Seeing What's Out There
The day our financial planner said would come came.
My friend sold me her unused Bestecke SBS Solingen gold-plated flatware for 15,000 Pesos. She said she needed the money to pay off some debts and fast. I do not know the value of what was before me, but instinctively, I knew it was an opportunity. I took out my checkbook and wrote her a check.
It was weeks before I googled the thing. Turned out it was worth 1,350 to 1,600 in British Pounds, retail. Pounds!
The Lobby of Shangrila Mactan
A wealth attraction author believed that people should walk streets paved with gold so that they can attract wealth into their lives. Ricky Reyes’ version was a little crass: “Kailangan maging social climber ka tapos pag narating mo na yong itaas, balikan mo yung mga nasa ibaba.” You should be a social climber and then once you are at the zenith, return to the ones you have left behind.
So we went to Cebu and stayed at Shangrila Mactan to see streets paved with gold and social climb.
Inday, A Portrait
“Mam, wala nang bigas”. Ma’am, there is no more rice.
Inday can make me crazy sometimes. We just bought 600 pesos worth half-sack of bigas (rice) three weeks ago. And in the house, it was just me, husband D, daughter C, Inday 1 and Inday 2 . And Yo-yow, our Maltese brat, but she’s not counted because I do not give her people food (uhm).
D and I, we hardly eat at home. We eat out all the time (I am not complaining).
But there is no more bigas. The day before, no more drinking water. The day prior, out of Coke, and I do not even drink it. A week ago, no more cooking gas. Meralco, too high. Maynilad too high. If I think about it (and I do think about it), it is too easy for me to fall into the I-am-being-duped trap and go crazy. I imagine the Indays, which, by the way, is a form of endearment we use for our househelp, holding huge parties at my expense, having the TV on 24/7, aircon on full blast, cooking my food and my bigas and giving it away to friends, relatives, lovers, the whole subdivision and beyond.
But I refuse to fall into the trap. To quell my doubting heart, I asked Inday to make me The List.
Swimming Together
D and I have been meeting resistance from our financial planner these days.
We (okay, I) had wanted to purchase a lot at Tagaytay Highlands (fine, Midlands) which will give me a free club membership. He said no. I wanted to buy a foreclosed house for which I would pay a pittance for. He said no.
It could be quite frustrating to be told that you cannot buy something that you really, really want to have. But that is the function of a financial planner – he will tell you if you can, when you can, how you can. He is my personal financial brakes, someone to tell me that I am going overboard, or that I am just being silly.
Round Like a Circle in a Spiral
Are you ready?
Believe me, no one at the start really is. Some say the stock market is a simple game and playing requires only gut instinct, or no instinct, since the rule is buy low and sell high. Timing is everything and nothing in this game. No one knows when the bottom will come, even when a downward curve is on the horizon.
You can play two ways: online or live. You can see a list of trading participants (brokers, in street parlance) in http://www.pse.com.ph/. Click the link on the left side that says “Trading Participants”.
Hand to Heart
My daughter comes up to me and says, “Mom, I want to rest this summer.”
I shake my head in amazement. I look beyond her and am transported to hazy images of a time not long ago when I wanted to be ballerina, dancing in my pink tutu, crown on my head, traipsing over imagined ledges and leaping. Leaping! But money was spread too thinly over four kids and there was just no money for ballet classes, or extra classes for that matter. I can even see my mother and her worn out face, hear her “No”, touch her despair, wonder why in my looking glass I seemed nonchalant.
Reaching Up to the Skies
Financial advise comes from the most unexpected source sometimes.
I met Warren Buffett through a Chinaman, a name the Chinese were called a long time ago, and which I use here with awe and as a form of endearment. My Chinaman, let us call my Chinaman Mr. S, ushered me into the wonderful world of stocks.
He came one ordinary day into the office, wearing simple unassuming clothes, wanting advice for a tax problem. He did not impress me on day one, nor I him. He did not shake my hand when the meeting was over, only did some form of a bow, muttering that he still had a bus to catch. That would not have been odd except that I knew that his net worth was 290 Million Pesos, up from 29 Million Pesos, because he was a stock market genius. Having started learning about stocks that year, I knew I should have his ear, and he mine.
A Look Into the Future
It just happened.
I was in law school, one daughter, one husband, a house, no mortgage, no money. Husband wanted to quit work and start business and asked my permission to which I said, um, okay, how…?, yes.
If there is one important thing I learned in married life, it is the power of believing. If I believed in D, let’s call my one husband D, he suddenly soared, flew, made miracles, painted rainbows. If I nagged him, he would flail, shrink to nothingness, felled by my ungraciousness and unbelief. In the many years of our marriage, I always resorted to lashing out. In my years of law school, I who never put food on our table all those remaining law school years, would slay D with my words – and everything that remained – our confidence, peace, sanity – would shatter.