Art by Chiarra Briones
With every kick at my gut, I was reminded that I was not alone. With every fluttering in my stomach, I knew he was there, his father’s son, and he was coming very soon.
He came and I did not have any idea what I had to do.
How does one prepare for baby?
The Way to Wealth
I just passed the insurance examination given by the Insurance Commission and can now be ushered into the world of insurance agents and hustling and bustling. That made me uncomfortable and I told Nannette so.
Okay, I still had the image of the feisty, persistent, pesky seller of insurance who does not really explain or understand what he sells, does not hear the word “no”, does not stick around through the bad times (when the hapless insured can no longer pay the premiums), is just “interested” because of the commission he hopes to get.
I did not want to be that person.
Illumination
At our post-Christmas party, my partners at MoneyDoctors started talking about a credit card moratorium for their families – this meant they will not use their credit cards for 90 days.
With the Christmas indulgence, I also engaged in some wanton (haha!) and indiscriminate spending and have not been able to pay my credit cards in full. I still do pay way above the minimum but at the rate I am going, and with my steady monthly purchases (not to mention the interest payments, grrrr!), I do not know when I will be free (or if I will be free).
I knew then had to do something that drastic too – and fast!
Believe
1. Make a financial assessment.
A woman should know how much she has before she can decide what to do with how much she has. For many, this starts a series of wake-up calls, not to mention panic attacks. But wake up calls are good, and panic attacks are good because they set off something in the brain that makes it go to preservation mode.
Here is where the expensive coffee and clothes and bags and eating out and traveling have to go. Or at least cut by as much as seventy five percent.
Because to be wealthy is to carve out and use that seventy five percent for something that can bring in more income (read: investment).
Service
And she wanted money from me.
She told me in not very many words. Ninang pautang. Godmother, can I borrow money? It was masked as a loan, although the message, I think, is clear.
Play
You have become a Plants vs. Zombies addict.
And you have a headache.
You do not know when or how it happened. You just looked at your iPhone one day and tinkered with the downloading function and bought Plants vs. Zombies for $2.99 along with other games and applications. You are not a game person yourself. You use your time wisely. You know that these kind of games will not do anything for you – will not add a skill, will not improve any of your relationships, will not make you rich.
The Green Book: On Saving
I found this lone piggybank in a toy store and embraced it right away, looking suspiciously to my left and to my right to check if someone will get it from me.
No other takers. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Kidding.
But to tell you the truth, when I got it, I initially thought of giving it as a gift to one of my nephews or nieces but then as the countdown to Christmas lost digit after digit, I started wanting it for myself (it would be perfect too for my daughter…).
Year End Musings
But let me just say that from both ends, from the beginning until the end, there were a lot of good intentions.
Last year, we were invited to invest in a new venture – a restaurant. Hubby always wanted a restaurant to call his own and since we could not fulfill his dream yet because we are both so busy in our careers (design and law, respectively), we dived in, one eye closed.