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Saturday, June 04, 2005

I’ve been here in HK for a good whole three months already and I must say that I’ve managed my finances relatively well or so I thought. I would like to think that I haven’t really been spending that much. I mean I haven’t done any serious shopping at all. I occasionally buy here and there but nothing really big or super extravagant so far. Not that I’m on a tight budget or anything but it’s a conscious decision to try to "reasonably" save as much as possible. A bulk of my expenses go to basic necessities. Well mostly on food that is and take note it doesn’t even take that much to make me “busog.” Since day one, I started listing down day to day expenses to take into account how much I’ve been spending or saving for that matter and all this time, I’ve been darn proud of how well I’ve moderately managed my finances. So when I was calculating three months’ worth of finances, I was left dumbfounded. Initially, the numbers staring right back at me seemed alright – at least not until I start converting them to Philippine peso anyway (hehe). I have no idea how much an average “Hongkie” spends in a week but most certainly under Philippine standards, it’s just over and above what an average single person would spend in a week. It’s more than a whole month’s worth of groceries for an entire household of six! To think, we’re only talking about personal expenses discounting rent, electricity and the like. And to think this is only HK that we're speaking of so what more can we get out of our peso's worth in the US or Europe? I guess the standards of living are higher so the costs are different. Hmm…maybe I shouldn’t bother converting to peso anymore otherwise everything will always either seem more expensive or unreasonably priced. On the other hand, everything will seem so much cheaper when I get back to Manila. So is that good news or bad news? (hehe)