BOOK 1

By Mr. Alijeffty C. Gonzales, CIS, RFP

The Pinoy Financial Planning Guide

A True Story...
During a lull in a product orientation seminar of a life insurance company, the trainer noticed a participant who
stood out as he was obviously the oldest among this batch of new recruits. Curious, he wandered towards
the end of the room where the man was visibly struggling to come up with the solution to a computation
problem he asks the class to solve.
May I help you sir?
Yes please, mahirap palang i-compute ito ng walang calculator...
How old are you sir, if I may ask?
Im 68...
Mahirap ho ang buhay ng ahente, you may have to go all around to see a lot of people every day doing
the computation for each of them, are you sure you are up to this? Should you not just stay home, relax;
enjoy the company of your grandchildren...?
In was then that he opened up..., He related that because of a recent incident in his daughters house where he
is currently staying, he has to go back to work to try to make a living, as he is beyond the mandatory retirement
age of 65, it seems that his only option of earning an income is to become an agent. The old man with tears
starting to form in his tired eyes disclosed that the other day, he overheard his daughter on the phone talking
to his son.
Kuya!, ano ba yan! Diyan naman sa inyo si tatay! Two weeks na siya dito at sinumpong na naman ng
sakit nya last week at kami ang nag-pagamot, nagagalit na ang mister ko!, Yung pinadala niyang pera na
dapat pambili ni junior ng cell phone, di ko na naibili dahil naipambayad ko sa ospital, diyan naman sa
inyo si tatay!
IF YOU ARE THE OLD MAN, HOW WOULD YOU FEEL?
Let us just imagine that we can turn back time and re-write the story of the old mans life, let us imagine...What
if the old man was able to save and invests during his productive time, this same conversation could have
turned out like this.
Kuya!, ano ba yan!, Two weeks na dyan si tatay, dito naman sa amin!, mabuti nga yung mga anak mo
naibili na ng cell phone, tong si junior ko e wala pa!

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The Pinoy Financial Planning Guide

Most of us started to make a living earning just enough to

satisfy our physiological needs. Isang kahig, isang tuka ika nga,
After a while, our income have increased but our expense
seems to grow as well, kung dati ay happy na tayong nakapamasyal sa SM once in a while, ngayon, parang kulang ang
saya kung wala tayong bitbit pag-uwi.
SAYANG YUNG SALE! 50% OFF, LAKI NG NATIPID KO!
Naka-tipid ka nga ba? Yun bang nabili mo ay talagang kailangan
mo? Mas nakatipid ka siguro kung di mo binili?
Abraham Maslow, in his 1943 paper A theory of Human Motivation proposed that human needs
can be stacked up in terms of their order of priority. This hierarchy of needs is often depicted as a
pyramid consisting of five levels, an individual normally works on the lower level needs first and
move up as his financial status improves.
From a financial planning perspective, this insight would explain why some of us are stuck in a dayto-day, hand-to-mouth existence; it is because we never graduate from the lowest level of this
hierarchy. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no
longer be prioritized. For instance, a businessman at the esteem level who is diagnosed with cancer
will spend a great deal of time concentrating on his health (physiological needs), but will continue to
value his work performance (esteem needs) and will likely return to work during periods of
remission.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs)

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The Pinoy Financial Planning Guide

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1: WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

Computing your net worth
Reviewing your income/expense patterns
Creating a budget

PART 2: WHERE DO YOU NEED TO BE?

Bakit gusto mong yumaman?
Your personal definition of wealth
Setting your life goals

PART 3: HOW WILL YOU GET THERE?

Your financial plan
The three portfolios of your life

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PART 1

Where are you now?

START ON YOUR ROAD TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE: COMPUTING YOUR NET WORTH

A financial plan is your road map; it is a comprehensive personal document that gives you an
overview of where you are financially. The basic components of a financial plan are:
A statement of your assets/liabilities, income/expense worksheet, budget plan, savings and
investment portfolio worksheet, and your insurance /risk management worksheet.

The first step in coming up with your financial plan is to compute for your net worth, this is done by
listing down all your assets and liabilities: Categorize your assets into current assets: assets that can
be utilised or sold within the next three months, and other assets: these are assets that you own in
which you wont and cant easily be sold. Current assets include your bank account balances, cash
on hand and the market value of your marketable securities likes bonds, stocks and mutual funds.
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PART 1

Where are you now?

