OPINION: Stop confusing deprivation with wealth-building

Start earning more instead of making your life cheaper.

Here’s an unpopular opinion: I don’t want to save money by making my life smaller.

I don’t want every holiday dictated by the cheapest airfare, hotel and food. Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan are wonderful, but if the dream is Switzerland or Paris, why should the goal be to suppress that dream rather than eventually earn enough to afford it?

The same goes for everything else. I don’t want to automatically avoid dinner at Michelin-starred Toyo Eatery or Hapag, or feel financially irresponsible for wanting the latest iPhone, a Chanel bag, Prada shoes or comfortable On Clouds simply because cheaper alternatives exist.

Buying these things when you cannot afford them is foolish. But so is believing deprivation itself will make you wealthy.

Saving has a ceiling

If you earn ₱50,000 a month, the absolute maximum you can save is ₱50,000—and that requires spending literally nothing.

Expenses can only be reduced so far. Income has no equivalent ceiling.

A ₱50,000 salary can become ₱80,000 through career growth. A professional can acquire more clients, increase fees or monetize another skill. An entrepreneur can build another business. An investor can acquire assets that generate income.

At some point, stop asking, “What else can I cut?”

Ask, “How can I make more?”

You still need to save

This does not mean saving is useless. Quite the opposite.

Unless you inherited money, you probably need to save your first ₱100,000, ₱500,000 or ₱1 million before you have serious capital to invest or start a business. You also need an emergency fund so an unexpected expense doesn’t destroy everything you’ve built.

But saving is the starting point, not the destination.

Saving creates capital. More income creates more capital. Investing attempts to multiply it.

Deprivation is not a virtue

We have somehow moralized frugality. Keep an old phone and you’re “responsible.” Skip expensive restaurants and you’re “disciplined.” Travel abroad but stay in the cheapest room and eat convenience-store food and you’re “smart with money.”

There is nothing wrong with living cheaply if that is genuinely the life you want.

But I would rather increase my income until Switzerland doesn’t wreck my finances. I want a Michelin-starred dinner to simply be dinner, not a financial crisis. If I want an expensive phone, bag, watch or pair of shoes, I want to reach the point where buying it does not compromise my investments or financial security.

This isn’t permission to spend recklessly. Financing a ₱250,000 gadget on a ₱50,000 salary to look rich is financial stupidity.

The objective is to actually become able to afford the life you want.

So save. Avoid destructive debt. Build your emergency fund. But spend just as much energy increasing your professional value, monetizing your skills, building income streams and acquiring productive assets.

There are only so many meals you can skip and vacations you can downgrade.

Eventually, stop making your life cheaper and start making your income bigger.

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