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You must be grinning from ear to ear these past few days. With the Christmas Holiday Season around the corner and it’s now almost the end of the year, bonuses are now raining down. Some have already received their early nth…nth month pay. You might be one of those lucky ones who have already gotten these bonuses. If you still haven’t, don’t fret, just keep smiling…it will soon come.
So, as everybody is happy and excited to spend their cash gifts, I’ve heard some are already shopping for teaching materials, others have already posted photos of their house renovation on Facebook, some just got themselves new furniture and flat screen TV. It’s really exciting isn’t it? I myself can feel the vibes just hearing these stories. But on the other side, I feel a bit sad and worried because I haven’t heard any yet talking about saving or investing.
Well, who am I to comment right? I am just merely another ordinary teacher who won’t even have a chance to receive a bonus this Christmas. I might be misinterpreted as sour graping mammal for asking, “How about savings?” But friend, I’ll forget this fear for once in this blog entry for a higher aim that I might be touching your core and later agree with me that you should spend your bonus in a different way this year, for a change.
I’m not saying that you should forgo the fun. If you’ve read some of my blogs before, I always believe that fun must be a part of our day to day financial planning but I am also a strong believer of delayed gratification and long term fun.
And so, below, you can find some suggestions that you can follow to change the way you spend your cash bonus this year for brighter years to come.
1.Give a cash gift to yourself first
Before start spending your bonus, set aside a certain percentage for yourself-the one that we call “regalo sa sarili” (a gift to the self). Deposit this amount in your bank account. No matter how small it is, atleast before this year ends, you haven’t spent all your cash that you have managed to save some.
2.Partially pay your debts
This is if you have debts. Debt is a modern day slave master. The only way to gain your freedom from it is to pay off your debts one step at a time and the best time to start doing that is NOW because you have an extra cash on your hand.
3.Start a stock market investment
All you need to have is to separate 5000 Pesos as your minimum amount of investment so that investing in the next months to come will be light and convenient. Easier I must say because it’s not every month that you receive a …nth bonus, right? As another year comes, you just need to regularly separate little amounts from your monthly salary to invest.
4.Open a bank account or mutual fund for your children
Christmas is for children as they say, so we usually have the practice of bombarding them with gifts. If you have kids, how about instead of buying the most expensive toys or most expensive shoes in the mall this year, why not get them a BETTER GIFT? that they can benefit from in the future like a mutual fund where they can add up the cash they will be collecting from their ninongs and ninangs (God parents) this Holiday Season?
It is my strong wish that you will consider any of the options I’ve given today. The bottom line is, whatever plans you have in mind of how to spend your bonus this year, don’t forget to set aside something no matter how much the amount is for your future needs.
Would you like to share how will you spend your 13th and 14th month bonus this year? Or do you have more suggestions in mind that may help us improve our saving and investing habit? Please don’t hesitate to share it with us on the comment box below.
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