While some people argue that saving money is bad because it’s just gonna be eaten by inflation therefore they should put their money into investments, the fact is that many Filipino Overseas Talents can’t even save money to invest in. So what are the common reasons why?
- Overdependency of their families in remittances.
While it is nice that OFW’s give their families what they were not privileged to experience or the taste of a luxurious life, some kababayans found themselves, few years after working overseas, that they are in deep shit that they can’t save money because they have been sending all their salaries to their families for their monthly maintenances. The worse thing is if their husband, wife, or parents are no longer working by choice because they are depending on the remittances their OFW is sending them.
2. Many can’t say “NO”
This is one of the major reasons why many good people are poor. Like many OFW’s, they just can’t say no when their relatives, friends and people they didn’t even see ask them for money. The worse thing is that I knew a lot of OFW’s who borrowed money to send their families for them to celebrate birthday parties or to buy new gadgets and other stuffs.
Many OFW’s can’t just say no because they’re afraid they will be tagged as “kuripot”. But the fact is that you should be kuripot so that you can save for your future. Unless you are sure that when you don’t have money anymore and you’re in need of it, that these people will come to rescue you, then screw them. Another way to deal with it if you don’t want to be called “kuripot” is if they ask you for 5 thousand pesos, you give them 2 thousand or 1 thousand.
3. Lifestyle Change
Many Filipinos are also known to like branded shoes, branded shirts and other stuffs that they spend tons of money to look rich. While some people argue that they feel confident when they wear expensive jeans or shoes, the fact is that deep inside we all know who actually we are. Wearing expensive things may get you many likes in facebook or instagram but it’s not gonna boost your confidence. Trust me, even if you wear shorts and slippers all the time if deep inside you know you have a deep pocket, your not gonna feel inferior.
We have to check our lifestyle and stop buying things so that we can look impressionable to our fake facebook and instagram friends. Save money, invest and live that rich looking person you’ve been trying to look like in the future instead of spending all your money now, look like a rich now and collect garbage for food in the future.
At the end of the day, we need to save because we need to prepare for the rainy days. If rainy days do come, you’re lucky because you’ve prepared but it it won’t? You’re still lucky because you can spend that money for other things. Don’t be that dude who puts blame to the government or to Jesus when rainy days is too tough to survive.
