Love and Marriage: Ivy's 5+4+1+6+8+3+2+1 birthday

This is an overdue post, since Ivy's birthday was a couple of weeks ago. I also had a visitor in that weekend - a colleague of mine from our Seoul office who was undergoing some training in London office. Since Lucia was close to CPH, she thought it would be a good opportunity to make a short weekend trip here. Good thing she chose the right date to visit, as it was indeed an event-filled weekend. Also of the fact that the airline carrier I had suggested her to book with went bankrupt just a few days ago as they were owned by Icelandic investors who are suffering huge financial problems.

Speaking of Iceland, isn't it amazing how a whole COUNTRY can be on the brink of bankruptcy? It's really sad, but on the other hand, you reap what you sow. No doubt there are many innocent people affected, but the government had a responsibility to ensure that things don't get out of hand. They had been warned, but they didn't seem to care, and it's only a matter of time when your spending spree on borrowed money will come to an ugly end.

Seriously, this can be applied on a micro level too. Personally, I own 3 credit cards: Diner's Club, Mastercard with a Danish bank (supplementary), Mastercard with a Singapore bank (also supplementary), 1 debit card (Visa/Dankort) and 1 ATM card. I'd say that I'm the credit card companies worst customer. If they had a long list, I'll be at the very bottom, simply because I hardly ever use them.

Why do I have them then? It's the "just-in-case" mentality, and I had actually been many years ago in a situation where I was lucky to have my credit cards to unexpectedly pay for 3 air tickets out of Beijing, China. Long story. Good thing these situations don't happen often, but "just-in-case" something happens, I'll have my credit cards to fall back on.

Hmm...I remember now that it was good Martin and I had our Diners Club cards while in Rome almost 1 year ago... . Without them, we'd not have been able to get out any cash at all due to a situation with our Visa cards! So you see, "just-in-case". On a regular basis however, I dislike spending beyond my means.

I would go as far as to say that I never spend beyond my means. Apart from the mortgages on the apartments that we have, we don't owe the bank anything else. My belief is that if you can't afford something, you either work hard and save up for it, or you just don't get it at all. Most of the things that we "need" are material/luxury things anyway. For example, I love travelling, and I was planning on a big long trip to either Peru or Costa Rica next March. But now that my job situation is uncertain, I'll have to ~~rob a bank~~ forgo the plan and wait till our home economic situation is more certain.

Of course, I can just take the risk and go anyway, since I would be paid full salary for several months if I choose not to continue working for my current company... . I just don't think I'll enjoy myself much with the uncertainty hanging in the air at home.

Anyway, bottomline is: never spend beyond your means! If you take the risk to do so, then make sure you can afford the losses after enjoying the gains. I'm one person you'll never find playing the stock market. Can be tempting sometimes (high risk, high returns/high losses), but I'd rather sleep well at night knowing that the savings in my bank is what I worked hard for and therefore truly mine.

Now to Ivy's party pictures: