Some of you might think it is impossible to save 100,000 pesos for a minimum wage earner or for someone earning 15,000-20,000 pesos a month. Don’t worry, I also have that same thinking when I was in a corporate job.
The truth is, it’s very possible. I remember hitting that 100,000 pesos goal at the age of 22, it was six days after my birthday. It might not sound so impressive for some but for me it was a big achievement knowing that I am only earning 20,000 pesos a month, renting an apartment in Manila, commuting to work and providing financial support to my family.
I am only earning 16,000 a month from my first job. However, it feels like a really big amount for me since I have not earned that kind of money in my entire life. I know I will be able to save a lot of money and things will work out well for me but it didn’t. It’s been six months working in a corporate world and I can say, I’m totally broke. I even had days trying to withdraw fifty pesos from my debit card, desperately broke.
One day, I realized I should not live a life like this. I feel like I’m worse than my 15-year-old self. I look for ways on how I can grow my money. I found an online brokerage company and start my first investment in the stock market. Starting at that time, I learn a lot of things in saving and investing money. I know you can do it too.
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Set a goal. We should always begin with the end in mind. The starting capital in the stock market used to be 5,000 pesos and for me to start, I had to save that amount. I did it in three months. Looking at my money grow by itself gives me discipline in saving money.
Make some arrangements. If you are someone giving financial support to your family, it might somehow prevent you from achieving your own goal. I know it’s part of our culture to give back to our family, especially our parents. However, we also have to think about ourselves sometimes. What I did was, I told them that I can only give them this specific amount of money. Let’s say 5,000 a month.
Know the right definition of needs and wants. It might sound easy but it’s not. Needs is something you can’t survive without it. Wants is something can live without. Though the definition is subjective to a person. Traveling is a want for me but it is a need for travel vloggers since it is their job.
Make your money work for you. As I mentioned above, I start investing in the stock market which is one of the ways to earn a passive income. Through this, it reduces the time that you have to work for money. There’s a lot of different investment nowadays, UITS, mutual funds, stock market, VUL, and forex.
Increase your psychological wallet. If you think 100,000 pesos is a big amount, you will never have this money. You’ll earn it probably but you will easily lose it. Imagine those lotto winners, most of them end up being poor because their mind can’t handle having that huge amount of money.
Earning 100,000 is not really difficult as long as you follow all these strategies I stated. There’s also a lot of strategies that you can learn online. What’s really difficult is keeping this money with all the temptations of spending.
