RIYADH, 7 June 2007 — What can Overseas Filipino Workers do to make their money grow?

The formula is very simple and anyone could do it, says Francisco J. Colayco, a popular financial expert based in Manila who is currently in the Kingdom to show OFWs how to make good use of their earnings.

Colayco, author of bestselling books on personal savings and investment planning, paid a courtesy call on Ambassador Antonio P. Villamor at the Philippine Embassy on Tuesday and gave Arab News a preview of what he is going to say in the series of seminars he will conduct in key places across the Kingdom.

Colayco said there’s nothing really new and original about the formula except that very few people are aware of what they should do.

“Many of us want instant wealth or biglang yaman. We should change our mindset,” he said.

He said the Chinese mentality is that while they are earning, their mentality remains the same while “we Filipinos change when we make money by exceeding our lifestyle because, anyway, we have the paluwagan, the savings and loan and the cooperative to borrow from.”

He urged OFWs to keep on investing and let their investments grow. “Never cheat by taking money from your investment. If you follow this, your investment will grow to the maximum level possible,” he said.

Colayco’s favorite example is about how much a smoker losses for every stick of cigarette he buys, not to mention the damage smoking causes to one’s health and the cost of medical treatment.

“On the cigarette that you have bought, there’s a 97-million-peso fund possible in your lifetime. If you save the P30 a day with which you buy a cigarette, that would be P480,000 in 40 years,” he said.

He said that the amount could further grow to P97 million if instead of buying cigarettes, you invested P1,000 a month in a fund that grows at 30% a year.

He advised OFWs to avoid premature acquisition of assets. “This should be the number one motto. Many Filipinos acquire properties — FX, condo, house and lot — as soon as they have the amount for down payment but don’t have enough money for the monthly amortization. After probably two years, they renege on their monthly payments and the creditors foreclose on their properties,” he said.

One should know where the money for the monthly amortization would come from right from the start, he said.

Colayco, who came at the invitation of the embassy, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office and the Calabarzon group headed by Benny M. Quiambao, will be in the Kingdom for two weeks to spread the good word about saving and investing.

Tonight, he will meet with community leaders and Calabarzon members at the embassy. Tomorrow at 7 p.m., he will meet the general public at the embassy. He had earlier had a dialogue with the Filipino staff of Saudi Oger in Diriyah, Riyadh.

On Saturday, he will fly to Dammam. On June 14, he will be in Qassim. On the night of June 15, he will address a crowd at the embassy and deliver a lecture in conjunction with Philippine Independence Day celebration. From June 16 to 18, he will be in Jeddah.

With Colayco are Armando Bengco, executive director of the Colayco Foundation for Education, Inc., and Noemi F. Salanio, accounting officer of Kalayaan sa Kasaganaan Multi-Purpose Cooperative or KsKMP Coop.

Colayco and his team will also introduce KsKMP Coop as another avenue for OFWs who may wish to invest but who have little capital. He said KsKMP Coop is a cooperative that aims to grow money and is not a lending arm. It is a kind of ownership investment in which the members own shares.

“We formed the cooperative to give the opportunity to our members and experience being owners of an investment and keep it growing,” he said.

Colayco added that this year, KsKMP Coop plans to invest in two projects: a university and a rural bank.

“Because of the services of the university and the bank, the more that KsKMP Coop members will benefit,” he said.

He said the cooperative has the following primary objectives:

• to help, educate and motivate its members to keep more of the money they earn,

• to empower and influence its members to collectively do more with the money they keep,

• to encourage members to join thrift and saving programs to achieve increased income, savings and investments,

• to achieve kalayaan sa kakapusan(financial independence) for each individual member and the cooperative as a whole, and

• to provide continuous trainings and seminars about financial literacy and independence.

To achieve its objectives, KsKMP Coop hopes to achieve a critical mass of members (initially 2,000 to 4,000 members), continuous trainings and seminars on the fundamentals of financial independence, acquire established and profitable businesses that aside from dividends that can be earned by the members, can also be a source of employment as long as the coop member is qualified for employment.

“We’ll also put up a KsKMP Coop for the service and benefit of the members for their deposits, loans, remittances and micro-financing needs, and provide seed funding for members with sound businesses or projects,” Colayco said.

The coop will also make a collective investment in financial instruments for better yield or returns not available if pursued individually at smaller amounts.

Ambassador Villamor expressed his enthusiasm regarding the purpose of Colayco’s visit, saying that “there are some 1.2 million OFWs working in various parts of the Kingdom, many of whom will benefit from the lectures.

“We have been receiving calls, text messages and e-mails almost every minute from Filipino workers all over the Kingdom. They are requesting priority admission to the embassy-scheduled seminars,” Villamor said.