on popping up and he realized he was going nowhere.

But one day...

He meet a great and handsome guy (I know what you're thinking, but sorry the guy was not me) by the name of Bo Sanchez. This guy talked about how to improve a person's finances, how to increase one's income, how to share your money to the poor, and his basic step was to set a Financial Goal.

His specific words were, "knowing where you are going, makes you choose the easiest route to get there the fastest".

Now he followed that person's advice and made a financial goal of XX,XXX dollars by December 2009.
And lo and behold - Juan now has that XX,XXX number of dollars in his account. Not only that but he has also acquired real estate properties which he is renting-out, a recruitment agency, and other small businesses earning him enough to be called a MILLIONAIRE.

Now to apply that to our topic.....

I believe and have seen through experience, that achieving anything in life does not only involve hard work but also the mindset on what kind of results we want. Just like an archer envisioning his target. He sets the target in his mind first and imagine hitting a perfect bulls-eye and then actually hitting the target with perfect timing and precision. This is how our financial planning guide process should also be started.

If you want your financial life to be in order SET THAT FINANCIAL GOAL NOW.

Now here are the steps to "Set Your Financial Goal".

Step 1 - Compute your Net Worth

Step 2 - Take a Personal Retreat

Step 3 - Claim and Commit to your Financial Goal

Step 4 - Present your Financial Goal to God

Step 5 - Apply the Financial Lessons to your Life

Step 6 - Apply, Fail, Learn. Repeat until Goal is Reach

Now that's a lot of steps, but don't worry we'll discuss each step in detail in my next coming post.
If you have any questions just leave your comments below.

To our financial freedom.......

Cheers!

Financial Life Stages

2010-02-28T10:14:00.000-08:00

I have observed that our life is all about stages, and even in our finances we also have different stages.

A lot of financial planning guide books define it in many ways, but I like to make things simple. For me there are only four (4) stages in a person's financial life:

1. Start-up Stage
2. Build-up Stage
3. Asset Allocation Stage
4. Retirement Stage

Let's go through it one by one.

The Start-up Stage.

At this stage, a person depends as much as 100% of his income from either a job, or a "starting business" which is the only source of income he has. If ever he quits his job or close the business, he will have nothing to eat on the next coming days. (This "starting business" is often called self-employment). This a stage where we make ends meet. We work and spend 100% of our income. Sadly this is where a lot of people are currently found. They work hard, but spend even harder.

The Build-up Stage.

In this stage, a person has already developed the discipline to save and invest his money to different kinds of investment vehicles (more on this on my future post) on a regular basis. Mostly, a person in this stage can already allocate 20% of his income to investments and can live with his 80% as his living expenses. He also has little gains from his small investments which cannot yet provide a substantial assistance to his total income.

The Asset Allocation Stage.

People in this stage have already gained the proper experience and has given enough time and importance in understanding how money works. They plan their financial life well and save enough to re-invest in their businesses or to start a new business plan. Most people in this stage can already allocate 40%-50% of their income to new business ventures and other types of investment. Also, it is important to note that in this stage a person does not only depend on a job or business but he already has multiple streams of income (others call it cash cows).

The Retirement Stage.

At this stage a person has already mastered how money works. He has all the freedom he wants. He now focuses on the more important aspects of life like spending more time with his family, having monthly vacations, providing more jobs and helping the poor. He has fully achieved the financial plans he made during the early stages of his life. Also during this stage, the person is no longer concerned with his own welfare, he takes into consideration the community around him and has already carved a legacy that will last for centuries. On average, a person in this stage does not depend on a simple business but rather he relies on the many large corporations that he has full control of, that 80% of the decisions come from him.

Know where you are among these four stages...

I hope we all are in agreement that our goal is to be in the retirement stage. It does not matter what age you are right now, what matters is that we all want financial freedom. The earlier we get to the retirement stage, the better.

