To Get Rich is Glorious

I began what can only be called as a reading frenzy of books on personal finance over a year ago. I read two books that I expressly chose for their Filipino authors in hopes of seeing Kiyosaki's lessons explained from a Filipino perspective and turned into practical advice from a Filipino context. The two books were Larry Gamboa's Think Rich Pinoy and Francisco Colayco's Pera Mo, Palaguin Mo. It was easy enough to understand Kiyosaki; it was more difficult figuring out what exactly I had to do as a Filipino desiring to be rich one day.

Writing a year after, I remember having read practical tips from both authors, especially in the area of buying and selling foreclosed property. It sounded achieveable, and my wife actually took the trouble of attending real estate seminars, but, as of today, we are yet to own our first piece of property. Nevertheless, I am happy to note that we have engineered a succesful family financial turnaround. From having substantial credit card debt, we are now debt free and have investments in mutual funds. The hardest part is to get to the point when one has zero debt. I did not feel that much difference between owing ten thousand and fifty thousand, yet I feel richer having fifty thousand instead of just ten thousand.

As a final note, Filipinos seeking to be rich are struggling against a culture that socializes everyone to buy a house and a car as soon as possible. Both are status symbols that indicate that a person "has arrived." I don't see how anyone can feel that way if he still has mounting amortization debt to pay two decades down the road, which is not uncommon for the Filipino middle class. Instead of falling into that trap, my wife and I have decided to stay where we live (not the best neighborhood, mind you) and take public transportation until we generate enough cashflow to buy that house and car in cash (or at least with a big down payment). We will become rich; it's just a matter of time.