Long lines in ATM booths would usually mean boring hours of waiting for most of the students especially when one runs out of allowance, but not to the MIDSA scholars. Every minute less of standing and waiting for one’s turn to check their account is hope for finally having their long-awaited delayed allowance. Hope to at last be debt-free from the beloved DSA office, from our very own Mr. Apao. Hope to be out of the pancit canton-noodles diet. Hope to once and for all enjoy the well-deserved luxury of the allowance privilege that every scholar fought for every exam. Then there, the ATM shouts out in front of their face blinking—allowance received! “What am I to do then?”, a scholar would eventually ask himself after the shock.
We often wonder, after all the spending, where all our money went. Most of the time, it leaves us clueless where the bills in our wallets flew. As it is said by the prophet Haggai, “You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it” (Haggai1:6b).
In usual occasions, a MIDSA scholar will pay their way off the debts, buy the necessary stuff and treat the friends that had helped them through the rainy days. Few of these coincide with the tips from a book on dealing with proper spending. To give us an overview with how wise we scholars handle our money and help us decide with what to do best with our allowances, here are financial stewardship advices by Eduardo Roberto, Jr. from the book Ang Pera na Hindi Bitin.
Get out of debt and stop borrowing. It is difficult to be buried in debt. As King Solomon said, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower becomes the lender’s slave” (Proverbs 22:7, NASB). Take your spending apart from your emotions. We must not let our emotions compel us to spend on impulse. Sometimes when we are asked by our peers for some treat, we take the trap to save ourselves from shame though we don’t have much as of the moment. Also, in times of depression from failing exams, we may feel like escaping the bad mood so we carelessly spend though we are out of budget. Emotions sometimes may mess up our decisions regarding money. It is so much easy to say, “Bahala na” during the peak of our emotions but we’ll be better off controlling our feelings.
Save. It is also wise to keep a portion for the rainy days. “Pay yourself first” as financial writers may call this principle. From the book The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, the writer simply highlights the idea: Keep on automatically saving a fraction of your salary or income every month. This may too works with our monthly DOST allowance. Moreover, our grandfather Albert Einstein said, “The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest”.
Live Simply. Living a simple life makes it much easier to save money. We may too learn from the millionaires reported by Forbes magazine living simple still. Warren Buffet who had gone far as $47 billion lives in the same house that he has lived for the past 50 years and drives a pick-up truck. Carlos Slim, 70-year-old Mexican billionaire who’s richer than Bill Gates lives in the old house he bought 40 years ago. Even Henry Sy, the Philippine’s richest man and founder of SM still walks himself to the dirty market and even bids for lower prices. The best-selling book The Millionaire Next Door quotes that “being frugal is the cornerstone of wealth building.” Apostle Paul too reminds us, “Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth” (1 Timothy 6:6, NLT).
Give. We may all notice that there’s something in giving that leaves us a good feeling inside and makes us smile genuinely. Also, it may be well to share our blessings for after all we are much blessed to have it shared to us, scholars by the government. The prophet Malachi too recalls to us the Lord’s words, “Bring to the storehouse a full tenth of what you earn so there will be food in my house” (Malachi 3:10, The Every Day Bible Version).
So Scholars pause. Have you had your latest DOST monthly allowance at its highest value? 🙂
(c) Christina Garcia | written for MSU-IIT DOST Scholars Association (MIDSA) Publication, 2012 Issue.
tinang 