MAKE MORE, SAVE MORE, SPEND MORE THIS
CHRISTMAS!
By Atty. Reggie Duran
It’s
that time of the year once again, when most homo
sapiens behave the same way: SPEND! It is Christmas season! The spirit of the season can be overwhelming,
and the temptation to go on a spree is almost irresistible. It is something
that happens like clockwork, yet remains difficult to prepare for. I guess, for
most mortals like you and me, it is the constant scarcity of resources that
deserves reproach.
Sure,
no one wants to be a miser –one who lives poor just so he could die rich. We
want to enjoy, and share our blessings with loved ones and friends –and the
needy, particularly the disaster-stricken. We all want to participate in life! Nothing
is wrong with extra generosity –for most it is impulse buying–but let’s be
careful that it doesn’t bankrupt us. So how do we indulge in Christmas shopping
without smashing our bank accounts? The quicker answer is simply to make more
money, duh! Alright, so let’s talk about making money. Most of what we’ll cover
here you may not feasibly implement this Christmas, but at least, I hope they
will help you prepare better for the next.
Do more OT’s. We’ve got
tough competition on this one here. Sadly, looks like we’re not going to get
help from it this time. But it’s still a month to go, though, and hope springs
eternal.
Be a financial advisor. Let
us crystallize this so as not to scare the prospects among us: you don’t need
to do a hard sell. I don’t mean you to be a hard core salesperson. You are
still a lawyer. Let us just do other things on the side. I did insurance agency in the past dealing largely
on non-life (e.g. car and fire). It required no hard sell, but more on
contacts: friends and network of clients who trust you in what you do. Unlike
life insurance, which I found and continue to find difficult and require pushy
selling, non-life is more relationship-based. The thing for you to do is sell
them better coverage; venerable, reliable, and dynamic insurers; competitive
pricing; and most of all your relationship, which equates with personal
service.
Do real estate.
Again, this is “big item” sales you don’t need to push people to get them to buy.
Here, quality is more important than quantity in determining your success rate.
Focus on people you have relationships with, business that is, because you
likely know what business/es they are into and their ordinary requirements, or
extraordinary purchase requirement at a given time, instead of pitching to
every warm body you find next to you. Imagine if you are able to close just one
deal in a year, that could pretty much take care of your Christmas shopping!
get a license as salesperson, broker or appraiser. Talk to your
friends and clients like you are offering them help, which in fact you are. Unlike
in the past, prior to 1999, when everyone may sell real estate and claim
commission, there is now Republic Act 9646, which punishes real estate practice
without the required license with fine of not less than One Hundred Thousand
Pesos (PHP100,000.00), or imprisonment
of not less than two years, or both. Or better yet, TAKE MORE CASES! Uh uh! Only if you are a Project Attorney (PA).
That’s a no-no to Full Time Employees (FTEs). True, we take that to heart here,
or you’ll be damned. For FTEs you can do all else, but practice –why is this
raising eyebrows? For PA’s, you can be
an arbitrator: ask Raymond how.
Working more only gives you
so much. SAVE! Gladly, working more is not the only
way to make more money, try saving! I know this can sound BS. You might say
saving is not making more; it’s like a dog eating its own tail and calling it
nutrition, says a cliché. True, saving may not make more, but it does make more
available. By SAVE I meant to say not only to set aside a percentage of what
you make, but to save without cutting on spending. Yes, you heard me right, you
can save without cutting your list short. Now, this becomes more confusing so
let me break it down. You remember the things you spend on
every month/year, right? Insurance premiums; real property taxes; credit card
bills, etc. You tweak a little the way you deal with these expenses and you
make relatively substantial savings.
