The law of supply and demand applies here, I noticed that if you will send Php 20,000, a family of two can survive a month, send Php 30,000 it will just be the same, the money will be spent.Let me expound on it a bit further.
Humans tend to consume more, knowing they have so much. An office worker promoted and salary increased will send additional money for his family back home hoping that his or her partner will be able to save. Ideally it's probable but in reality it's impossible. I can enumerate at least two reasons for this:
1) People have the capacity to adapt and adjust, when resources are scarce they will find a way to maximize what they have including recycling. Simple example would be clothing, when no extra money in the pocket we will find a way to wear even our oldest dresses in the closet with little of experiments, with the right combinations it can look good and we are not even aware of brands or maybe not minding it but with extra money we start to see those displayed Lacoste, Ralph Lauren, Quick Silver and so on. Our excuses would be "It's not bad to pamper ones self once in a while" then the next month same excuse until you become an addictive shopper, so much for a "once in a while" thing. While surfing the net you came across with a new Mobile Phone worth almost half of your salary, still you will make lame excuses just to get a hold of that gadget and after a while you will crave for a new one and the cycle goes on.
2) You hate night life before because you know it's a waste of money. One night a friend of yours was able to tagged you along, a new world you have seen, new crowd you have met, the next night you will be the one begging your friend to come with you in your new found world. Then you will look back and say "what the hell, life is too short and need to be enjoyed". A night person you have become.
It applies for OFW and so as our family back home. Let me quote "You Filipinos are too extravagant, wasting too much money on mobiles, laptops and clothing". An Indian friend told me this and it hit me like a nail on the head. I guess it's time for us to assess and know our priorities and ask ourselves "what was my reason in going abroad?". To spend or to save money?.
Ouch. Nasaktan ako duon ha. Tutuo yan, our so-called needs have a way of adjusting to the amount of resources we have to provide for them. Result: walang savings.
ReplyDeleteAnother way of viewing it is that our "standard of living" goes up with the rise of our economic mobility.
Lots of Filipinos will find this article hard but it's the truth.Thanks ma'am Anna for dropping by.
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