If you read this month's Reader's Digest, a 20 year-old who saves 100RM a month will have 83,000RM at his disposal when he turns 50. I used to be that 20-something. I used to save a certain amount of my salary each month. That's before I met my boyfriend.
I believe in regular monthly saving for whatever purposes -- unexpected life situations, rainy days, golden years -- but the only thing my boyfriend believes in saving is his hair. Oh, and the extensive gay pornography he downloads online each day.
He spends as if armageddon is tomorrow, while I usually think and calculate at least thrice before making any purchases. Sometimes, I don't even do that. I just leave empty-handed.
Whenever I confront him, "What have I spent on? Only food...plus I don't smoke. I only buy DVDs sometimes." he'd say, rolling his eyes. But the amount of pirated DVDs that he buys from pasar malams all over the city, if ever found and convicted, will keep him in jail for several lifetimes, I'm sure.
I usually turn a blind eye to his unsound spending behaviours and accept him for who he is. That's what you do in a relationship, isn't that? To accept, for richer or poorer, your boyfriend's unwise money management and all. But lately, I discover I've more than just accepted his bad spending habits, in fact, I've unconsciously embraced it.
While I still keep a part of my salary each month, the amount has shrunken beyond recognition and I realize how meagrely I've saved in the last 9 long years. And, in addition to that, I am buying things without thinking thrice like I used to. I just buy like my boyfriend these days -- without any considerations. It's tempting to justify my new spending habit by saying that I purchase mostly books -- online or in a bookstore -- and because of that , it is, relative to my boyfriend's DVDs, a "healthier" way of spending. But, sadly, in a world where every cent counts, it isn't.
It is eerie how, when two people have been together for a long time, they begin to act, think, smell, or even look like one another. No scientists, I believe, can really explain its mechanism, but I suspect, an obscene amount of spittle exchange is usually involved in the transformation. Isn't it dangerous? The giving up of a part of our identities in the name of something as insecure as...love? When it comes to relationship, is it prudent to reserve a tad of ourselves in order to save us from getting hurt in the future -- distant or near?
I believe in regular monthly saving for whatever purposes -- unexpected life situations, rainy days, golden years -- but the only thing my boyfriend believes in saving is his hair. Oh, and the extensive gay pornography he downloads online each day.
He spends as if armageddon is tomorrow, while I usually think and calculate at least thrice before making any purchases. Sometimes, I don't even do that. I just leave empty-handed.
Whenever I confront him, "What have I spent on? Only food...plus I don't smoke. I only buy DVDs sometimes." he'd say, rolling his eyes. But the amount of pirated DVDs that he buys from pasar malams all over the city, if ever found and convicted, will keep him in jail for several lifetimes, I'm sure.
I usually turn a blind eye to his unsound spending behaviours and accept him for who he is. That's what you do in a relationship, isn't that? To accept, for richer or poorer, your boyfriend's unwise money management and all. But lately, I discover I've more than just accepted his bad spending habits, in fact, I've unconsciously embraced it.
While I still keep a part of my salary each month, the amount has shrunken beyond recognition and I realize how meagrely I've saved in the last 9 long years. And, in addition to that, I am buying things without thinking thrice like I used to. I just buy like my boyfriend these days -- without any considerations. It's tempting to justify my new spending habit by saying that I purchase mostly books -- online or in a bookstore -- and because of that , it is, relative to my boyfriend's DVDs, a "healthier" way of spending. But, sadly, in a world where every cent counts, it isn't.
It is eerie how, when two people have been together for a long time, they begin to act, think, smell, or even look like one another. No scientists, I believe, can really explain its mechanism, but I suspect, an obscene amount of spittle exchange is usually involved in the transformation. Isn't it dangerous? The giving up of a part of our identities in the name of something as insecure as...love? When it comes to relationship, is it prudent to reserve a tad of ourselves in order to save us from getting hurt in the future -- distant or near?
