Book Review: Ang Pera na Hindi Bitin by Eduardo O. Roberto, Jr.

I first heard about this book from the TRP Mastery Academy that I attended to last February 1 and 2. Sir Larry Gamboa used this book as an example of how to target your audience. I got curious about the book but I forgot about it after the seminar.

However, last Friday after a meeting and while waiting for my husband, I decided to go inside National Bookstore. I was trying to look for a book on Warren Buffet when I saw this book on the "Bestseller" Section. I remembered that it was the book that Sir Larry mentioned during our seminar. I didn't think twice of buying it and even got surprised seeing that it is only Php50.

I started reading it the night I bought it and finished the day after. It was a great book from cover to cover. The author was very effective of referencing Bible verses on his every topic. The way the author discussed each strategy on money management was simple and can easily be grasped by ordinary people.

These strategies are:

1. Save – Use the “Automatic Millionaire” savings system. This blog post might also help explain it. He also made this quote:

"Ang taong ipon ng ipon, pera nya'y di lilipad na parang ibon."

This is true because the basic and first step to financial freedom is the art of "Saving".

2. Give – Give to the Lord. He doesn’t need our Money. We have a “Rich and Generous Dad”. But He wants us to do this to help us. The more we empty ourselves, the more blessings he can pour unto us.

3. Get out of Debt and Stop Borrowing – The Borrower is a Slave of the Lender. Set a goal of getting out of debt and never borrow again.

4. Live Simply – Living a simple life can help you get out of debt and help you to save more.  It pays to be frugal. And always remember to “PRAY before you PAY". He discussed in the book why we need to do so.

5. Work Hard and be an Entrepreneur – Develop and Monetize our God given talents.

6. Invest – The best to secure your future is through investments. But he noted that we need to “INVESTigate Before we INVEST. Don’t fall for the “Get Rich Quick” schemes. You can check mutual funds, the stock market, etc.

7. Educate Yourself – Invest in yourself. Attend seminars, read books, etc. “If you think Financial Intelligence is Expensive, TRY Ignorance”.

These strategies when followed will indeed be a very effective way of making our PISO not to be BITIN.

The book is short yet comprehensive, simple and straight to the point which will never bore the readers. The comic illustrations were also effective on bringing humor to the strategies recommended. It was also written  in “Taglish” which made it successful in delivering his message to his target readers.

Another thing I liked about the book was the page where it listed down their Book Recommendations. Some of them I have already read but most will be on my "To Read" List.

In Summary:

Price: Check

Content: Check

Recommended: Super Checck

My PISO Dream and Journey Continues...

I haven't update this blog for quite a while. I don't have an intention of abandoning it but some things changed in my life which also changed the manner I update this blog. My personal struggles and stories will be shared in this blog soon. I know you can relate to my stories.

So what made me post again?! We'll I didn't realized I wanted to be an author until I meet this person who inspired me and made me realize that I have the skills in Stock Market Investing that I can hone and use to help other people. Thus, I am striving really hard to improve this skill.  Part of the plan is to regularly update this blog. It can by about the stock market, real estate, funds, interesting investment or  anything that we could relate to "PISO".

Join my in my Journey and let's enjoy the ride and learn from each other. ;)

Blessings!!! :)

To our Financial Freedom and Beyond!

Automatic Saving and Cooperative

I've been MIA in this blog for quite some time. I got really busy with some stuffs in the office and our home. So what, chocnut? Nothing really. I just want to discuss something about automatic savings. I had read some stuffs regarding this in DEXTER's BLOG and just want to spread the good things about it.

Automatic savings is the a scheme or system that you may have in your company which you may or may not be aware of. Mostly this is a cooperative. The contribution is automatically deducted from your salary. I was a fan of cooperative since grade school. We have one in our school but it is just like a bank. We can deposit and withdraw anytime.

Our company cooperative is somehow different. Below are some of the details of how it works:
1.Our savings/contribution is being deducted every payday.
2. Minimum share is 2 which is equal to 200/payday.
3. We can change our share/savings anytime. We can increase or decrease it.
4. We can deposit an additional amount without going thru our payroll.
5. Annual dividend/interest is being deposited in our payroll account.
6. Past Performance dividend >10% annually. Not bad huh?
7. We can't withdraw our shares unless our savings reached 100k.
8. The excess to 100k is the only amount you can withdraw.
9. If you have a savings less that 100k and you want to withdraw,you would need to cancel your membership and just re-apply after a year.
10. You have to withdraw all your shares if you leave the company.

I like how our cooperative works. We are saving unknowingly. A 200/payday is equal to 4800 in a year. The only downside that I am seeing is that the dividend is given every year. Therefore the law of compounded interest is not applied. But still, we can play the game because we have an option to deposit an additional fund aside from our periodic deduction. Therefore,we can deposit the annual dividend back to our account. This means that we can still apply the law of compounded interest. The sad news is, I haven't done it yet. Something always come up. But we'll make sure that we'll do it next year.

Right now, we are analyzing if we should continue to save for our emergency fund in our bank account or just put our savings in our coop. Come and let's do the math.
Bank Interest = 0.75%
Coop Dividend is =10% for the past 7years

For a 200/payday savings, total savings plus interest after a year will be:

Bank = 4819.5
Coop = 5060

Coop interest will be higher but there would still be cons which I still need to think and list down before deciding.

But my point is that we should take advantage of an AUTOMATIC SAVING system in our work place if we have one. We can start saving without us knowing that we are already building up our retirement fund.