7 INVESTING MISTAKES: Avoid These Common Traps for Beginner Investors

UPDATE: April 2026

Back in 2008, I started this blog with one very clear motivation.

Not passion. Not a creative outlet. Money.

My exact thought at the time was: "If there is money in the trash bin, how much more on the internet." I was still in college. My family needed extra income. I figured blogging could be a way to earn beyond my eventual salary.

That instinct — that money should be doing more work than just sitting still — was actually sound financial thinking. I just did not apply it consistently anywhere else in my life.

Now I am turning 40. I have a government salary, a Pag-IBIG contribution, that I mostly just trust is doing something useful in the background. And when I actually sat down to think about my financial situation — the same week my cholesterol results came back flagged and my doctor gave me three months to fix my health — I realized my finances needed the same honest audit my body just got.

This post is that audit. And I am going to include the mistakes I actually made — not a generic list from a finance textbook.

Mistake 1: Thinking GSIS/SSS and Pag-IBIG Were Enough

This is the most common mistake among Filipino government employees, and I made it for years.

The logic feels solid: I have GSIS/SSS for retirement. I have mandatory Pag-IBIG contributions. The government is taking care of it. What else do I need to do?

The honest answer is: those are floors, not ceilings. GSIS/SSS and mandatory Pag-IBIG are your baseline safety net — they are not a wealth-building strategy. They are designed to keep you from falling through the floor. They are not designed to give you financial freedom.

The moment you stop treating mandatory contributions as your complete financial plan and start asking "what else can I do with the money I have" — that is when actual investing begins.

Mistake 2: Waiting Until You Have "Enough" to Start

"I will invest when I have extra money."

I said this for years. The problem is that "extra money" is a feeling, not a number — and that feeling almost never arrives on its own. There is always a bill, a family need, a repair, something that absorbs whatever surplus you thought you had.

Many investment platforms in the Philippines allow you to begin with just ₱500. The key is consistency — investing regularly helps reduce risk and builds wealth over time. Thethriftypinay

Five hundred pesos. That is a GrabFood order and a milk tea. That is also, if you invest it consistently every month over several years, a real and growing asset.

The math on starting early versus starting late is not complicated — the earlier you start, the more time your money has to compound. Every year you wait is a year of growth you permanently lose. I know this. I knew this in 2008. I still waited.

Mistake 3: Going In Without a Financial Mentor

This one is not in most investing mistake articles. But it was real for me.

I did not have anyone in my life who talked about money intelligently. Nobody in my immediate circle was investing in anything beyond SSS and Pag-IBIG. So when I finally decided to take money seriously, I went straight to platforms and products without having anyone help me understand the mindset first.

The result: I made moves based on excitement rather than strategy. I chased things that sounded good without understanding them. I had no one to check my thinking against.

Here is what I eventually learned: finding the right financial mentor matters as much as finding the right investment. But not just any mentor — someone whose values are aligned with yours. Someone who thinks about money the way you think about life.

For me that person was Bo Sanchez. I started following him on social media and eventually learned about the Truly Rich Club — a community built around the idea that you can grow wealth without compromising your faith or your integrity. His approach is not about getting rich fast. It is about building a financial system that is sustainable, spiritually grounded, and practical for regular Filipinos.

I am not here to sell you a membership. What I am saying is that his content helped me understand something I was missing: money management is not just math — it is mindset. And having someone you trust to guide that mindset shift changes everything.

There are many financial advocates in the Philippines today — Chinkee Tan, Marvin Germo, Fitz Villafuerte, and many others doing genuinely good work. The key is finding someone whose approach resonates with how you see the world. Not just the one with the most followers or the most aggressive returns. The one whose values make sense to you.

Because the right mentor does not just teach you where to put your money. They help you understand why you were afraid to invest in the first place.

Mistake 4: Opening an Account and Never Using It

Okay. This one is embarrassing.

At some point I opened a COL Financial account. COL Financial is one of the most accessible stock trading platforms in the Philippines — low minimum investment, user-friendly, designed specifically for everyday Filipino investors.

I opened the account. Completed the registration. Set everything up.

And then I never opened it again.

Not once. Not to deposit. Not to browse. Not even to look at the dashboard out of curiosity.

It just sat there — a perfectly functional stock market account attached to a person who had apparently decided that having an investment account was sufficient proof of being an investor.

It was not. I was not. 😄

I am telling you this because I suspect I am not the only one. There is a specific Filipino investing failure mode where the effort of opening the account becomes a substitute for actually investing. You feel like you did something. You technically did something. But nothing is actually working for you because nothing is actually in motion.

The account is not the investment. The money in the account is the investment. One without the other is just paperwork.

