Manage your money, financial adviser tells workers, students in Calbayog

By GINA SUELLO-SORILO
February 17, 2008

CALBAYOG CITY, Samar  –  Money earned from sweat may only be used to buy or spent for needs and our wants may be acquired only with investment income.

Financial adviser and founder of Colayco Foundation for Education had this remark during the LGU-initiated Financial Management Seminar dubbed “Pera Palaguin” at the TTMIST Socio-Cultural Center on Feb. 12.

Speaking before city officials and employees, DepEd Supervisors and principals, TTMIST administrators and students, CKC teachers and students and private firms’ representatives, Colayco stressed the importance of investment.

“Investing is a mindset of abundance. I-apply natin sa buhay ang 80-20 rule. ’Yung kinikita natin sa pawis, let us live within 80 percent of that…yung 20 percent ibabayad natin sa sarili natin. ’Yan an gating capital pagpalago. Yung perang panggastos sa luho dapat nanggagaling sa perang kinita na ng pera. Ang nagiging problema kasi sa atin hindi natin ma-distinguish ano ’yung pangangailangan, ano’yung luho,” he said.

Colayco further said it is our obligation not an option to build capital over our lifetime for the simple reason that the country’s economy is market-driven and only 10 percent of the world’s governments are central governments. “Yung ibang central governments ang gobyerno ang bahala sa populasyon.”

He also noted that very few of us save and the few who save, they save to spend adding that their advocacy in the Colayco Foundation is to “keep what you earn and do more with what you keep.”

Colayco Foundation is an organization dedicated to the promotion of financial literacy among the working class, the average income earner, Overseas Filipino Workers and students.

Aside from Colayco, other officials from the foundation who attended the seminar were Aristotle Cala and its Executive Director Armand Bengco.

It was the first time that Colayco was invited by an LGU to a seminar and for his part he was very impressed about mayor Mel Sarmiento’s outlook. He said the mayor is very creative, forward looking and has concern for his constituents. “Kasi why would he invite me to talk,” he added.

Human Resource Management Officer-in-Charge Asner Dean, the focal person of the activity said the seminar’s aim is to raise the awareness of the employees on how to manage their available personal resources.

Colayco’s bestseller books Wealth Within Your Reach, Pera Mo Palaguin Mo; Making Your Money Work, Pera Mo Palaguin Mo! 2; Money For Kids, and Pera Palaguin Workbook were distributed in the seminar.

In an interview shortly after the book signing which capped the activity, Colayco told reporters that private and government employees have to do something themselves because there is no company that can guarantee all their requirements. He urged them to invest in addition to those things that their company or their government is giving them.