The reason why people work hard is to have a taste of some of the best things the world could offer. And for most of us average earners, it’s having a taste of something better than our usual.
Some people order a cup of Starbucks coffee everyday while others would savor a weekly grilled rib eye in a fancy restaurant. We call it gratification, self-indulging, splurging, or simply, pampering ourselves.
Normally, when we talk about saving, the first thing that comes to our mind is preserving our money for our future use. To be more precise, Merriam-Webster defines saving as the act or an instance of economizing.
So what does it mean and what’s the impact of this general definition of saving to us? Is there anything wrong with the definition? Technically, there’s nothing wrong with it but perhaps, the most important point I could think of regarding this matter is the different connotation it imparts to us.
Pyramiding, Ponzi scheme and foreign currency trading scams are some of the most notorious money-tricking activities we’ve heard or read about. Actually there are a lot of other types of scams out there represented by different bogus companies but still follow the same blueprint, that is, to lure people to invest and then run away when the entire scheme collapses.
Frugality is tough. Since it focuses on buying things cheaply and prioritizing one’s needs rather than wants, people tend to look at it as if they are depriving themselves of the things they love to do and want to have. In short, a frugal lifestyle is both cheap and not fun at all.
This is the big misconception with the whole idea of frugality. While it’s true that you have to do a little bit of penny-pinching to follow this kind of lifestyle, the truth is you can live frugally without feeling deprived at the same time. All it takes is a whole lot of creativity.
A few years ago, with the help of various financial books and web articles, I learned the basics of saving money. When I thought that I successfully passed the difficult dilemma of unwise spending and paying off my debts, I soon realized that saving alone was not enough to achieve financial freedom. I have to invest my money.
But the thing is, many of us feel that parting away from our money is way harder than it seems to be. Well, I have to agree to that. When I started investing, apprehensions and fear always got the better of me.
After demystifying the stock market on my previous articles, let’s try to answer the most important question of all: How can we invest in the stock market? So without further ado, let’s all go straight to business and here’s how to do it.
FUND – Of course, the most important step is to have the money to invest. If you are a first time investor, please bear in mind that the money you can place in the stock market should be the money you CAN afford to lose because stock trading is really a high risk type of investment. With the sudden swing in the price of stock, earning or losing half of your investment in just one day is technically probable. So how much do you need to start investing? It usually takes P25,000 to open an account and start trading but some online stock brokers offer an initial investment of P5,000 only.
A Brief History
The Philippine Stock Market (PSE) is one of the oldest stock exchanges in Asia. It was established in 1927 in Binondo, Manila as the Manila Stock Exchange (MSE), two years before the New York stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression. Then in 1963, the Makati Stock Exchange (MkSE) was opened as PSE’s second trading floor in the booming Makati business district.
Currently, PSE still maintains two trading floors, one at the Ayala Tower One in Makati’s Central Business District and one in its headquarters in Ortigas, Pasig. Trading hours start at 9:30 am until 3:30 pm with a break period from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm.
We often say that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and yet most people don’t give an ounce of concern on what to do about it. Instead, they get too comfortable sitting at the bleachers to watch in awe rich people becoming richer and richer without even trying to find out how in the world they’d do that.
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