Now to wisely plan and guide you to financial freedom, evaluate yourself on which of the stages do you belong. Knowing the definitions and the premise of these stages, do your best and strive to move on to each stage one step at a time, 0r better yet make small baby steps at a time.

On my next post, we will go on the details on how to fully evaluate on which stage you really are.

Don't forget to leave your comments for this post.

To our financial freedom....

Cheers!

My Emotional Inspiration To Change My Financial Life

2010-02-27T20:14:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, welcome to my financial improvement blog.

To be honest with you, this is actually my personal “Financial blue print”. My life’s financial journey and all the many lessons, the tears, and especially the joy that I have experience in my financial life is written in this site.

A background on how my financial life was.

When I was young, my family has faced many financial rollercoaster. As a child, I would often hear my mother telling me “let’s go to your grandpa’s house, we will ask financial help from him for your school”. As a child I never really understand this, not until I reached my teens that I was fully acquainted with the many needs for money. Although within that period (my childhood years to my teens), my father was able to set-up a furniture export business that brings sudden wealth and thus changed our lives. We are able to fix our house, had foams as bed, had two automobiles, we dined in restaurants, had the toys I wanted, and etc. In short, we were living the life of the wealthy.

A double edge sword.

However with this money, my father also changed. He became arrogant. Acquired vices like: drinking, smoking, going out with his “friends” till dawn even to the point of not going home.

He misused his money, and develop a habit of buying many liabilities like expensive golf clubs, expensive appliances, personal vacations with his friends (my father paying for the whole trip), and the like.

Double crossed by the Japanese Buyers.

The buyers that my father supposedly had as mergers (for expansion) for our Rattan Based furniture, has suddenly created their own plant. They pirated the key employees that my father had. Also got the American buyers and contacts my father’s business had. They took the entire business concept and price their furniture at a lower cost than my father offered.

Back to the financial crisis.

We were back to the financial mess we were in.

Just before reaching my senior year in high school, we again ended in a financial crisis. My father lost our business (three of our relatives who were investors got really angry at him).

We had instances that we could not even pay for our electric bills. I can even remember the time when my uncle took our appliances from the house so it could somehow compensate for the money he lost from investing in the business my father started.

It is only now that I realized that it was probably the worst days my father had in his life. During that time he was always irritable, often angry, always negative and I often heard him fighting with my mother (my mother is a public school teacher by the way). In that period, one false move from us (his kids) would directly result to “a severe lesson from his belt”.

Thankfully he met our Lord and Savoir Jesus Christ.

He slowly changed. He became loving again. He opened his heart to us. He saw how good we are. He loved and served my mother again. He became a father again.

He became the best father I can ask for and our relationship has truly grown.

Fast forward to my life now.

I am now married to a beautiful woman. I am currently employed in one of the best companies in the Philippines. I have small businesses that contribute to my income which allows me to be generous in giving to the need of the poor and our church.

With the kind of childhood I had, I was allowed to see the “right path”. I told myself that I would not follow the financial direction that my father had.

I prayed everyday (until now) that God bless me with the strength that I will grow financially aware and “financially healthy”.

Hence, through my hunger for financial freedom I seek books from authors like Bo Sanchez, Robert Kiyosaki, Robert Allen, Victor Van Hansen, Larry Gamboa, Warren Buffet, Seth Godin and many others.

Today, I am in a positive net worth and currently doing well. I have assembled financial building blocks that have allowed me to ensure my future. I have learned how to invest in mutual funds, stocks, business, when to use insurance, what insurance to buy and to regularly check my financial health.

I want to help you. I want to teach you the lessons that I learned from reading books and applying them in my financial life.

My dream is to reach out to at least 10,000 Pinoys who will continuously learn and interact with me on personal financial lessons as well.

JOIN ME IN THIS IN JOURNEY AND TOGETHER LET’S SHOUT TO WORLD THAT WE PINOY’S ARE FINANCIALLY FREE!