by Jet Villamor
Christmas season is usually the time of year when pockets are filled (because of the expected bonuses and thirteen month pay) – but this is also usually the time when people get to spend more than what they can afford because of some sentimental reasons. Though a lot of people still survive Christmas, more are left with debts – of gratitude, maybe, but some are into real monetary debts going through the new year.
The kid in me loves this time of year since I can very well remember my childhood when lots of people gave me all sorts of denominations. As I walked through the Christmas season, I was usually one of the ‘richest’ kids in our household. But the adult in me is more expectant as Christmas approaches because this is my chance to give back to the kids around me what was given to me by those generous adults in my youth.
In my childhood days (until today), Christmas was usually associated with abundance – the giving made it really concrete.
There are those who are wary of Christmas though, you may have heard of some ninongs or ninangs hiding at this time of year all in the name of being embarrassed because they have nothing to give this Christmas.
With all the sharing and giving this season, some people’s pockets run dry.
Haven’t you noticed the attitude of some people when Christmas season is just around the corner? Many of them will say, “yehey – Christmas bonus or the 13th month pay will be credited in my account the last week of November. Hmmmmm, I have this much. I will buy myself this, that and that.” Before you know it, your money is gone – worse, you didn’t even have the chance of feeling it in your palms because you’ve already used it by way of swiping the credit card even before it was credited to your account.
It’s easier said than done, but we just have to make some adjustments in the way we think and the way we use our resources. All we have to do is clarify our objectives and arrange our priorities.
When we have the money we should be sane enough to discern where that money should best fit. The assumption is, you already know exactly what your financial objectives are. But one of the saddest realities is that not too many of us are too keen, or we do not even bother examine our financial objectives that really matter to us.
Majority just go through life not minding the future because we are just too busy spending to meet our day to day expenses which occupy close to 100% of our attention.
We should try to learn to prioritize our financial objectives because if we only do the shotgun approach of come what may, the risk is too high for us not to be able to meet some of the most important financial objectives.
Prioritizing is never really easy, simply because our financial goals constantly bump off each other. Saving religiously for retirement may take away money from the long scheduled, well deserved vacation for the family. Or, consciously putting aside funds for retirement may just simply rob off some amount for the education funds of the kids.
Conflicts in terms of our financial objectives are definitely a real thing, always a game of tug of war – education vs. retirement, vacation vs. amortization of a new car, premiums for life insurance vs. liquidity so on and so forth. There is no other better way of dealing with these continuing problem but prioritizing a case of making a pre-decision. Meaning, even before the conflict will occur a decision is already made because you have decided before hand what your priority is.
The best thing to do now is to decide which financial goal has got to be number 1. Then, when numbers are determined, work on the lesser goals only when those real important goals have already been done.
