Many people view the word ‘investment’ with skepticism and maybe a little fear, assuming that only the super affluent have the luxury of being able to invest a portion of their accumulated wealth and have a chance of building a small fortune. This is not true, as there are plenty of investments you can make with the relatively small amount in your pocket.
First of all, there are plenty of businesses that you can start up or take over with a relatively small outlay. For instance, Shanghai Siomai has dealership packages that start at P10,000 for the registration fee, with a P5,000 minimum order of siomai ingredients; thus, for P15,000 you will own your own siomai business, and then it’s up to you to make it work. Similarly, you can enter the rice trade by paying a P20,000 application fee to bigasanko.com, which is the website for a distributor, wholesaler and retailer of rice, and there are plenty of other small businesses that are inexpensive to start up and run, and through which you can generate a steady stream of income if you’re shrewd enough.
In a similar vein, you could invest in yourself by learning a new craft that you can use in the future to earn more money. If you do some research you will find that there are plenty of intensive courses that cost less than P20,000, and which can set you up for further opportunities after you gain the qualifications.
For example, you can enroll in the 5-day intensive Pastry Boot Camp at Enderun College in Taguig City and acquire the skills needed to make deserts and pastries and then use them to open up your own bakery, or merely as a work-from-home part time job catering to birthdays and other special occasions for friends and colleagues. Alternatively, you could inquire at the School of Fashion and Art Design Institute where they run several courses on dressmaking, styling and interior design for less than P20,000. If you look around, you will find that there are many courses you can take that can open up opportunities for the future.
You could also invest further in yourself by enrolling in a short course to build up your management skills. There are plenty of courses available at the UP Institute for Small Scale Industries, like the Advanced Manager’s Course, which you can take over several weekends and which can help you to improve on your people management and leadership skills, customer relations, risk management, technological knowledge, negotiation skills, or business strategies, to name but a few.
However, as always, the most likely profitable way to use your money is to look around and try to find a good investment opportunity. If you’re searching for the best place to put your money in today’s market, and if you want to stay under the P20,000 mark, you should inquire about a Unit Trust Investment Fund (UTIF), which is a means that allows small investors to be able to make bigger investments by creating a pool of similar minor investors. This pool of money is then utilized “under the watchful eyes of professional fund managers, who can productively harness these funds, taking advantage of economies of scale,” according to the Banco de Oro.
These funds are heavily regulated by, first of all, the banks themselves, but also by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, which offers peace of mind to potential individual investors who may be wary of handing over their hard earned cash. They are generally looked upon as medium- to long-term investments that, over time, will yield more profit than the traditional purely deposit options. This means that, should you be in a position where you may not necessarily need to withdraw your money for a long time, you can opt for a UTIF and leave it there to rise in value.
As another example, if you had invested your money in the Security Bank’s Peso Asset Variety Fund at this time last year, a P10,000 investment would have seen it rise to P11,341 in six months, while a P20,000 sum would have risen to P22,683 over the same time period, giving you a 13.4% increase, which is considerably higher than what is on offer with regular savings accounts.
There are plenty of other options with other banks if you look around, and East West Bank recently offered the Infinity Peso Intermediate Term Bond Fund, which sees the money invested in low risk ventures such as government securities (while this may produce a smaller yield and is meant for long term investment, it’s safer and more suited to those who are willing to wait for the return on their investments).
Finally, you could make an investment of sorts by putting your money into a health plan and thus saving yourself a small fortune should you ever need to use it. For roughly P17,000, a 30-year old can become a part of Maxicare’s Silver Plan, which includes dental coverage, while Medicare’s Plan 2500 costs even less at P15,876.
There are plenty of other options when it comes to what to do with your money if you have P20,000 saved up and are looking to put it to good use; you just have to be smart, do your due diligence, and think about what you want from and for the future.
