My Values and What I Think About Money

I think it’s about time that I wrote an “introduction”post in this blog that gives readers an idea of my personal ideas about money, how I make my financial choices, etc. This might help some of you understand why I’ve written some posts the way I did and why I make certain choices. Please share with us your own personal story about money in the comments.

I don’t like money for money’s sake. Some people say “I want 100 million pesos!” or “I want to win the lotto!”, but when you ask them what they want to do with the money, they tell you they don’t know. Or they’ll buy the same standard set of things – a big house, some cars, etc.

When I make personal goals about money, I have to know what the money is for. I don’t believe in getting rich just to get rich and buying things just because they are uso or everyone has them. The money means something else for me. It might mean security, adventurous travel, and doing the things you want to do – not necessarily having the things you want to have and saying to yourself “Basta, yun ang gusto ko eh”.

See, most of the time, when we really reflect on why we want some things, we find that the real reason behind the want (or a part of it) is that we just want to keep up with others. Or for the cool factor. It’s okay to admit these things to yourself – I’m guilty of them sometimes. Just be aware of them.

However, at the same time, while I believe in making frugal choices, I still believe you should make the purchases that are important to you – even if the price tag seems a bit heavy. As long as you can afford it, of course. Frugality is different from being cheap. You should still be able to buy the things you enjoy.

An example: I always need to have some tea around. Although I have some inexpensive Jasmine Chrysanthemum Tea (Healthy Lifestyles, P15.00 for a small box of 10 teabags) my favorite tea in the world is the Twinnings Apple Cinnamon Tea, which is roughly P220+ for a box of 20 teabags). I love the Twinnings Tea. So I buy it.

In other words, for me, being frugal isn’t about living so well below your means that you don’t get to enjoy the things you really enjoy. It just means being mindful of where your money goes and the value you get for each purchase.

One final thing – I think wealth is relative. It all depends on what your values are and how much your time is worth.

For example, Juan Dela Cruz earns almost P1Million a year. However, he has to work almost 18 hours a day to earn it – sometimes even on weekends. I’m not impressed. That, to me isn’t wealth. I prefer a per hour measurement of income compared with how much income it takes for you to live the life you want. If you do the math, you’ll see that Juan only earns less than P200/hour.

For example, if Maria DelaCruz earns P1000 an hour, but only works 7 hours a week so she can spend her time with her kids – I think she’s wealthy. At the end of the year, she’s only made P336,00, but I think she’s still wealthier than Juan.

How about you? How do you define wealth and frugality? Please share your ideas with us.

Making Money from Junk

I had this problem – my house was a collection of over 20 years of clutter. My mother and the other people who lived in my house, they kept everything. Even if it was broken, rotting, didn’t work, wasn’t used, can’t be repaired, or better off with someone else. In other words, I had over 20 years of junk on my hands.

Obviously, I had to clean it all up. This “whole house cleaning” was something I’ve been postponing because of the laborious hours it would require. But I finally had to do it to make some space for my home office.

While I was cleaning and sorting out the junk, I noticed that most of it was metal, Tupperware, various plastics, paper, and cardboard. All of these can be sold to junk shops.

So I called up the nearest junkshop, and they were more than happy to pick up the stuff from my house.

I earned P 1,000 from selling most of my junk (The other, still useful, things were donated) . It took 2-3 days to purge the house of all of it.

You’re probably thinking “One thousand pesos for 2-3 days! That’s not worth it!” If you’re going to look at it that way, I agree. I would never accept a job that offered that kind of hourly rate (roughly P60 per hour at most).

However, this was something I had to do. These things were gathering dust and eating up space – the space that I needed to be more efficient with work and to earn more money.

Getting P 1,000 in exchange for something you were gonna do anyway is an ok deal by me. Try it the next time you do a complete house cleaning project.

Recipe: Chive Butter Toast

These slices of Chive Butter Toast accompanied my Valentine’s day dinner with Scout.  It was yummy.  Here’s the recipe (again, not exact measurements).

Ingredients:

• 3 slices of bread, cut in half
• 3 onion leaves (chives), cut into 1/2 centimeter pieces
• 1 small clove of garlic, minced
• 1/4 of a block of butter

Directions:

1. Slightly melt butter (in a microwave, saucepan, whatever) but take it out of the heat while it’s still a bit lumpy.
2. Add the chives and garlic in the partially melted butter.  Mix well.
3. Spread butter mixture onto bread slices.
4. Toast bread slices until light brown.

This is great when eaten with soup or pasta, or used as croûtons in salad.

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