钱不够用? Thou shalt not splurge.

-----Me.-----

I admit it. I have always been somewhat of a miser from the start. Well at least I have been "trained" to be one since young. Maybe I'd prefer the phrase: "Saving for a rainy day."

-----A saddening thing.-----

Recently, my mum read a newspaper article about saving for old age and how someone found that the golden years were so difficult to cope with. All because of the fact they shared in common - both my mum and that someone had married late.

It's really a saddening thing. What's the big deal? You ask. Well, maybe your parents married young. That doesn't mean life is great for you. But I would profess that you would be at a greater advantage to take care of your parents (when they're old in the future).

-----Life.-----

The fragility of life - wonderful yet not eternal. An effortless, velvety road we learn to drive on, only to give way to a rugged tarmac of portholes when we least expected it. My mum... was in her mid-thirties when I entered this world. My dad... just exactly a year older than her. My maternal grandma... mid-seventies and struck down by kidney failure, swollen legs and regular trips in and out of hospital. New bills are coming in ever so often. Luckily there's the MediShield scheme. My paternal grandma... in her eighties and coping with eye and orthopaedic problems.

-----Revelations. Realisations.-----

Just think - even before I establish my career well, my parents are well around or over sixty. My grandmas - God will decide. But the point here is that once all the above-mentioned surge into their golden years - illness, disease and death will be inevitable. Not being even 30 years old (don't know whether I would have been married yet), and with a bank account amount that's not very likely to be decent, it would be a challenge for me to juggle my finances and time between my future family and them. They would rather I spend more with my would-be family than them - but on the contrary, my parents/grandmas brought me up after all.

HOW ON EARTH TO GET BY? Without prudent saving, tonnes of expensive bills (resulting from taking care of probably FOUR elderly people) will crash head-on with my yet unestablished career! I still have polytechnic, National Service and probably University to go - not to mention getting a job! By the time I finish all this my parents will well be over 60 or 70! HOW TO COPE!! *Somebody SAVE ME!*

-----Splurge not, waste not.-----

My parents have been saving since they started work. Now only my dad works. His salary is not decent considering the amount of experience and qualifications he has. Sometimes he urges us to spend more and not worry about it - somehow I feel that we have just enough to get by. But it's not that we don't have enough finances - there's enough - at least for now; maybe not for the future.

Another habit I feel that's good for me to cultivate - NOT to splurge. Money should be spent more on NEEDS than WANTS. I try best to stay away from luring temptations. Instead of keeping up with the rat race about having the latest model of gadgets or being the most trendy, up-to-date, fashionable talk-about in town, I would much rather save for "rainy days."

I mean - what's the use of endlessly updating yourself to fit into the crowd? "YAY! I got the latest Nokia handphone model!" But hey - guess what? A few months later and *poof!* comes out a NEWER model. Then you get your eyes set on it and long for it - AS IF you can't do with an older (but still functional) phone. It's a futile chase - one I wouldn't want to even embark on. That's the reason why I don't believe in chasing after branded products and services when I have similar alternatives.

-----Parting comments.-----

Fashion and the futile chase of branded goods - evolving all the time! What's the fun or use of going after them? I'm contented with my food. I'm contented with my clothes. I'm contented with where I stay. Blah blah blah. Brand me unspoilt, laid-back, slowpoke, outdated, unevolved or whatever I don't care about - but I'm just sticking to my morals of not splurging unnecessarily.

There are MORE worthwhile things to spend money on for me.