Financial Advice to Young People

   Okay, so continuing on the topic of financial literacy, I would like to emphasize again the importance of self learning. Believe it or not, when I asked my millionaire friend who the heck is his financial adviser to have made the amount money he had, he said, “I have the best adviser- the INTERNET.” At first I thought he’s got to be kidding me! But later, I found a video in ANC channel about youth investors and the investor being interviewed at that time said that the internet is indeed a minefield of information for young investors! So I did not waste any time. Since I’ve learned from my millionaire friend that I must start first with educating myself financially talking, I downloaded as many ebooks from the internet as I could. The topics are ranging from investing to personal finance to accounting. So now, I have a pretty amount of materials lined up to be read. If you want to look for free ebooks just as I did, you just need to be a little creative in how you search in the internet to get reliable sources of reading materials. When I scanned the ebooks I’ve downloaded, honestly, I got a bit overwhelmed. I did not know where to start. So instead of reading, I’ve watch videos first about financial advice to young people and I came across a video where Warren Buffet was a guest speaker to a forum of students. By the way, I only came to know about Warren Buffet, considered to be the most successful investor of the 20th century from that video. Obviously, he did not exist in my vocabulary before but ask any investor and he/she might actually know even Buffett’s current net worth. Same thing applies to you, if I ask you who is considered the father of health engineering in the Philippines, of course you don’t know. But ask me and I’ll tell you the guy’s name and even his mannerism when he talks. That is because I came from the engineering discipline and that person was my teacher for a couple of subjects in the University of the Philippines. (By the way, if you are curious, the answer is Dr. Wilfredo Jose.) So the vocabulary of a person tells you pretty much about what he/she knows and what world he/she is into. That’s why I only came to know about Warren Buffet when I got introduced into the world of investments.

   So going back to Buffet’s advice to young people, he also emphasized the importance of self-teaching and learning from other people. But the one thing that struck me the most is his line, “Discover the full potential of the talents you have. This is the only asset you have that can’t be taxed and can’t be taken away from you.” 

He also enumerated 5 elements of a wealth-growing mind:

1. Do not be afraid of making mistakes.

2. Know the power of compounding.

3. Learn how to move your money.

4. Educate yourself.

5. Learn to wisely allocate your resources.

Why this blog. How my 19-year-old friend is a millionaire. What was not taught in school.

Hello to you who is reading this. Okay, so first things first, I am not rich at this moment. I actually tried to mentally compute my net worth once and there's a high chance that your savings is even bigger compare to what I have estimated.   So basically, I am unlike other people who are writing about how to be rich or wealthy or prosperous or successful or whatever because  they are already there. I actually thought about that before writing this blog and I thought, who will actually read my blog? But when I thought of how many people are financially illiterate nowadays (actually including me), I said to myself, I will not be wasting my time anymore. I need to be doing something! Hence, this blog.   But that's not the whole story of course. It started when I came across this old friend who suddenly gave me a "big time" treat just 3 weeks ago. Let's just named him, Pao (for his own security, mahirap na) Okay, so Pao was my school mate in high school. I knew him as one who just shifted course from molecular biology to business  administration (big leap yeah!) and as someone who is self-supporting even though his family comes from the middle class.  Okay, so here is what happened. I was surprised when he treated me in a coffee shop and even more surprised when he said he would also treat me to a restaurant I know is very expensive.   I mean this guy was once borrowing P20.00 from me just for his jeepney fare! I knew something was off so I allowed my curiousity to wonder around until I discovered that he is already a MILLIONAIRE! Well, relatively, that is just small compare to what the rich people have but the thing is, he is still an undergraduate and he is YOUNGER than I. And you know what's his secret? KNOWLEDGE. It's not just knowledge as in academics (by the way, he is also an excelling student) but knowledge as in financial literacy. He is now a millionaire because he started to learn and accumulate knowledge in his early years. And it's not because his parents are rich and they manage businesses but because he realized that he can learn in his own and later, this learning can benefit him much which is happening now.

If he can do it, you and I can make it too. And that, my friends is what inspired me to seek to learn and discover something that is not really taught inside our classrooms- how to think and be rich. So the point of this blog is for me to share what I am learning so far and for you, if you may, to accompany me in this learning process I decided to take.  ;)

 This was the "big time" treat I was talking about. Imagine how come that my friend who was an "utangero" (someone who always borrows money) before can now affords this. You can't blame me for being curious, do you?