Is Reaching Your First Million Pesos Harder than the Next Million?

It took me almost two years to reach 1 million pesos and 7 months to reach 2 million pesos.

How did that happen?

Note: Working abroad and earning in dollars really help me accelerate  my savings and my goals. My salary now compared to a Philippine minimum wage has a big gap, I must say, but the cost of living here is outrageously expensive, don't forget the taxes! You might think I am earning a lot of money here but truth be told, my  current salary is small in an American standard but I still manage to save unlike most 28 years old here who are neck in debt. One of an advantage of us immigrants, we know the value of money and we aren't picky with what kind of work there is.

"Sus, your one million pesos is pang burger lang ni Henry Sy or pang snack lang ni JGS" as some may say but for us who needed to start building wealth from scratch I dare you to start saving! I have a friend who has been here for 24 years and she doesn't have anything whatsoever! She doesn't even own a house back home. I am not looking down at her, it's just that most OFWs don't think of their futures. We aren't going to be strong forever. Our body will eventually give up. Save as much as you can then pack your bags and head home. There is no place like home!

Anyway, back to the topic. When I first started to really focus on reaching the first million pesos, there were a lot of adjustment to make. It helps that I already know the value of money and how it feels like to have no money at all, but I still struggled. There were a lot of experimentation with how to do this or how to do that. In short, my mindset needed some hardcore tinkering. I was in  the state of discovering myself, discovering how frugality really means, studying how compound interest works with you rather than against you. Investing was a foreign world to me, ( I am the first in my immediate and extended family to dive in the stock market world) I needed to get my feet wet and study more at that time. I needed to know how 100 can eventually turn in to 1,000, etc.

When I hit 1 million pesos ($25,000) it was a struggle but 7 months later, the second million came and I was shocked coz it didn't really require so much effort than the first million! 

Why?

It occurred to me that the journey to my first million was a training ground. It was like a battle I set for myself, a battle I decided to win. The second time around? It was easy. The third? A breeze! 

It's all in the mind. Don't underestimate the Power of Focus. If you found yourself stumbling down or giving up on your way to your goal, think of it this way: this whole journey is teaching you something, the more you do it, the more it'll become easy. The more it becomes easy the more it will eventually becomes automatic.

Best of luck, my friends. May you reach your goals.