Beginner’s Guide To Save Money Wisely For Filipinos

Written by Christian B Padillo

You probably heard your friend say, “Tsaka na ko mag- iinvest kapag may ipon na ako.”

Well actually you can save money whenever you can; careful planning and knowledge can direct you to financial freedom.

If you are interested, read these helpful money saving tips.

1. Save money by allocating at least 20% to your savings account.

How do you define savings? One of the biggest mistakes that Filipinos make is how they define savings. It usually equates to

Salary – Expenses = Savings instead of Salary – Savings = Expenses

Living in the Philippines it is understood that you have to pay the bills, rent or house mortgage, and transportation and give money to your family but at the end of the day, what is left to you? Not so big right?

So here is a quick tip, whenever your money comes in, get the 20% and deposit it directly to your savings account.

Not only that it would help you jump start your investment, you will have enough money to cover for any emergencies that will happen in the future.

2. Lessen your expenses.

Since having a raise happens once a year, the best way to save money is to lessen your expenses. Here are some suggestions:

a. Plan your meals. This could really save you a lot of money if you take packed lunch in the office and buying in bulk can actually let you save more. This is not so hard because we have a lot of amazing cooking mothers and great cooking bebots (beautiful ladies) in the Philippines.

b. Try to stay at home more on the weekends. Chances are if you are outside the house, temptation is everywhere especially when you are at the mall. You tend to eat expensive meals and transportation just adds up.

c. Buy local. It may not be so obvious but by buying local you can actually save a lot of money because these items are cheaper. Not only you are getting savings you are actually helping the Philippines’ economy. How about hitting two birds with one stone sound like?

d. Cut down your cable and landline. Do you really use these? With cell phones and computers you can actually watch TV shows on the internet and actually talk to people in your country and overseas and that is for free!

3. Get easy money!

Place a jar at home and whenever you have spare change you earn from public transport put it there and you will be surprised on how much you will be saving. Let’s put in numbers. Let’s say you save ₱10 a day.  Let’s put it in numbers.

A week                                ₱ 70.00

A month                             ₱ 280.00

A year                                  ₱ 3,650.00

Just imagine the easy money you would get on your spare change right?

The common thing that we Filipinos usually lack is the knowledge on how to save money which is not actually the problem. Acquiring knowledge on how to save money is only 10% of the battle and the rest goes to the discipline we put in saving money itself.

So when you spend a peso in your pocket, question yourself, does it add value to you? Interested on opening a savings account? Check out our comparison table for savings accounts to know your options.

This article was first published in June 2013 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy and comprehensiveness.