List under other assets all other assets that you own including your car, house, furnitures and fixtures, the
cash value of your insurance policies, your interest in a business, jewelleries and others. Then categorize
your liabilities into current and other liabilities. Current liabilities are your obligations that requires
payments within the next three months or continuous regular payments like credit card bills, loan and
mortgage payments. Other liabilities would be financial obligations that require payments in a future date
three months hence.
Deduct the total value of your liabilities from the total value of your assets; you now have an estimate of
your NET WORTH.

One key consideration in managing your net worth is to try to minimize if not eliminate
high-costs debt, one typical example is consumer borrowings from credit cards, the
following table illustrates the earnings you gain by placing Php 10,000 in a savings
account and interest expense of a Php 10,000 credit card balance.

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PART 1

Where are you now?

REVIEW YOUR INCOME/EXPENSE PATTERNS:

ACTIVE INCOME is generally considered is to be a variable; as it depends
on an individuals ability to engage in an active pursuit of a job,
profession or business and this ability may be hindered by reasons of
health and other unforeseen events like accidents.
The pursuit of an active income large
enough to have some savings is the
primary reason why a lot of Filipinos
(myself included) go overseas to work.
While the initial intent is correct, a lot of
us fail to established a base for financial
independence because we dont have a
follow-through plan, surplus income
from an overseas posting are normally
spent on non-essentials or invested
arbitrarily (without consideration of our
needs and goals). This lack of a clearly
defined set of goals placed us in a
position where we tend to choose an
investment that looks better as
compared to its alternatives rather than
invest in something that matches our
goals.
--- MY OFW EXPERIENCE

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PART 1

Where are you now?

Expenses can be managed better if we are able to categorize our expenses;

FIXED EXPENSES are generally expenses associated with our day-to-day
predictable expenses such as food, clothing, shelter (the physiological needs
in Maslows hierarchy), it also includes essential spending on education,
transportation and communication.
DISCRETIONARY EXPENSES on the other hand is unplanned non-essential
expenses like buying that 42 LCD TV while your 27 is still working. A careful
analysis of your spending patterns will reveal that discretionary expenses are
normally the culprit in an un-balanced budget.

PASALUBONG!
The many months or even years of
absence from our family and loved ones
during our overseas posting normally
would evoke a certain feeling of guilt at
homecoming. The result of this is that we
tend to overspend when we buy our
pasalubongs.
Does my 4-year old kid really need a cell
phone? How about the 6 one-liter bottles
of johnnie walkers for my kumpares, I
think my wife will like the 40 gms. 18k
gold bracelet i got her...
While there is really nothing wrong with
this, we need to understand why we do
the things that we do.
--- MY OFW EXPERIENCE

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PART 1

Where are you now?

A BUDGET PLAN CAN

MANAGING EXPENSES

HELP

IN

Aside from distinguishing your expenses into

fixed and discretionary expenses, it can also
help if you have a clear understanding of the
difference of expenses associated with your
needs and wants.

WILL BUYING A GERM PROTECTION

SOAP CLEAN YOUR CONSCIENCE?

Advertising and peer pressure plays a critical role in our perception of our needs and wants, consider a
bar of soap:
We buy soaps in order to make ourselves clean (a need), but a particular soap advertising contends that
being clean is not enough, we have to ensure that we are germ-free, thus, you need their product.
Another soap advertising claims that their product not only makes you clean, it also ensures your skin is
soft and smooth (to please your partner?), there is actually nothing wrong with this but if you consider
the additional expense involved, it may have an impact on how much would be your surplus (thus your
savings).
Prepare a budget plan by listing down all your household expenses, indicate the budgeted amount per
expense category, tracked your actual expenses on a month-on-month basis, include a column to
indicate actual and variance, this would prompt you if you are already going over the budgeted amount.

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PART 1

Where are you now?

SAVINGS IS THE KEY TO WEALTH ACCUMULATION, every one peso you save today is going to make you
one peso richer tomorrow.
Income from an active pursuit of a job, profession or business is active income. There is no absolute
certainty that we may be able to maintain this indefinitely as certain fortuitous events such as illness or
accidents may hinder or worse bring it to a halt, our goal therefore, is to store our savings from our
active income so that we can draw on this reserve on any eventuality.
Allocating our savings into our three life portfolios (current needs, future needs, protection needs) is an
effective framework to help us maximize the benefits of our savings.
Understanding our own personal life goals is needed in the creation of the three life portfolios.

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PART 2

Where do you need to be?

