All of us agree that money isn’t everything in life. Good health and a good relationship with family are most important.
But there’s no denying that money moves this earth. For ordinary Filipinos like us, our world revolve around bills bills and more bills. (I am not talking about my bilbils).
I was at the market last Saturday and I spent P200 buying a third of Imelda’s paninda, only because I wanted to patronize her micro business. I’ve seen people buying one kamatis, dalawang pisong gulay, sampung pisong tilapia, tatlong pirasong siling labuyo, buto-buto ng karne, medyo nagulat talaga ako.
It’s really difficult to budget a few pesos. Maliit pa ako alam ko nayan. My mother had a habit of enumerating our expenses over lunch.
“kinse isang kilo na ngayon yang biyang iyan”. She timed her litany when one was about to scoop the itlog ng dalag, she would say “nagtaas na naman ang patola, singkwenta yang dalag na yan”.
Her griping over high prices was perfectly timed during meals, she was probably really having difficulty budgeting our resources. You could just imagine, the thousands more who even have less in life. Gutom talaga ang aabutin.
Buti sa probinsya pwede pa ang pakonti-konti ang bili. Sa Farmers Market hindi pwede ang kalahating guhit nga ng hipon. Mapagkakamalan kang pulubi.
Having enough money for all our needs take away at least 50% of our stress in life. We would spend less time analyzing our dizzying Meralco bill, checking if our faucets are leaking. Our houses would be maliwanag come night time. Hindi ka madadapa sa dilim.
Having more money for our wants give us confidence and feeling of security. You don’t worry about too many things. When you’re in the grocery you don’t need to do a lot of mental calisthenics to calculate the total, you don’t bother comparing the prices of suka, you don’t go back and forth the racks comparing which detergent has less bula, mas pampaputi at mas mura. When you have a lot of money, you just grab and go.
I have heard it many times from people who have already achieved a certain degree of financial success say “Pera Lang Yan”. It’s easier for them to say that because they have attained a considerable amount of security and their stature is way way beyond the threshold of an ordinary person’s survival.
It’s not pera lang yan. It’s pera yan.
