Saving Money for a New Home

June 15, 2007

I stumbled upon two cool websites on saving money .One is Jared who commented in my blogger account (his site is at  http://powerofthepenny.blogspot.com/ )and another is http://www.belairwm.com. These two blogs have some really good articles on How to Save Money.

 

One article that Marc of Belair Wealth Mgt wrote is Buying your First House. He wrote about the advantages of owning rather than renting a house, However in SIngapore a new trend is rising..these are of old people who sell their homes and use the profits renting. This probably is because in Singapore properties have a 99 year lease period. You own your property only for 99 years. This means you cannot really pass this property on to the next generation(maybe only to your sons and daughters but not to grandchildren).

 

My own experience in building my own house I would say is miraculous. Why miraculous?

 

When I started bulding my house which sits on a 365 square meter property which I made a downpayment on,,I practically had zero money.I also had no savings. I was single and working for a Japanese company. I initially borrowed from my Pag Ibig fund. From the P250,000 loan I only got a mere 180,000 because I had to pay so many legal fees. From that money I was able to buy cement, gravel and sand ,steel and wood for the basic structure.

 

I didnt have to pay for my Architect since my father is an Architect. When my house was half way into construction, I already ran out of funds. So I approached my Japanese employers and I borrowed money which I promise to pay off every month through my P10,000 pay at that time. Fortunately they agreed.The loan was P50,000 interest free.

 

Finishing the house was another matter, this is where the miracle came. My company closed one of its plants so they had to dismantle all the cabinets, lighting etc from the old factory, My colleague offered to give me(without asking) some of the materials from the old factory like lights and cabinet materials and some roofing items. They even delivered all these items for free to my house. My Japanese employers didnt really care if everything was given out for free since they even thought they have to pay for the removal fee.

 

I was able to therefore save 40% of my construction costs from the wood items coming from the closed factory. All my lights in my present house are still there …they all came from the closed factory. They are industrial lighting so they can withstand years of usage.

 

I remember one friend telling me that when you have decided to build a house it will eventually be finished because you really have that goal of completing the house.

 

This house which is a labor of love is still there. Everytime I go home to Manila, I ask my father to give it a good coat of paint. There are a lot of memories in that house….it was where my nephews and nieces grew up…my grandmother saw it before she passed away a year later and I will always remember my mother proudly saying its her house and tending to her garden daily before her stroke.

 

So  even though a lot of my neighbors have rebuit and remodelled their homes..my house (sticking like a sore thumb between two beautiful houses) is still there reminding me of my penny pinching days just to have her.