Sonny (not his real name) worked as a janitor in one of the offices in Makati City with a P7,000 a month salary. He lived very simply with his wife and one daughter in a one-room affair and bought a bicycle to avoid spending for transportation daily.
Despite his meager income, Sonny saved P2,000 a month like clockwork. By December, he would have P24,000 in savings just in time for Christmas.
So, Sonny would bring his wife and kids to Landmark and go shopping for useful gifts – good-quality clothes, bags for school, shoes. Then they would have Christmas dinner in Saisaki.
Just imagine that – a janitor and his small family.
Would you call Sonny poor?
Contrast this with someone from the same office who took home P1 million annual salary for that year and spent P1.1 million. Which one is rich? Which is one is poor?
By the way, these are real stories as told to me by Augustus J.V. Ferreria, executive vice-president of Generali Pilipinas, the insurance partner of the SM Group.
You often hear the expression, “It is not what you earn, but how much you spend.” People usually nod at me slowly when I say that, as if they are listening. But their glassy-eyed look and iPod-fidgeting-hands tell me their minds had quickly moved on to some other thought.
They say Filipinos are poor. Most of us live on $1 a day. I have seen poverty at close range. I know its musty smell of hopelessness first-hand. However, it might not be a good idea to judge quickly who is poor and who is rich.
As one reader wrote in Vox Populi, another blog INQUIRER.net has recently launched, someone in the province can have less than P50 in his pocket but will not be worse for wear, because he had chicken in his backyard and dahon ng sili that he could easily pick near his front door. A nilagang manok is not hard to imagine for lunch.
I asked Joe Ferreria where Sonny is now. He says Sonny is still a janitor, but he always comes to work with a big smile on his face.
Food for thought, eh?
June 14th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
you dont need money if your single.doesnt care to be educated.and have a farm to grow plants and chickens.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:26 am
[...] blog post last April on the janitor who made P7,000 a month in the early 90s and was able to save P24,000 a [...]
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Sonny has the mindset of a saver who will splurge when the ocassion calls for it. He is not entrepreneurial that’s why he will always be a janitor. The officemate who earned 1M and overspent, may have been reckless but do we know if he invested some of it in equipments, real estate, or the like? Sad to say, but this is not a good case to compare the two. On top of this, the 1M person may be poorer by.1M for that year but he may get back his senses and cut down on expenses i.e., saving only 100k of his salary in the next year is already more than what Sonny could earn in 1 year and of course the 24k annual saving. So who will be richer by then? For me, money is a matter of attitude. Net worth indeed is the bottom line plus an entrepreneurial mindset to be richer. Of course there are other intangibles for one to become happy in life.
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Hmm… Actually, (the argument) it’s a bit off to compare both cases in the perspective of which is poorer. For me, Sonny is still poor and the one earning 1M is undeniably richer than Sonny by 100x .
It’s more of a poor decision making by the Million-earner in terms of money spending/saving right? That million earner must be stupid (and greedy) for him to spend the whole 1M in a month.
Yes, I agree with the drift of the article that one must be “wise” so to speak in money matters. It’s just I can’t fully agree with the presentation of the analogy.
Again, I ask. Which is poorer? Sonny who earns 10K a month or the one who earns 1M a month?
If you’re Sonny, would you consider richer than the one earning 1M? I wouldn’t think so.
Just my opinion.
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:33 pm
From how the story goes, Sonny has the proper attitude on the matter, and that’s great, too bad he’s still at a handicap over Officeguy on the pursuit of wealth.
Sonny can still improve on it, i.e. husband and wife working plus “one child policy” and they’ll do quite well.
Or maybe change the context a bit: Sonny earning P 7,000 in a beachfront hut in Davao will envy even Officeguy!