I am a martial law baby and have shouted my share of chants at rallies and demonstrations as a student, but what I know of Crispin Beltran are only what I read in the papers.

Today I find myself deep in thought at the life of the lawmaker who fell yesterday to his death while repairing his roof, with merely P50,000 to his name and two barong tagalog, a pair of eyeglasses, cabinet shelves and t-shirts listed as personal assets.

Was Crispin Beltran poor? What does it mean to be poor?

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Business columnist Margie Grey fired off a very interesting question at bestselling personal finance author Efren Cruz during a radio interview last Monday at DZAR Sonshine Radio (1026). She asked

“Is it really possible for a minimum wage earner or someone who makes just enough for a living to become a millionaire?”

I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. Someone who takes home P382 per day (which includes the P20 scheduled minimum wage hike in the National Capital Region announced last week) gets P7,640 on a monthly basis on a 5-day week, gross. I can’t even imagine what that paycheck looks like after social security deductions.
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What do you give to someone who has everything?A few Christmases ago, Synergeia Foundation president Milwida Guevara found herself worrying what to give to Washington Sycip for Christmas.

Apart from being a well-known figure in the business sector, Wash is one of the reasons Synergeia can do so much work in the education sector, Milwida says. (If you are interested in reading more about this very interesting man, read my favorite professor’s blog post on him here. Butch Dalisay finished his biography on Wash Sycip just this year.) After agonizing about her problem, Milwida bought Wash a toy train that moves on its tracks. You know the type, either your son wants one or your husband does.

“He was so happy with it, he played with it in his office and called his staff to look at the train,” Milwida told me, laughing.

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The urge to splurge and miserly behavior are on opposite sides of the spending habit spectrum, but it’s not too hard to imagine most of us swinging from one side to the other at any given time.

That’s because everyone has weaknesses. I’m not very particular with electronic gadgets, for example, so I lived with a Nokia 3310 when everybody was taking snappy pictures with their latest model mobile phones. My friends told me that was super miserly behavior.

Get me into a kitchen showroom, however, and I will be hard-pressed to don my frugal hat. I “NEED” everything that comes with a nice kitchen, although I don’t know how to cook well! I thought I was moneysmart and was in my safety zone until the kitchen showroom came along. Then boom, sorry spending plan for 2006!

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They tell me it’s hard to be grateful when you’re dead broke. As in zero moolah in your bank account and loads of debt. A good friend told me of a time he was sunk to the tune of millions and it was all he could do to face himself in the mirror in the morning.

I wouldn’t presume to know better what people should feel in those times. But perhaps it would be a good idea to be grateful while I can. After all, it’s Thanksgiving in the US, one of the holidays there that I like and want to import here in the Philippines even if there’s a lot of skepticism about it. Get Rich Slowly has a neat video and post on why Thanksgiving can be good even without turkey circa 1951!

Another reason is that I write about money every day and while I know I should be thankful for what those little coins and bills bring, it’s important to focus on the real reason why we want to fix our finances. Not for money’s sake or the things that go ka-ching, but for things like security, family, health, service to God and community, helping others and so on.

Digerati said it well:

… money is a replaceable asset, a distant second to many other things that we all wish we could permanently have and forever keep, but which we only end up receiving in what seemingly feels like short, sporadic periods throughout our lives.

So, I’m grateful for:

(Photo from AFP)

- time. Time to heal, to make amends, to start over, to think of things celestial, to ponder on light and truth, to laugh aloud
- little grubby fingers that grab you and children who hug you and make you feel you’re 10 feet tall at the end of a crazy busy day
- last week’s momentary misunderstandings, because that means hubby and I are still together after 15 years
- mom’s health and sense of humor
- two home angels who have served my family for years and keep my kalamansi juice fresh
- more than 20 articles waiting to be written, because that means I am doing what I love to do
- friends who text “ei, musta? Wala lang.”
- the feel of fresh sheets
- blogging, which makes me jump up from bed every morning. (I kid you not)
- email and the Internet, for making it possible to work at home

**turns to you, and gives you my full attention**

It’s your turn.

If you haven’t received your Christmas bonus yet, you probably will in the next weeks. You’ll probably be getting anywhere from P50,000 to P100,000. How are you going to spend it? Do you have a good tip on where to put that kind of money?

We gotta plan, or else even P100,000 can vanish without a trace.

I only have admiration for people who try to educate themselves on financial planning or how to manage their money. When I wrote about Mariannet early this week, I was amazed at those who responded – many of you have come from similar (or even worse) but have managed to lift yourselves by your bootstraps and are, in fact, doing well!

One of you who commented on that post was right: you are a testament that poverty does not have to be a widespread problem. The answer lies within each of us.

In fact, Dr. Noet Ravalo’s column yesterday talked of real-life stories of two drivers who were from the similar backgrounds, but have very different strategies on saving money.

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While looking at Moolanomy’s blog the other day, I stumbled on an intriguing post that illustrates why it’s hard to break that P1-million net worth mark.

It’s not just the persistence and focus needed to make your first million. Moolanomy correctly points out that it’s also mathematically challenging.

“If a person invests $15,000 per year starting at age 25 and the investment gains on average 10% a year, he can get to $1 million mark by 45. The first million took 20 years! But if you keep going down the table, it only takes…

6 more years to get to $2 million at 51
4 more years to get to $3 million at 55
3 more years to get to $4 million at 58
2 more years to get to $5 million at 60
2 more years to get to $6 million at 62
2 more years to get to $7 million at 64
1 more years to get to $8 million at 65

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This just out on Forbes’ Rich List in the Philippines:

Factory worker’s son joins Philippine billionaires

Agence France-Presse
Last updated 03:36pm (Mla time) 10/18/2007

MANILA, Philippines — Andrew Tan, the son of a poor immigrant factory worker from China, has reportedly become the newest addition in more than a decade to the ranks of billionaires in the Philippines.

After restructuring his holding company Alliance Global, Tan’s net worth more than doubled to $1.1 billion from $480 million, Forbes Asia magazine said in its 2007 Philippine Rich List published Thursday.

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A career in financial advisory services appears to be a hot move these days. I used to be a bit unenthusiastic about this because of how lopsided income distribution is in this country. Read: there’s too many poor people for every Lance Gokongwei or Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala.

I even asked a couple of bank staff who have to comply with HSBC’s quota for wealth management services, if it’s hard to find people who have at least P3.6 million ($80,000) to play with. “You would be surprised,” they said, looking at each other quite conspiratorially, I thought. Hmm.

In various interviews, industry leaders are saying while the Philippines still has to play a catch-up game with China, Taiwan or South Korea, banks are definitely growing their wealth management services in the Philippines.

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