As a young professional, the first paycheck that we earn is very special to us. It opens up a new world, the world of spending. We often see the money that we earn as asset that we could just spend, the ability to finally buy things for ourselves. It often leads us to becoming careless on our spending.
Why do we have this mentality? Because in school we were thought to think in terms of science, history, ethics, math, don’t get me wrong, all these thing are great and important in honing us as individuals, but do these subjects actually prepare us for the real world? Does it prepare us for taxes? Does it teach us to budget, save and prioritize?
This is where financial literacy comes in. It is a way to rewire our minds and understand that our first paycheck isn’t just a paycheck but our first building block for a great future.
The youth of today, like myself, we follow trends. This drives us to be like everyone else but with our own unique and individual twist, we try to be the trendsetters yet we follow trend. We as the youth have one hobby that links us all and that is social media.
Social media may seem petty but it’s the thing that drives our lives, it is an item that often shapes us and leads to a high spending lifestyle. How so? We buy phones that have cameras that we can use to Instagram, Facebook, and twitter so that we can connect to friends.
We spend our earnings to stay connected to a world that only exists in cyberspace. Why, because we have the need to be seen and heard. There is nothing wrong with being seen and heard, what is wrong is forgetting to save and prepare for the future.
For people like you and me, young and earning, the future seems so far away. We live our lives by a motto of #Yolo and tend to pop bottles like there is no tomorrow.
What I want to impart is the importance of financial literacy, where #Yolo becomes #ready or #prepared. We need to step forward and be more mature with our money; we can live the lives that we want to live as long as we know our limitations. Yuppies often steer clear of the ready or prepared mentality because we feel that this isn’t the way to think and that we should at least enjoy our hard earned money.
I am here today to tell you that you can achieve this. That you can plan for the future without seeming like a Tita/Tito of Manila or being viewed as a Thander by your peers. It’s just changing your mindset of money to blow to money to keep and money to budget.
That is what financial literacy is, it is not taking away your liberty to enjoy but it is a way of prolonging and ensuring that you can enjoy for the rest of your life. A little sacrifice now can give you the brightest future.
*Thanks buddy for helping me out with this first article. You know who you are.
Francis Nicole U. Serrano or “Nico” is a Certified Philam Asset Management Inc. (PAMI) Solicitor and
a Registered Financial Consultant. He is also the LUA Phils. (Life Underwriting Association of the Philippines) 2015 Board of Trustee and Communications Head. A member of Junior Chamber International – Manila Jaycees, Nico is also an active volunteer of Angat Pilipinas Coalition for Financial Literacy.
* This is a guest post.
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