I believe that every one of us somewhere in our life had heard the line “mag-ipon ka” and I know how hard it is to save when you’re income or the money you’re receiving from your spouse is “sakto lang, kulang pa nga”.
But then, when some unexpected situation hit our lives, we realize that saving money is really important. What made me decide to save money for real?
Experiences
Situation #1
I grew in a family where saving is not given too much attention not because they don’t want to, but because our family income is “sakto lang” for our daily expenses and there’s nothing left to save. And I knew how having no savings affects our life.
When my grandmother got hospitalized and needed to undergo dialysis almost every week. My mother together with her siblings and her father got all the possible resources to continue my grandmother’s treatment and to pay all the hospital bills, medicine, and other expenses.
Due to lack of money, they mortgage their house and lot in the bank that later on lead them to serious debt.
Situation #2
When my father died, it became more difficult for my mother to send us to school. Though she is a teacher, she has several loans and debts to pay, plus we are 5 siblings that she needs to feed.
I can still remember the time when she does a lot of raket just to earn money. She will wake up early in the morning to make sandwich, and sleep late at night after repacking peanuts, sweet beans at kung anu-ano pang pwedeng i-repack that she sells in school. Syempre, katulong nya kami sa mga raket na yun.
Situation #3
I can barely have a new clothes when I was a kid until my college days because my parents can’t afford to buy. I either used my tita’s clothes or my mother’s old clothes yung mga wala na sa uso at napaglipasan na ng panahon.
I also remember way back in my college years, especially the first month when we don’t have yet our school uniform, kinakapalan ko na lang mukha ko and praying that no one will ever notice that I use the same jeans again and again because i only have 2 jeans that time.
I can’t ask or demand on my mother to buy me some more because I knew that she doesn’t have “extra” money for those kind of stuff and I know that she’s struggling enough to send me to school. Then due to serious financial problems, I became a working student to continue my study.
I can go on and on with my family and my own experiences that can prove how having no savings can lead to a serious problem in the future, but I’ll end it here.
My point is, I don’t want to experience the same money problem again and again. I don’t want debts or loans to be my first option whenever I need money. And I know that if I don’t take even a little step to be financially free, I won’t able to go anywhere.
There’s one thing in common that I noticed from the financial books I read, money related seminar I attended, and financial bloggers I followed, and that is, all of them will encourage you to learn or even master first the habit of saving money before doing advanced step to achieve your financial goals.
I don’t want my own family to experience what I had experienced before. I want financial freedom so I educate myself to learn how to make it possible.
I believe that we all have our own reason to save money and it will be possible if we continue to remind ourselves on that goal.
Pinay Wise Spender 