On Growing Up and Paying Mortgages

Ever since I left the Jesuits, my pri­or­i­ties have changed some­what. I was in the birth­day party of my friend’s kid the other week­end and some of my Jesuit friends were there and I real­ized how dif­fer­ent things are now from before.

We talked about the condo unit I’m buy­ing. It is going to be my first ever “property”-which is quite a change already because when I joined the Jesuits I never even imag­ined own­ing any prop­erty. I actu­ally signed the Con­tract To Sell three weeks ago–and it felt like sign­ing 15 years of my life (I’m sup­posed to pay the amor­ti­za­tion for the next fif­teen years!). And I paid the first monthly install­ment two weeks ago.

But the expe­ri­ence of check­ing the condo (and I checked a lot of con­dos the past month!), talk­ing to bro­kers, doing site vis­its, call­ing my dad and mom for advise, mak­ing a final deci­sion, check­ing out the con­tract and finally sign­ing has been an expe­ri­ence of “grow­ing up” for the most part. And as I always said before, grow­ing up (or being an adult) is know­ing that there are some things you can’t have, and that there are some things you have to forego. It means not act­ing on impulse or on all the feel­ings that come your way. The real test of being an adult is the abil­ity to say NO.

Mort­gages are tricky because it is a huge finan­cial leap of faith. For us who are not really in finan­cial heaven, it means sign­ing off your earn­ings for the next fif­teen (or so) years. But it makes you dis­ci­plined (it’s mak­ing me dis­ci­plined at least). I can­not just buy any­thing that catches my fancy in the mall. It prob­a­bly means not going to the mall alto­gether! It might mean say­ing no to night outs with friends or din­ner out with officemates.

It also means being able to com­pare prices and going for the best deal. It means read­ing up on finan­cial mat­ters. My bro­ker has guided me to the bank that gives the best deal pos­si­ble with the bud­get I have. Not every­one has that option because some devel­op­ers have exclu­sive tie-ups with banks. But it’s always good to be able to com­pare prices and deals like how this site does it. Com­par­ing mort­gages is really about empow­er­ing your­self and get­ting enough infor­ma­tion before mak­ing a deci­sion. It is really just good finan­cial com­mon sense.

One good invest­ment tech­nique right now is the buy to let mort­gages. This is one great way to earn pas­sive income and you’re shelling out prac­ti­cally ZERO invest­ment. Some con­fi­dence is needed for this though and this is not for first time investors.

In the mean­time, I’ll just have to say NO more and become more “adult” than before. :-)

Read more articles like this in: Pitch
If you liked this article, share it: