Budgeting

So the other day... err... night, I made a huge impulse buy (bought a 50" plasma at 1 am on a Tuesday night) and it got me thinking about how twentysomethings spend money. Wall Street Journal says we should have enough in our savings to be able to live 3 months without any additional income. My mom says I should be saving to buy a house. I say... there's too many bright, shiny toys out there for me to buy. She used to tell me that my name in Chinese phonetically sounded like 'Jeh-sun' which means thrifty in Mandarin. Go figure. (That's not the reason they named me Jason though. No.. I'm not named after the Greek hero. My dad's name is Jay and since I'm his son... Jay's son... Jason)

The typical Asian kid is raised to be frugal and value the almighty dollar. Rarely do you see an Asian kid throwing a tantrum to get some video game. Cuz they know... 1) It ain't happening... our moms are immune to that shit. They grew up in China where they got an apple for Christmas and had to split it 8 ways with their brothers and sisters. (I later found out that this was my grandma's generation not my mom's because my mom totally got called out for it by my grandma. Hilarious! My mom's family apparently was pretty well off... but she was stone cold nevertheless) 2) We know that after pulling a stunt like that, we were gonna get the butt-whupping of our life once we got home. We were gonna get hit with the bamboo 'gaimoso' (feather duster) while listening to her screech, 'how can you shame the family like that?' and have an ass that looked like we sat on a waffle iron for the next week.

The lesson learned from that experience was... stfu at toy stores... and white people live life by a totally different set of rules. Whether it's talking back to parents, or having run in's with the law. The tantrums and puppy dog eyes just never work for us. Probably because our chinky eyes just aren't genetically capable of conveying deep-seated remorse.

So driven by my revelation, I logged into my credit card account and started categorizing all my expenditures. (I always seem to find something I just HAVE to do late at night instead of sleeping. I really wish my bouts of 'genius' struck me at a more reasonable hour) So with a couple of clicks I had a summary of everything I spent money on in the last 3 months. There was even a nifty pie chart available. 30% went to mandatory spending like bills and rent. Which means the rest went to food right? Wrong. What it actually breaks down to is Invisalign... 10%, gadgets/toys/clothing... 10%, restaurants and alcohol... 50%. WTF?!? Expanding that piece of the pie, I see that 99% of all my expenditures happen during the weekend. Why is it that I'm so frugal during the week but once Friday night hits, I'm like Luda and Chris Breezy. Making it rain and ballin' out of control. Goose all around! It's so bizarre. Going from clipping coupons to getting crunked the moment work let's out? Priceless. Every time the clock strikes 5 it's like the beat drops. The DJ Quik in my head starts spinnin', 'It's gonna be a good night...' as I get ready to go out. Then moment the boys meet up, it's 'Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! ' Budgeting is a lost cause. Guess I'm doomed to live the life of a Greek hero. LML