There's always that irritating habit among Filipinos called the maƱana habit. It's typical to think about how events tend to start one hour late, people who always show up late for work, and you know the drill. As Christmas draws near, I can expect heavy traffic from last-minute shoppers. There can be various reasons why there's no money for Christmas. Be it the payday blowout problem (read here) or there are various other dumb ways to drain the salary (read here). I would also like to blame the incredibly bad habit of procrastination on paying bills. I don't care what the reasons are but procrastination keeps people poor. Sure, it's typical for teenagers to procrastinate but shouldn't that be outgrown as an adult?
Some people procrastinate to pay bills because they're reluctant to part with their money
Some people can be so stingy it's borderline unreasonable (read here). A thrifty person spends money wisely. Stingy people are very reluctant to part their money, even if they need to do so. I remember a joke over the local radio in Cebu more than 10 years ago. A miser got into an accident and somebody offered to rescue him. The man called a taxi and he called for a jeepney. The miser was taken to a private hospital and he demanded a public hospital. The end was that the rescuer was so angry he ended up abandoning the man. Sure, it was a criminal act to do so but I might've committed the same mistake in the rescuers' place. Never haggle with your health!
The same might go for paying bills. Some people can go to absurd lengths as not to pay their bills until near the deadline or wait until a notice of disconnection shows up. Such people only think about their own money. They can get mad when somebody doesn't pay them back on time but it's very A-OK for them to do so. They refuse to give a discount but they're always haggling when they buy something. Such people find comfort in their money only, without seeing the value of their money saved and spent.
Even worse, their employees may suffer as a result of their actions. Talk about the secretary who suddenly offers criticism. The secretary may say, "Sir, if you just paid ahead, you could avoid the stress!" The boss may arrogantly say, "I'm the founder of this business for time immemorial! It's my money and I do what I want with it! I want to keep the money (insert insult) with me as much as possible." This might end up with the people he owed getting frustrated and saying, "Why can't you just pay your bills on time? Don't be so cheap!" He might play the "Customer is always right!" card on them. The employees may even suffer from collecting accounts payable as soon as possible. All the while, their own boss is reluctant to pay his account payables as soon as possible.
In turn, a stingy person's habits can grow worse. Sooner or later, it means losing connections, which in turn, can be bad for businesses. Not having health insurance would mean having to pay the hospitals higher or getting caught unprepared for medical emergencies. It would also mean allowing things to deteriorate all because one's too reluctant to part with one's money for valid reasons. The person may end up like Ebenezer Scrooge in The Christmas Carol in some way--living alone in the world. Scrooge may have changed at the end of the story but some people are Scrooges all their lives.
Some people procrastinate because they have poor priorities
My favorite example of such people was General Tomas Mascardo, from the movie Heneral Luna (General Luna). I wrote a post where I discussed the problem of the "If it's bitter then just add sugar." mentality. When one starts to think like that, they're going to start evading the problem because they just want to add sugar. The same bitter can be the amount of bills that one needs to pay. Instead of facing the problem head-on like getting the bills paid as soon as possible, they decide to add the proverbial sugar by doing this and that. One way that the proverbial sugar is added would be like attending a town feast. That was what Mascardo did--he chose to attend a feast in the middle of a war. I guess for Mascardo, he lived with the mentality that adding sugar to the bitter would "solve the problem" when it wouldn't.
The poor priorities can be seen in the one-day paycheck problem (read here). Instead of thinking about paying the bills first--they decide to splurge the paycheck. I guess it's no surprise to see people who keep demanding higher salaries while lowering prices (read here). I ran into a business administration graduate who just gave a haha reaction (š) on Facebook. I explained to him that salaries do contribute to the overall pricing. If salaries are raised, you have to expect the final product or final service to go higher. Sure, there are times when prices can go lower such as when the cost of materials and utilities have a reduced rate. For example, a restaurant may sell a certain product on a sale because of a surplus. By default, any increase in salary means an increase in the cost of the final product. That's why I even wrote the challenge if such people are willing to open such stores that offer high salaries and lower-priced goods. When I asked some of them, they said it was the government that should do it. Why don't they show that it works first then?
These people think that they can just add the proverbial sugar to solve their problem. For all we know, they're already adding debt to debt. They could've slowly started to work on paying for their problems but they refuse to do so. For example, a credit card can't be used because the bank cut off the line until the bill is settled. Instead of paying for it, they decide to have fun by borrowing money so they can continue to have fun. They live in the mentality that they just want to have fun all the time. What they don't see is that it's not a realistic outcome.
What happens is that they soon find themselves in a miserable situation. Maybe, some of them would choose to blame the rich or hate the rich for simply being rich. They would demand social justice (like those lazy Americans who want socialism, without realizing that China and Vietnam wouldn't want their kind over there) for the problems they themselves caused. Maybe, they might end up miserably buying lottery tickets hoping to win a jackpot instead of learning to be responsible with their money. They can whine all they want but it's their fault if they mishandled the money.