Putting up a business and buying a house is a lot like marriage. It’s a long-term investment. So if you plan to do it, make sure that:

• it’s your decision
• you’re committed to it
• you can afford it
• it’s your choice (the man/woman, house, or business)
• it wasn’t your mom’s decision. 🙂

Easy peasy. Not.

We all love our moms. They only want the best for us. So it’s very easy to get carried away when they want us to do something, even when we’re not ready for it yet.

Kai’s story is a bit different compared to the other three posts on my #PlsSaveMe series. This was not an impulse buy, nor a millenial mistake nor a shopping spree.

Investments were made, a business was put up and a real estate bought. The only problem was, it wasn’t her decision. It’ was mom’s.

READ BOUT HER STORY HERE:

Back in 2011, I applied for a housing loan with Pag-Ibig because I felt I had to step up to “save” mother and my sister because I was under the impression that they were going to be kicked out of my step-dad’s house.

I knew back then that I might have a difficult time since it will obligate me to pay around 8,500 per month. I was earning around 20-28k a month that time so after doing the basic I thought maybe it was doable.

I got the house early 2012 and it was okay for a couple of years. I was able to pay on time but then mother got back with my step-dad and that would have been fine. However, she decided to do renovations and expansions of the house which I also had to pay for.

I felt again that expenses were piling up so I thought of partnering with mother dear and put up a bar. I thought it was going to make enough money to help me pay for the house or at least give her enough money to help me pay for the house where she and stepdad lives in.

Everything started out great. The bar was doing okay. But mother dear couldn’t wait and more from its first year of operations. She wasn’t helping me pay for the house and by then, my time was split between manning the bar and tending my online job which was actually paying well. But I wasn’t comfortable with it because she still wasn’t helping me with the house expenses, and just seemed to give things to worry about.

After a year of operations and delayed payments to Pag-ibig, I gave up. I found a way to make them leave the house and had it assumed. I used the money I got to move to Siargao and start a new life.

I regret getting the loan and putting up the bar in Davao. Before all those things happened, I really had a plan to put up a business in Siargao which would have been a way better plan because I would be one of the first people to invest when Siargao wasn’t in the same spotlight that it is now.

Purchasing real estate isn’t really bad. I now own property in Siargao. It’s not flashy, but it was an investment I had studied and decided on myself.

Right now, I’m saving up to build a house, and also start my own business here. My previous investments failed not because investing is wrong. It just wasn’t the right house, I didn’t have the right reasons, and it wasn’t the right time for me.

— Kai

Have you ever made investments for the wrong reasons?

This is part 4 of the 4 part sponsored post #PleaseSaveMe series.