It's pig simple: Feed the pigs

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SHUT UP or you'll sleep in the pigsty tonight.

That was how Grandmother hushed me up about two decades ago and I recall it today upon knowing that I have failed to raise an equivalent of 100,000 pesos. That's extra money I should now have in a separate bank account a year after I concluded that saving just a tiny bit of my monthly income would translate into a significant number every year. Yeah, I'm good at wealth planning in my mind. But, wait, I guess I could blame the piglets. They didn't come, they didn't do their work.

Had the piglets been efficient as my associate wealth managers, I would have been richer by an equivalent of a hundred thousand pesos today. I'm talking about that thing called piggy bank. I had always ridiculed this image of a pig that feeds on coins, but believe me it once subsidised my holiday. Yes, annoying coins that I tossed into piggy banks gave me the dough to treat my family to Sbarro's, Yellow Cab and other budget wreckers at an SM mall during one trip to Manila.

It was fun digging into delicious pizza and pasta knowing that I could foot the bill using money I raised by feeding so-called piglets for about five months. The containers came from a remittance company that handed out plastic water jugglers and tumblers as giveaways. They looked rubbish in the apartment so I placed the tumblers at several corners as if the colors could add life to my abode. Over time they became coin collectors. You know how coins jingle in your pockets; they can get on your nerves you just have to get rid of them every so often, and so I dumped them regularly into the piglets. Just before heading for my holiday in Manila, I realized I didn't have enough money so one night I busied my mind by counting the coins. The next morning I had an equivalent of 10,000 pesos. Not bad for somebody untrained in animal husbandry, eh.

It gave me the idea of using piggy banks however ridiculous they may be. The plan was to feed piglets on a bigger scale -- drop nuisance coins plus notes in small denominations every day. I used empty drawers of tables in the apartment. It went on smoothly for awhile until I lost track of the piggery's financial goal. The piglets died of starvation.

I may have proven myself to be bad in the saving department, but I now believe the old folks are no fools when they talk about saving a few pesos a day. Even the wife has proven this in a small way. Back in my Quezon City apartment, she ordered me to participate in a piglet feeding program by dropping at least one five-peso coin into that ceramic wild mammal. It worked as a makeshift emergency fund that she dipped into each time payday felt too far away.

Grandma's piggy bank version was theatrical. As a child I went with her once on her regular visits to backyard pigsties in the barrio (village). She pointed to one pig and said: "Kana para kang Dondon (That one is for Dondon)."

"What will Dondon (not his real name) do with the pig?"

"Once it's heavy enough, I will sell it, give the money to his mother. It will send him to school."

We went to several backyards as she had 10 grandchildren. "Oh this one is for you."

"Lola, why is it smaller than Dondon's?"

"Shut up or you'll sleep in the pigsty tonight."

As I reflect now, I can say there's been no dearth of teachings on saving culture from where I come. I've been a failure in this department though and I won't declare now that I will be good this year or I might end up in the pigsty one night.


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::: First time here? Take a quick look at my list of articles. There's more to this blog than livestock feed. I sometimes write stories showing my erudite side (Lol), such as "Stupid's Wealth Creation Hypothesis" and "Sex and Investment".

::: Hopping tracks: Stumbled upon a good site today named abbysmusings.
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