From Newspaper Boy to Investor and Financial Advocate

This is part of our How They Did It Series, where we feature inspirational stories of real people, who got dealt with real problems but still came out on top in spite of adversity.

My hope is that if they can do it so can you!

This story starts with me travelling to Qatar and meeting  Bernard Anduyon in both of my trips there.  He had such passion to be financially free and at the same time had the zeal to help more Filipinos be set towards the right financial direction.  Little did I know that his passion came with such a great story.  He moved from trial to triumph and from adversity to amazing.  This story is how Bernard Anduyon made his way from selling newspapers in makati to being now an investor in different asset classes to also creating an advocacy in Qatar to help other Filipinos to also reach their dreams of being financial free.

My desire is that, his story would be an inspiration to everyone that if he can do it, so can you.  If God blessed him that he was able to change the course of his financial destiny God can bless you too.  Bernard’s story should not be the last of many Filipinos seeking financial freedom.

Enjoy!

Catch me in my live training events! (quick plug)

 Your hunger and frustration will push you to your success, that was my believe after all my experiences and difficulties in life I know that poverty will end in my life.

As early age of 10 I already knew how to work for money, I woke up as early as 4:00 am to sell newspaper in our barangay or sell hot bread (pandesal) just to earn money for my school allowance and to help augment my parent’s. I’ve been in the street most of my childhood years, from newspaper boy, pandesal boy, and a water boy. Using an improvised wooden cart, I go around our neighborhood, delivering potable water from house to house. The money I earn served as my allowance in school and I also gave a portion to my mother for our food.

After graduating in high school I stopped for 2 years to give way to my older sister to finish her college. At that time my parents cannot afford to send me in school but instead of being “tambay” I learned how to drive a tricycle which becomes our source of income. I was out of school at the age of 16. After two years I convinced my parents that I can be a working student so I can support myself for college. I took exam in different state universities since I knew it was cheap and my course that I wanted was offered in most of the state universities in the Philippines.

I took a course BS Electrical Engineering at the Technological University in the Philippines Manila. The tuition fee was cheap compared to other schools but my allowance was not enough to sustain my studies. In order to sustain I worked as a service crew at night with the number one fast food chain in the Philippines. If I have time I still drive our tricycle to have additional income and allowance.

I remember there were times that I fell asleep in class and my teacher noticed that I looked tired and sleepy. In college my routine was school-work-house and worse if we have a project to submit I needed to be awake for 24 hours to submit the project.

I finished my college 6 years instead of 5, since I could afford to complete the course due to the time constraint with my work and study. I graduated in 2001.

After graduating from college I entered corporate world believing that it will end my poverty life. True enough I had a salary which was competitive but still the demand in our family was not sustained. That time my father was forced to retire due to his poor health condition and I became the bread winner of the family.

I have a big responsibility to my family and my salary was not enough, I also didn’t have any idea how to create additional income. I was financially ignorant at that time no idea how money will work for me. I didn’t even have any single centavo in my savings.

After my younger brother finished college and I got married, the financial demand was get even higher so I decided to work abroad.

Working in Dubai was my gateway to end our poverty as I earned 5x more than my salary in the Philippines but my expenses also grew and my savings was not as good as I expected. As my salary grew I also spent more to comfort myself by buying expensive gadgets, appliances, signature shirts and jeans. I didn’t know my wants from my needs.

During our 1^st vacation in 2009 my wife and I decided to attend a financial literacy seminar. It was an eye opener for us and we grabbed the opportunity to start investing for our future. Without proper planning and not fully understanding how our investments worked we took the risk to invest our small savings and studied later. That became a turning point in our lives, from that time, we asked for mentors and God was so good that He sent us all great mentors into our lives. We met with them personally and became a good friends and advisor. From having unplanned goals, we now plan our future. Our mentors are expert in different avenues of investment Real Estate, Mutual Funds, Stock Market, Personal Finance, Insurance Entrepreneur etc. etc. and they help us to achieve our goals.

Almost every year we open one investment, and we plan each investment with respect to our financial goals.

Today we not just plan for our financial goals, but we help others to plan and achieve their financial freedom. As my personal testimony, I can say that everyone is entitled to be wealthy and enjoy life to the fullest because God allows us to become rich and the resources are available to us. From having the right information and right mentors we will surely achieved our goals.

New book and other books on Investing, Business and Finance.

I’m excited to share my 5th book overall and the 4th book in the Stock Smarts series, Stock Smarts: Breaking the Resistance – How to time your traders perfectly. The heart of this book is to teach you strategic ways on how to come in and buy and sell stocks in a way where you come as the market is headed up and come out as the market is headed down. The book is now out and exclusive via Marvin Germo Book Orders.

For more details and to order my other books: Marvin Germo Book Orders