How much do you know about spending and investments?
Have you attended seminars about financial education for the last three years?
Have you read enough books to gain financial literacy?
Do you have mentors in terms of improving your financial health?
These questions will help you evaluate your financial literacy as of the moment.
It’s very sad to say that here in the Philippines, our school does not teach about personal finance. For me, financial literacy is seriously important and ignorance about finances is totally not a bliss. Knowing how the money works and how we should be able to take care our hard earned money is one of the most essential, but most often ignored by Filipinos.
One of the reasons why we never gave importance to the value of financial management is the old teachings we learned from the Catholic Church. We were under the Spaniards for more than 300 years and they instilled to our minds that money is not good, it’s the root of all evil, and therefore we have to remain small and poor. Spanish colonization taught us to struggle with our finances so we can trust God all the time.
Other reason for ignoring financial education is our own habit and attitude. Sometimes, we know that there’s a problem with the way we spend our money, but we don’t do something about it. There are lots of free programs to gain financial literacy nowadays, in addition to the inspirational speeches of Robert Kiyosaki or Anthony Robbins we can watch anytime in Youtube. But only few are taking advantage of it. Worse is when we finally gather what must be known and done about spending and investments, but we lack the attitude to be committed about it. We are not willing to give up Starbucks, high end restaurants, gadgets and branded clothing.
Important: One of the key to be successful in all aspects including finances and investments is discipline.
So why financial literacy is important? Simple - because we love people. Because we want to take care of our hard earned money, make it multiply so we can help our family, ministry and to help other people.
We don’t want to get involved in huge financial scams, just like the recent Aman Future Trading Group scam. If people are just financially literate, they would ponder and wonder what kind of business and what kind of product this is offering that enable to produce big returns in just a small span of time which appears to be magic. Keep in mind that all investments include risk and hard work. All investments that are “good to be true” should be avoided because the returns are also “too good to be true to achieve.” Don’t grab any opportunity without proper education and assessment. We want our money to be used for the benefit of our loved ones and of people who are really in need. We don’t want our money to be abused by greedy individuals.
Now...
Do you want to provide for your ministry?
Do you want to provide for your family?
Do you want to provide your simple joys such as long vacations out of the country?
Do you want to touch others by helping them improve their lives?
If your answers to the questions above are Yes, please join me in my journey towards financial literacy. Let’s maximize the available resources so we would know something about proper spending and investments.
Live a life of abundance,
Maya
