It’s Holy Week once more. This is the time many of us Filipinos try to become pious, try to seek penance for the many sins we have committed during the past months. Churches will be filled more than usual and many will abstain from things like meat, Internet, etc. Some will even take drastic means to wash away their sins and hope for blessings to come by doing more sacrifices, such as walking all the way to Antipolo or even inflicting pain on oneself through self-flagellation. For a few days in a year, the nation becomes united in its devotion, in its desire to make amends and to rectify its faith.

We all know how the story will end, of course; after Holy Week, we will go back to our old ways and go back to our own self.

In many ways, how we treat Holy Week is how we treat our financial goals. We set out our goals, become passionate about achieving them for a while, and then when the honeymoon stage is over, we go back to the way we used to do things and we are nowhere near our goals again. How many times have we sworn off using our credit cards irresponsibly? Then we see our favorite store put up its ubiquitous sign “SALE” and then we totally go berserk. How many times did we start off sticking to our budget, then totally go overboard by the end of the month, repeating the same mistakes month after month?  Then by some force of circumstance, we come to terms with how we have been treating our personal finance; It could be a book we read, a seminar we attended, an article we stumbled upon  or even someone who made us realize how far off we are from our financial goals…

… catch Part 2