The update to this story — the part that actually makes me feel better — is that today I have GInvest active on my GCash. And yes, I started with ₱500. Literally five hundred pesos. Not as a strategy. As proof to myself that I could start something and not abandon it at the account-opening stage again.

That ₱500 is not going to change my life. But the habit of depositing something consistently — even a small amount — is the actual skill I was missing. The amount grows when the habit is already in place.

The COL account is still out there somewhere, patient and empty, waiting for me. Maybe this is the year.

Mistake 5: Not Having an Emergency Fund Before Investing

This is one almost nobody talks about in beginner investing content, and it is the mistake that causes people to give up on investing entirely.

Here is what happens: you put ₱5,000 into a UITF or a stock. Three months later, an unexpected expense arrives — medical bill, appliance breakdown, family emergency. You have no cash buffer. So you pull out your investment, often at a loss or with penalties, just to cover the emergency.

You conclude that investing does not work. You stop.

The investment did not fail. The sequence failed.

Build your emergency fund first — three to six months of your basic expenses, kept in a savings account you can access quickly. That fund is not an investment. It is a shield that protects your actual investments from being raided every time life happens.

For a government employee in the Philippines, a reasonable emergency fund target might be ₱30,000 to ₱50,000, depending on your monthly expenses. Get that in place before you put a single peso into anything else.

Mistake 6: Chasing "Hot" Investments Without Understanding Them

Pandemic era cryptocurrency. The friend's "sure" stock tip. The networking scheme that sounded like investing but was not. The insurance product that turned out to be a VUL with fees you did not read carefully.

Many beginners chase quick profits by following what others are doing without even understanding the investment. Thethriftypinay

The rule is simple: if you cannot explain how an investment makes money in two sentences, do not put your money in it yet. Study it first. Ask questions. If the person selling it gets evasive or annoyed when you ask questions — that is your answer.

Mistake 7: Treating Investing as All-or-Nothing

Either you are "an investor" with a strategy and a portfolio — or you are just someone who has not started yet. Many Filipinos stay in the second category forever because the first one sounds intimidating.

The reality is that investing is a spectrum. You can start with ₱50 in GFunds through your GCash app today, right now, before you finish reading this post. That ₱50 will not make you rich. But it will make you someone who has started — and starting is the only thing that actually separates the two groups.

Where Filipinos Can Actually Start — In Pesos, Not Dollars

Here are the options that are actually available to you in the Philippines, from lowest barrier to entry to higher:

GFunds via GCash — starts at ₱50 GInvest is an investment feature within the GCash app that allows users to invest in a variety of financial products including fixed-income funds, bonds, stocks, and mutual funds — and you can start investing with GFunds for as low as ₱50. Juan Remotework This is the lowest-friction entry point available to any Filipino with a fully verified GCash account.

Pag-IBIG MP2 — starts at ₱500 The Pag-IBIG MP2 Savings Program is a government-backed option that offers higher returns than traditional savings accounts, with dividend rates historically ranging from 4% to 8%, and earnings are tax-free. Juan Investor If you are already a Pag-IBIG member — and as a government employee, you are — MP2 is the most natural first step beyond your mandatory contribution. You can enroll and manage it online through Virtual Pag-IBIG.

UITFs via your bank — typically starts at ₱1,000 to ₱5,000 Minimum investments for UITFs typically range from ₱5,000 to ₱10,000 depending on the bank offering them. Juan Remotework UITFs are professionally managed — you do not need to monitor the market yourself. Your bank's trust department handles the investments based on the fund type you choose. Good for people who want to invest but do not want to become full-time market watchers.

PSE stocks via COL Financial or similar — starts at ₱1,000 Higher risk, higher potential return, requires more study and patience. Beginners can start by investing in blue-chip stocks such as Ayala Corporation, SM Investments, or Jollibee Foods, using a long-term strategy like peso-cost averaging to reduce risk. Efren Nolasco This is not where you start on day one — but it is a natural progression once you have your emergency fund in place and you have read enough to know what you are doing.

Mavs' Final Diagnosis

I started a blog in 2008 because I understood, even then, that a single income source is fragile. I just did not fully apply that same logic to the rest of my financial life consistently enough.

Turning 40 has a way of making these things feel more urgent. The same week I found out my cholesterol was high and my body needed a reset, I realized my finances needed the same honest look. Both situations have the same root cause — years of knowing what to do and not doing it consistently enough.

The mistakes I listed are not rare. They are the default setting for most Filipinos who did not grow up with financial education built into their schooling. Knowing about them is step one. Step two is the ₱50 in GFunds, or the MP2 enrollment, or the emergency fund you start building this month.

The best time to start was ten years ago. The second best time is today.

I know which option I have left.

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Note: This post is for general financial awareness only and is not investment advice. Every person's financial situation is different. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.