A “Think Rich Pinoy” with a tagline Creating One Million Pinoy Millionaires by 2020 event flashed on my facebook. Clicking the link, I discover it is a Think Rich Pinoy Seminar to be hosted by Larry Gamboa (best selling author of “Think Rich, Pinoy”) at Philamlife, Manila on February 16 and 17. I reserve my judgement on the seminar since I’ve never attended it. The thing is the fee is only Php1,450 pesos which is more affordable than the Make Money Online Seminar that has an entrance fee of Php6000 pesos.
One never can never go wrong in real estate investment. It is a hedge against inflation and a source of passive income. My father, a self-made man, was orphaned during his teens. He survived because his parents left a few coconut lands which gave his five siblings some passive income. More important than acquiring wealth, I learned from my dad the importance of risk-taking, investment and managing personal finances at a young age.
Whether or not one becomes a millionaire has very little to do with the amount of money you make, whether one attends this real estate or the Make Money Online Seminar.
It’s the way that you treat money in your daily life. More than grabbing an income opportunity, these seminars need to remind the participants that it is possible to be a millionaire but it’s just as important to learn how to manage personal finances.
We can learn some of these lessons from this article on 10 possible reasons you aren’t a millionaire:
1. You Care What Your Neighbors Think: If you’re competing against them and their material possessions, you’re wasting your hard-earned money on toys to impress them instead of building your wealth.
2. You Aren’t Patient: Until the era of credit cards, it was difficult to spend more than you had. That is not the case today. If you have credit card debt because you couldn’t wait until you had enough money to purchase something in cash, you are making others wealthy while keeping yourself in debt.
3. You Have Bad Habits: Whether it’s smoking, drinking, gambling or some other bad habit, the habit is using up a lot of money that could go toward building wealth. Most people don’t realize that the cost of their bad habits extends far beyond the immediate cost. Take smoking, for example: It costs a lot more than the pack of cigarettes purchased. It also negatively affects your wealth in the form of higher insurance rates and decreased value of your home.
4. You Have No Goals: It’s difficult to build wealth if you haven’t taken the time to know what you want. If you haven’t set wealth goals, you aren’t likely to attain them. You need to do more than state, “I want to be a millionaire.” You need to take the time to set saving and investing goals on a yearly basis and come up with a plan for how to achieve those goals.
5. You Haven’t Prepared: Bad things happen to the best of people from time to time, and if you haven’t prepared for such a thing to happen to you through insurance, any wealth that you might have built can be gone in an instant.
6. You Try to Make a Quick Buck: For the vast majority of us, wealth doesn’t come instantly. You may believe that people winning the lottery are a dime a dozen, but the truth is you’re far more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery. This desire to get rich quickly likely extends into the way you invest, with similar results.
7. You Rely on Others to Take Care of Your Money: You believe that others have more knowledge about money matters, and you rely exclusively on their judgment when deciding where you should invest your money. Unfortunately, most people want to make money themselves, and this is their primary objective when they tell you how to invest your money. Listen to other people’s advice to get new ideas, but in the end you should know enough to make your own investing decisions.
8. You Invest in Things You Don’t Understand: Your hear that Bob has made a lot of money doing it, and you want to get in on the gravy train. If Bob really did make money, he did so because he understood how the investment worked. Throwing in your money because someone else has made money without fully understanding how the investment works will keep you from being wealthy.
9. You’re Financially Afraid: You are so scared of risk that you keep all your money in a savings account that is actually losing money when inflation is put into the equation, yet you refuse to move it to a place where higher rates of return are possible because you’re afraid that you will lose money.
10. You Ignore Your Finances: You take the attitude that if you make enough, the finances will take care of themselves. If you currently have debt, it will somehow resolve itself in the future. Unfortunately, it takes planning to become wealthy. It doesn’t magically happen to the vast majority of people.
Financial responsibility is an attitude. I can be a billionaire but if I am not responsible, I will lose my money in a week’s time. Money goes out to pay necessities and luxuries. Money must come in, in order to go out. How much money needs to come in to equal that which is going out?
Taxes, savings plans, appropriate spending habits that demonstrate an attitude of financial responsibility. Even if we have a contract with someone else to provide for our financial needs, we need to understand the workings of the money earned and spent in our life.
It’s my hope that these “Think Rich” or “Make Money Online” seminars show lessons about financial responsibility so that the “One Million Pinoy Millionaires by 2020” is not a short lived dream.
The real reason why the Philippines is poor is because of politicians pandering to the church.
Spending less than you earn, and saving/investing is only applicable to a small portion of the Philippines upper middle class.
For the majority of middle class, poor and very poor population of our country, the daily struggle to put food on the table is a reality.
The Arroyo government has ignored reality like this, denying for example a large portion a way to curb the population. She never did have the guts to stand up to the church lobbyist.
Contrary to what Arroyo said about our economy getting better, there is a strong correlation between overpopulation and poverty. Common economic sense tells us that when resource is limited, increasing the population will shrink the resource.
Take a scenario where your lunch consists of one fish. The only problem is you are about share this single piece of fish with 100 people everyday. What effect would this entail? Majority of the 100 people would starve.
Now imagine this 100 people, have 5 children each, and you would have a catastrophic situation wherein crimes would go up, education of the children would suffer, health care would be virtually nonexistent. Street beggars, destitution, slum houses would be common. A.k.a. Philippines.
Our already overburdened resources and facilities, cannot match the overflowing population. This is why we have so many OFWs to bring in an influx of resources from the OUTSIDE.
Arroyo is weak, lacking any real leadership. Despite pressures from women’s group, population control advocates, economists, and job-creating tycoons, she doesn’t have the leadership guts to say no to church lobbyist. Pander, pander, pander.
@michael- You are right, I am pertaining to a small group in the social class. I think the Think Rich Pinoy even targets the OFW .
The poverty issue has long been a problem even many years ago before Marcos was booted out. The economic policy to start with is weak. It stressed on industrialization instead of promoting our agricultural products.
Removing Arroyo alone is not the solution. It’s the total rehab of the economic policy. Sustainability should start in the provinces.
Hi Noemi, I did one mistake, that was no. 7, I rely on other people to take care of my hard-earned money. I’ve invested in a lending company, where they gave me a lists of military men and politicians who are also their investors (like the PNP intel dept.). The company gave 10% interest on my money every month. For one year, I would received such. But on the 2nd year of my investment, the guy left the country with the billions of pesos-investment. The investors hurriedly filed estafa cases, but didnt recover a single centavo up to now, moi included. The guy is now in Canada. While DFA hasn’t cancelled his passport yet. Whew! Now I know better, I’ve attended Bo Sanchez’ business seminar, mentor is Larry Gamboa…
#10 should be #1. Before investing, you have to make sure that you have money to invest. So many people (myself included) tend to forgot how much they spent the previous week and get a nasty surprise when they receive their credit card statement(s) the succeeding month. A budget is only good if you actually follow it. =)
IMO.
I agree with the 10 reasons, although I’d have to add two more (although they are in support of some of your reasons). One is that you should also learn to spend within your means. You can’t spend with what you don’t have. As simple as that. And yes, it may be true that it’s easier said than done for those in the lower class. But never true that it has never been done. There’s always a way to make more money.
Second is that you should try to pay off all your debts esp. those that are interest bearing (like credit cards). That is unless you are using other people’s money (ex. the bank) to make more money than the interest, then why not. But generally, banks have a high interest so the best bet is to pay off your credit cards in full.
I totally agree with you that it doesn’t matter how much we make or made, but rather how we treat money. It’s not the government’s fault. It is a factor… but not a reason, nor an excuse that we are not taking care of our money.
🙂 Bloghop.
This is a very good post. I hope that many readers like myself learn a lot from these reasons. Thank you for sharing this one.
Let me add.
Before anyone dreams or mag-ambisyon maging rich, dapat:
Maging “financially literate” muna. Being “financially literate” does not mean that one must go to business schools get MBA or doctorate degrees. It simply means that one must know the basics. The most basic thing is to know what is an asset and a liability (one way to have a grasp on the key financial matters sa ating buhay para we are fit to use and manage money).
asset in simple term means anything or something that brings money to the pocket. Liability on the other hand is anything or something that brings money out of the pocket.
knowing these two simple things (that most people ignored or taken for granted kaya di yumayaman or financially insecured – work dependent income), one can make a great decision on what to make with whatever money one may have to create more money.
So instead of buying liabilities, you now buy assets (assets must always pay for liabilities).
Another thing is to save, save, save and save. How to save? Change the old formula from Income less expenses equals savings to income less savings equals expenses (ito ang mathematical formula ng sinasabi nila na live within your means).
and the most important, dapat one must learn to make money work for you instead of you working for the money (sabi kasi ng mga parents at outdated educational system: study hard, be the best, take mba, doctorate degree and work for them.ha ha ha).
Thank you Ms. Noemi for sharing this and for all the readers na nag share ng mga thoughts nila.
I am an OFW who is struggling to save and hoping that one day can retire and live a comfortable life (matagal pa ata yun, 27 pa lang po ako)…
Hope you share some finance/business/money tips sa mga tulad ko na gustong yumaman…
Thank you po!
Ms Happy Joy,
Do not just “hope” but believe as you act with a burning desire that you can retire and live a comfortable life. It’s a matter of having the right mindset, commitment and action.
From someone who has “no Real Estate experience”, I am now part of the 2020 Pinoy Millionaires Mission. I’m one of the pinoys being mentored. I had been doing Real Estate entrepreneurship for a year and had acquired and sold properties, even with no or little money out. I had also known about financial literacy and/or responsibility, which is very important as Noemi mentioned, and am doing my best to put it into action.
To first, help you have the right mindset, feed your soul with The 33 Amazing Laws of Success and Prosperity. Attend the seminar and get also 6 FREE Best-selling Audio and Video Success-Motivation CD’s to reinforce your learnings even after the seminar. Seminar Fee is only 2,000.00. Visit http://33amazinglaws.blogspot.com for more info.
God bless and prosper us all!
hi!
i just came across your blog and i’d like to attest to that!
i started my real estate investing career by reading robert kiyosaki’s rich dad poor dad… then larry gamboa’s think rich pinoy…
later on i attended the seminar…
guess what?
i’ve now completed and profited from 2 real estated deals!
i heard they’re holding another one on nov 22. just try googling think rich pinoy for details.
go girl power!
🙂