What Makes Saving Rather Hard for Most Filipinos [and Possibly for You]

SETTING a savings goal is one thing, and making it happen is another. You start with something big, something achievable, like buying a gadget or funding a summer vacation, but you always end up without making a single centavo dedicated to it. You think about saving, but you just can’t, and these are the possible reasons.

[1] You’re almost there, always wanting to make savings, but your income doesn’t permit it, and you just don’t do something about it. You should rather break that vicious cycle of financial complacency, the unexamined Filipino culture of ‘isang kahig, isang tuka.’

[2] You’ve been running a one-day-millionaire life all this time, believing that you deserve a big treat for working really hard through the days like a water buffalo. Yes, you do, but you’re not paying yourself the right way.

[3] Filipinos are but emotional, clannish, and make many lavish celebrations. You get a lot of sharings here and there, plus you’re running a lending business to your relatives and friends. You just can’t say ‘no,’ and it’s remorseful to ask for a small interest or even a repayment.

[4] You still shy away from disclosing your real financial score and all your savings goals. You don’t want others to feel that you’re broke and that you struggle with your meager income. You’re afraid getting compared against someone else who happens to be earning more – the Filipino definition of a successful member of the working class.

[5] You might still be subscribing to that old belief that you’re just attracting something negative to happen with all your savings goals. Or maybe, you’re leaving things to fate instead of taking control of them.

[6] You don’t run on any solid budget just like many other Filipinos out there. In other words, you keep on spending spontaneously on this and that. You have already splurged before realizing that you still have more dreadful days before your next paycheck.

[7] You don’t have any savings account. You can’t dedicate something left from the budget, or the other way round, at the end of the day because you have nowhere to keep it. You doubt you could still keep money under the mattress.