Pay your Real Property Tax
(RPT) early and get 20% discount. If you are like one of our friends
who lives in a Mansion in Multinational Village, you must be paying, hmm let me
see, 20% assessment level on land, say 40%-50% on improvement? At say 2% RPT,
your 20% discount (most cities in metro manila provide discounts to encourage
payment) for one-time whole year payment within deadline (usually end of
January) would be some Fifteen to Twenty Thousand Pesos (P15k-P20k). Not bad,
you’re paying for it anyway. You can even
schedule borrowing to pay off your RPT in cash to enjoy the 20% discount. Even
if you borrow at 10% per annum, you still get a 10% differential.
Insurance: car and fire.
Here’s the thing that demonizes insurance: it is an expense. You’re spending on
something you’re praying won’t happen. The problem is you can’t buy it when you
need it. By that time, it is too late. For it to work, you have to procure it
while the risk is still contingent. So for your peace of mind, procure a
comprehensive Motor Insurance policy. Motor insurance premium for a
comprehensive Policy could be anywhere between 1% and 2.5% for private
vehicles, and 3% and 6% for commercial vehicles (haven’t checked lately
though). It comes with coverage against Own Damage and Theft, as well as Voluntary
Third Party Liability (VTPL) Bodily Injury and Property Damage (BIPD) coverage.
That means you are covered against damage to and theft of your own car, and
against death or injury, and property damage, to third parties, including legal
liabilities. It also provides coverage for Unnamed Passengers Personal Accident
(UPPA) for your car’s driver and passengers against death and injury. Make sure, though, you ask for coverage
against typhoon, flood, earthquake, or volcanic eruption at an additional premium.
Otherwise, you could not claim against Yolanda, for example. Now, If you’re creative, and you have an
insurance license (if you don’t and you wish to acquire, you just have to
take an exam and pay a minimal regulatory annual fee) a call to a friend in an
insurance company can cut your expense by a fourth (representing commission of
25%). As regards your house, or commercial properties, including their
contents, the stakes are higher. You don’t want to leave such precious property
to chances or to the vagaries of the weather –Yolanda’s recent rampage gives us
a clue of what we’re up against. For the same Mansion in our example above, you
might be paying more or less 10k. That’s just P27 a day for your invaluable
peace of mind! And you know now what happens if you’re a licensed insurance
agent, cha-ching!
Credit cards can get you
mired in debt even before you knowing it. With this magic plastic in your
wallet, some observe and I agree, you’d be twice, if not more, as likely to
spend on things you don’t need. You are
an attorney and you will likely get two to five times as much for your credit
limit. That’s a recipe for financial quicksand, if you are not careful. So
don’t stoke your ego, the credit card company does not care about you, ouch! It
only wants to make a cash cow out of you. So get back down to the ground, wise
up, and make it a point to pay off your entire bill every billing cycle. The
way credit card companies charge for purchases that are left unpaid after due
date is convoluting. Some say they compute the interest charges reckoned from
the date of purchase, implying that payments may not always apply to earliest
purchases –mind boggling. To avoid it, keep in mind, as motivation, the money
you end up saving by paying all every cycle. It takes discipline and deliberate
consciousness, but you can do it.
Now
that you have some funds, and you see it’s still way to go before Christmas.
It’s time to make those funds work for you. There is a myriad of ways you can
make your money work for you for a short term: Trust Funds, Mutual funds, Money
Market Placements, Special Savings, so forth and so on. You already
know all those.
Join auctions on real
properties. Pursuant to
Section 260 and 263 of RA 7160 or the Local Government Code of 1991, the local treasurer
(City or Municipality), upon its certification of Delinquent properties, is
authorized to auction said properties to satisfy the tax delinquency,
penalties, and expenses of sale. You can actually bid and win even with few
tens of thousands. But to make sense of you going through all the exercise,
50,000.00 to 100,000.00 or even millions of capital if you have that much
sitting idly in your savings account, would make your while worth it. What’s in
it for you? You might be thinking wild: “damn I can own property for as little
as 50k to a 100k in QC?” Yes, you can!
Now,
let’s crank up the calculator and see how much money you have made. No doubt
you’ve made enough to make your Christmas shopping delightful and your bank
account intact.
Mission accomplished! Merry
Christmas!
