One of the
very instrumental material that opened my horizons on my long journey towards
financial freedom is a book titled “Pera Palaguin Workbook: Practicing What You
Learned!” written by Mr. Francisco J. Colayco and Professor Helen S.
Valderrama.
Along with
the books “Wealth Within Your Reach: Pera Mo Palaguin Mo!” and “Making Your
Money Work: Pera Mo Palaguin Mo! 2”, these books were really gems that will definitely
awaken your senses from long financial illiteracy slumber.
How these
books have created influence on me and how they steered my journey towards financial
freedom will take me back ten years ago when everything about my life was
wonderful except the financial aspect.
I was employed
with Selecta Walls, Inc. (now Unilever RFM Ice Cream, Inc.) as one of the Supervisors
for Engineering at that time. I am receiving about P32,000 pesos as monthly
compensation, an above-average salary not including the overtime pay which I am
rendering frequently.
Having three
small kids and a house mortgage that needed to be paid every month, I wondered
and confused as well how my income was not able to sustain my family’s needs that
sometimes we resort to credit cards to pay groceries and other things that our
household needs.
With poor
financial knowledge, the high salary that we thought was more than enough to
support our living expenses have turned out into an inadequate source of
income.
I started to
ask myself why such a predicament is happening and how could I diffuse such dilemma.
My initial reaction
is to monitor our expenses. I bought a record book and started to record our
expenses up to the detail most especially my personal expenses going to and
from the manufacturing plant.
However,
even when the expenses were already in detail (thanks for that blue record
book!) and the figures are there glaring in front of my eyes, I don’t know how
to react and make actions to correct and plug the holes of wrong spending.
The answer
to my financial miseries came to my path when one day, I dropped in one of the
branches of National Bookstore on my way home. I saw that thin black soft-bound
book with yellow edges and in its front cover is a white - haired man smiling
as if saying “Come buy me, I have the answers you are longing for”.
I got some
bills from my Pony wallet and paid the price of P145.00 for the said book and
went home. Once I got home, I put the book into my book shelves for me to read
it on the coming Sunday morning.
I read the
book that early Sunday while I drink my favorite coffee blend. The book was not
your usual book full of talks, motivations and theorems but of How To’s and exercises
that you need to do to understand how exactly you are performing on your
financial life.
Yes, the
book will make you obliged to tabulate your Statement of Assets and Liabilities,
calculate your Net Worth and prepare your Personal Income and Expenses
Statements (PIES) based on the exercises that is written in the book.
These are
simple exercises yet it made a huge impact on my financial life. It awaken me
on how we spent our finances the wrong way and shows us the way on how we can
correct these misconceptions by understanding on how to spend with the
necessity items and turn-away from the luxury items or wants.
Nine years
had passed from that day, on the present day today, a very meaningful event had
happened to me and my wife.
Both of us were
invited to the launching and screening of a very new personal finance TV show
titled “Nang Magising Si Juan” last Tuesday, 13th of May, by no-less
than the Manager for Operations of the Colayco Foundation for Education, Inc.,
Ms. Kimi Villa-Real.
The show, by
the way, will be aired every Sunday on GMA NewsTV starting May 18, 2014.
Both of us
were very excited to attend the event. But for me, it would be extra-meaningful.
Why?
It will be
my very rare chance to see and rubbed shoulders with my idol, no-less than
Philippine’s Personal Finance Guru, Mr. Francisco J. Colayco.
And most
importantly, I will have my once-in-a-lifetime chance to have my most important
book, the “Pera Palaguin Workshop book signed by him.
And what
happened next?
I got his autograph
for my book, talked and laugh with him in person and got a souvenir copy of his
best-selling “Wealth Within Your Reach: Pera Mo, Palaguin Mo!” book!
My Sunday morning coffee, definitely, will be tastier this time around!