The Awakening of Hope

Lord, I love my present and I am excited for the future but I just want to pause and thank you for my past. Looking back I can see why I had to go through the heat. Fire and time moulded me into a beautiful design because you are my potter and I am your clay. Only the potter knows the clay." ---My Facebook status posted July 11. 

DISCLAIMER: I am not a good writer. If you can deal with it continue reading, if not STOP right here as I don’t want you to have a bad day *wink*.  To those who want to take the risk… here it goes…

Learn, Inspire and Be Inspired.  

Saturday, July 15, I was asked by a brother to share to the attendees of the IMG financial coaching session how I came to know IMG, WHY I joined and how it all begun. 

Nervous and surprised that he was serious about it, I immediately grabbed my phone and typed in notepad the summary of my financial journey. If I were to split into phases, my financial journey, can be categorized into three parts. Allow me to unveil to everyone how it all began. 

The Awakening

I used to be rich. What happened?

My father was once an OFW just like me. I was born in 1984 and this happened in the year 1985. From his hard earned money while working in Saudi, he was able to put up a door to door business. I bet you can imagine how much income the business brought to our family.

 My dad has a business partner, his best friend, who looks after the operation in the Philippines while he does all the ground works in Saudi. My dad entrusted everything about the business to his best friend. Yes! Everything! That includes access to my dad’s bank accounts. One day my dad received the news from my mom that our business went bankrupt. My Ninong took all his money and ran away. He could no longer locate him. My dad was devastated because he knew he made a big mistake of entrusting OUR FUTURE in someone else’s hands. 

Money is Cure, Money is Life

It was in 2006 when we found out that my elder sister is ill. She has stage 4 breast cancer. We weren't prepared for it. No insurance, no savings! In short we were financially broke which later turned us emotionally broke as well. We exhausted all our resources from SSS, Philhealth, PCSO including all the K's in our lives (Kaibigan, Kaparokya, Kapitbahay, Kamag-anak, Katrabaho). One day help came. There was this doctor who offered to help us with my sister’s treatment (at no cost) with the condition that she’ll be treated with the new medicine that is being tested to cure cancer. In desperation, my sister agreed. This was her last hope. While undergoing treatment, my sister died. Can we complain or sue the doctor? NO! Because my sister agreed to undergo the treatment despite the risks involved. No money, no cure, no life!

Chase your dreams, know how and where to access it

I want to be financially free so I searched the net to learn more about investments and surprisingly a familiar name came up from the articles I've read.   I found out that our rich uncle (I can't say who he is but he is the VP of the financial asset sector of a famous bank in the Philippines) acquired most of his wealth from investing. How odd! I had to learn from my uncle through the Internet! That very moment I was punched by the reality that you will never know unless you ask. Was my uncle selfish because he kept to himself the solution for poverty? I don’t see it that way. My uncle should have been my access to reaching my financial goals but “I” failed to ask. Take note of the word “I”.

The birth of “HOPE”

Blessings come to those who seek

I have always been curious about how investing in the stock market works so I searched for a good book to read on the topic. I read the book “My Maid Invests in Stock Market…And Why You Should, Too!” written by Bro Bo Sanchez. The book changed my life big time. You think after reading I was blessed financially? Not yet! I was blessed spiritually first then financially. Through the book, I learned about LOJ (Light of Jesus) community and so I searched if there is one here in Singapore. I went to the feast ALONE but went home with new set of friends who journeyed with me in becoming Truly Rich. My blessings if you ask me? It’s LOJ and my new friends. They gave me HOPE. 

You are who your friends are

As mentioned above I have friends who invest in building a good relationship with God and building a solid financial foundation. I used to have many friends who influenced me to acquire new clothes, gadgets, to travel, etc. 

To cut the story short, they taught me how to spend. They also taught me how to save… so I will have more money to spend. You see, I used to be hopeless that I can be rich because my friends also did not believe that they can be one. I worked as a Unit Manager for Citibank back in the Philippines and at that time I thought that my salary was not enough to support my family and my needs (the needs I’m talking about are actually wants). Looking back, my salary was more than enough if only I knew how to spend and invest wisely.

Everything in God's perfect time

Now that I know how money works and how investments can affect our future, I wish I knew about this when I was still a teenager. However, I realized that I have to go through all those trials so I will be armed with lots of inspiration to strengthen my financial foundation. If I invested 10 years ago when I was still financially irresponsible, by now the money I acquired have been used on material things instead of using the money to prepare for my future. If not for my wealth of experience, I wouldn’t be in the position to share how God has blessed me in the spiritual and financial aspect of my life. Is it too late for me to start investing? NO! This is the perfect time for me to build my investment. I could have started investing early to reap more fruits but it is never too late to start. God’s perfect time to dream big is always NOW!  

 The point of NO RETURN

I am fed up being financially broke and irresponsible. I am at a point in my life where I want to make sure that I have enough for the rainy days and am prepared in case of unfortunate circumstances. I am planning for my future and retirement as I do not want to wake up one day when I’m 60 and realise that I have not saved anything and only have five years left or no time at all to do so. I’ve been awakened and privileged to be given HOPE. There is no turning back… I am now traversing the road to becoming Truly Rich!  

-Abby Birosel, Truly Rich Maker Team Singapore