WHY DO YOU WANT

TO BECOME

100 things to do and

accomplish before I die

WEALTHY?
*WEALTH is the ability to fully
experience life
---HENRY DAVID THOREAU

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PART 2

Where do you need to be?

HOW MUCH WEALTH IS ENOUGH?

ENOUGH FINANCIAL RESOURCES
TO ALLOW YOU TO ENJOY LIFE
And achieve all your life goals.

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PART 2

Where do you need to be?

HOW MUCH DO YOU

NEED TO BE ABLE TO
STOP WORKING?

A definite and measurable level of wealth is important in the achievement of financial independence, this
table shows how much you need to accumulate to stop working and enable you to enjoy the things youd
rather do. The first column shows your average monthly household expenses; to have enough to support a
Php 50,000/month lifestyle for 15 years, you need to have a wealth base of Php 6.76M.
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PART 2

Where do you need to be?

A.

B.

PAYS ZERO PERCENT

PAYS TWENTY PERCENT

CANT OPEN TILL THE 20TH YEAR

CAN OPEN ANYTIME

If you set aside two pesos each day and placed one peso on each of the two piggy banks,
which piggy bank do you think would have more money at the end of twenty years?

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PART 2

Where do you need to be?

The normal answer would be the piggy bank that pays 0% (A) interest for the reason that
we cant open it. In our advisory practice in financial planning, we always advocate that
any financial plan that leads to an investment decision should be made with a specific goal
in mind.
Let me take myself as an example, i have a goal of ensuring that i have enough funds to
enable my children to go to the best schools in this country, and let us say they would be in
college in twenty years, i will now attached this goal to the one peso i placed each day
on the second piggy bank (B - the one that i can open anytime and pays 20%).
With a goal now attached to the second piggy bank, after twenty years, which one do you
think would have more money?

FINANCIAL PLANNING is the process of meeting your life goals

through the proper management of your finances, it provides direction
and meaning to your financial planning decisions.

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PART 2

Where do you need to be?

What Are Your

LIFE GOALS?
?car, ?house, ?college fund for children, ?set
up own business, ?comfortable retirement,
? financial independence, etc
VISUALIZING focus on the tangible benefits.
MEASURING attaching a monetary price tag allows you to measure your progress.

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PART 2

Where do you need to be?

If i am 45 years old now, it means that i still have 15 years to build up a Php 15M
wealth base. In implementing my investment plan, i can now compute how much i
need each month in savings to achieve this goal, if we do our financial planning
this way, do you think it is now more achievable?
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PART 2

Where do you need to be?

IDENTIFY

THEN LAY YOUR GOALS ALONG A TIMELINE

PROTECTION PORTFOLIO
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PART 3

How will you get there?

your personal circumstances

your three life portfolios

core portfolio components

basic performance measures

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PART 3

How will you get there?

Once you have identified a regular source of savings, the first

portfolio you need to build is your current income portfolio, try to
achieve a savings level at least equal to three to six months of your
average monthly expenses
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PART 3

How will you get there?

For your future needs portfolio, the basic rule of thumb for selection
would be the timeline to your goals:
2 to 5 years Bond Funds (peso or dollar)
5 to 10 years Balanced Funds
More than 10 years Equity Funds
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PART 3

How will you get there?

DESIGNING YOUR PROTECTION PORTFOLIO

*Consider term
insurance when
buying life insurance
protection, it offers
the largest coverage at
the least cost.
*ILLUSTRATION:
30-year old
20-year level term
Php 1 Million coverage
premiums on the 11th
year drawn from
cash/account value

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November 15, 2008

Manila

Dear Reader,
Thank you for spending time to read this guide, although it may not be as extensive as i want it to
be, i hope that it has given you a broad understanding on how to lay down the framework for a
personal financial plan.
I would be coming out with a Book 2 soon after where i would be discussing specific suggestions
on how to create a future needs portfolio, please email me at acg@acgadvisors.net if youd like
to reserve a copy and please provide me with the following information which i would use as basis
for illustrations.
NAME, AGE, LOCATION, MARITAL STATUS, NUMBER AND AGES OF
CHILDREN, DESIRED RETIREMENT AGE, MOST IMPORTANT LONG TERM
GOAL.
In closing, please allow me to share a guiding principle which have a profound impact in my own
quest for financial freedom A rich man is not one who have the most, but is one who needs the
least.
Maraming Salamat,
Alijeffty C. Gonzales, CIS, RFP
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