Crisis Era

In our forum, one of the topic was "Hirap ng buhay..nararamdaman nyo na ba?".

Definitely yes. As days gone by, it's getting harder and harder to budget our money for our needs and other expenses. Sometimes, we came to the point that we need to borrow money from others just to meet the budget. I earn above average every month but still, it seems not enough.

Someone once told me that "the higher your salary does not qualify you in living a better life. the higher your salary gets, the more you tend to have a more luxurious life."

If you earn 10k yesterday and earn 20k today and you are still broke then maybe it's not the amount in the paycheck that is your problem, but the factors that surrounds your spending of money.

According to kiyosaki, "it's the lack of financial education that keeps poor people poor and become poorer".

A need is a need, but a want is something else. if someone has been deprived of something, the more he longs for that something. and when he got the chance to get that something, he grabs it. the problem is when to stop wanting something and when to know if we have crossed the borderline.

the poor gets poorer because they have been deprived of the things the average/rich people has so when he had the chance, he tends to be drown into the realm of unwanted buying. he says i have the money now and i want it. over and over until he can't stop his self. when should they stop?

A need shouldn't be taken off priority and never should be. the hardest challenge in having money is the self-control over the wants. is it a "when question" or "should i" ?

People have different priorities but we all have the same denominators. we all have basic needs. the difference, how we prioritize these needs.

I am guilty of improper money handling. Sometimes, though i have allocated a money for something, still i am able to pull it off. What i do is to separate these money in somewhere else. I am not a shopaholic person so I don't waste money in clothes and stuffs. But I am a gluttonous person with a big, stretchable tummy :P. I eat and eat and eat, though eating is a need sometimes i get extravagant on what i eat and where to dine. It doesn't matter if i don't have new clothes for as long as I have dined to anywhere i want.

And because it is crisis, i am more pressured in tight-budgeting especially now that my brother is in high school. I try to maintain balance in spending. Mind over matter, that's what all is saying.

I don't buy stuff that i don't need even if i find something useful. I don't go with the trend. I am not a techie person. I am a very spendthrift when it comes to material stuffs. I don't fall for people teasing or luring me to new things.

To survive nowadays is to stay away from temptations. And if you are surrounded with such, you'll need a lot of courage to fight it and a strong discipline in yourself.