Busy drawing and coloring? Maybe you’ve heard that the U.S. dollar has taken quite a beating? I’ve personally lost close to 19% of my dollar value. That’s severe, and I’ve been selling any dollar that’s not tied down.
I personally know Philippine-based comic book artists working for the U.S. market since 2003, thereabouts. Relatively speaking, I started much later - 2004 when the dollar was already on a bit of a slide but still at 55:1. I was of the mind to hold onto my dollars.
But I was wrong.
Expecting the dollar to climb back up to 55Php/1US$ (like it was when I started coloring U.S. comics), would be simple-minded. I’ve been selling my dollars now and will only buy when the dollar shows a clear trend towards strengthening against the peso.
That isn’t likely though. We can expect dollar remittances to come in during summer vacation to prelude enrollment on June and for holdays on December - further keeping the peso in relative strength against the dollar. Plus this sub prime mortgage mess in the U.S. isn’t going away for a long time. Financial institutions over there are in a world of debt. This balance may last a good number of years, 3 at least, in my humble opinion.
So now what to do with all the pesos I’ve converted from my dollars? I invest them. First into my education on finance & money, then to the various instruments (in my case - mutual funds, insurance, and soon the stock market)
Many people believe that you can’t get rich as a comics creator, that you should get into another line of work if you want to get rich. I say that comics creators have to get smart about handling and growing the money they’ve made through comics. Do not too busy writing, drawing, inking, coloring, or lettering as to merely leave your money rotting in a bank or handing it over to someone smarter (and more devious) than you.
