Wealth Within Your Reach: Pera Mo Palaguin Mo! Book Review

Wealth and financial independence is within the reach of anyone! This is the idea that Mr. Francisco J. Colayco shares through his book entitled “Wealth Within Your Reach: Pera Mo Palaguin Mo”. The book clearly explains basic principles and simple methods on how to properly manage your personal finance. Reading this book of his is like taking a short, simplified and practical course in personal finance that you can apply in your everyday life.

Why did I read this book?

Working as a freelancer has earned me a good amount of income and I managed to save up a little. Now I’m looking for ways on how to properly manage my money and ideas where to invest my savings to that they can provide me good returns with absolutely no risks. My wife and I went to the book store and I managed to find this book so I bought it to see how much it can help me. After reading only a few pages of this book, I already know that it is exactly what I’m looking for. The idea of financial independence was introduced to me and now it has been my long term goal.

What is Financial Independence?

When you decide to stop working and your savings and assets are earning enough to sustain your chosen lifestyle, then you have attained financial independence or freedom. Attaining this financial status is possible for all income earners. This book by Mr. Colayco aims to help the Filipinos to reach financial freedom by teaching them the proper management of their money. Whether you are OFWs, minimum wage earners, professionals or entrepreneurs, the concepts and ideas in this book will be useful for you. Here are some of the things that the book can help you with:

• Identifying your Financial Life Stage and what to do in every stage.
• Identifying the obstacles that can hinder or slow you down in attaining financial independence.
• Knowing your strengths (or “genius” as used in the book) that can help you generate income.
• Learning about the resources that can help you reach your goal.
• Invest your money in financial products with little to no risk.
• Identifying legitimate from fraudulent opportunities.
• Beating inflation and keeping your money from losing its value.

“Wealth Within Your Reach: Pera Mo Palaguin Mo” has not only inspired me to dream of attaining financial independence but it has also given me hope that this dream is possible. This book discusses useful tips on how to effectively save your hard earned money and minimize unnecessary expenses. Suggestions on different possible financial products or where to invest your savings are also given in this book. Time deposits, treasury bills, government securities and mutual funds are some of the suggested possible long term investments. The value of time, as well as the importance of compound interests, is also given emphasis.

Mr. Colayco was successful in making his book absolutely understandable by using both the English and Tagalog (Filipino) language. Everyone, regardless of how much knowledge you have in finance, will surely understand every bit of information inside the book because they are expressed in the simplest ways possible. Stories and cited examples also made it easier for readers to understand and visualize the ideas that the author is trying to share.

Over all, this is a great book and I highly recommend it to everyone. In my opinion, every Filipino and even every person in this world should be provided with the valuable information that can be found in it. So valuable that not just income earners, but rather anyone that has money should learn about it. Children should be taught the importance of proper management of money at a young age. I think this is the key in reducing poverty in the Philippines.