spending other people's money

i got into yet another semi-heated debate with my parents last week on our way to the movies (Clash of the Titans). the reason: when to spend and when to save.

i forgot how it started; all i remember was that, all of a sudden, my dad was further corrupting my brother's set of values by saying that he should spend/buy when others are paying, but save/scrimp when he's using his own money.

naturally, i had to give everyone within a kilometer radius my two cents worth.  see, the main difference with me and my brother is the person/s who raised us.  my mother almost single-handedly raised my three older sisters and myself, whereas my dad was more hands-on when he finally had the XY offspring.  now, my dad is a good man, truly one of the best in my life.  but good men have their flaws too, and my father is no exception.  i'm afraid, now that he is nearing retirement and no longer needs to pay for the matriculation of five children (just one left), he has become lax with his spending habits.  yes, he is entitled to the fruits of his labor, God knows he has been working his ass off ever since he was a little pauper in Isabela.  but i fear that his new paradigms on money matters are not something you would want to pass onto a 16-year old. 

see, i was raised by my stingy mother and, early on, i learned the value of money and hard work if i wanted any of the former.  even as a child, i felt ashamed to ask for anything, knowing that asking my mom for that new Barbie doll in Duty Free would earn me a painful pinch in the groin, and i would have to endure the humiliation of crying like a girl AND not getting a toy, while my cousins played with theirs.

i realized that i had to work hard if i wanted anything.  my aunt told me that when i was really really young, i once tried to pass around envelopes in my father's clinic.  the envelopes were marked "Abuloy para kay Kat".  i don't even recall doing that!! i only found that out sometime in October 2008, when I was in Chicago and visited that aunt of mine.  i guess i thought abuloy was another word for donations. haha.  my dad then predicted that i would grow up to be independent.  and i did.

during early elementary, i would spend summers hanging out at my dad's clinic in Isabela, selling snacks i made with my cousins to the waiting patients.  one year, i sold perfume for my aunt and ended up spraying some on my eye when i was supposed to spritz some on my dad's nurse--i ended up with an eyepatch for three days! everybody called me "sharp shooter".  in sixth grade, i was introduced to the art of beading and jewelry making and, from then until my mid-college years, i was making trinkets and selling them, or giving them as gifts instead of buying the more expensive but less pretty ones.  when i grew tired of the beadwork, i capitalized on my knack for English by teaching Koreans to speak it, and teaching them well, if i may brag.

it was hard work, yes, but i am proud to have learned to not depend on others for material things and, even better, to have the means to help out those who aren't as financially independent yet.

well, that was how my mom raised me.  but now my dad comes in and practically tells charlie "spend all our hard-earned money; just don't waste yours!"  it's only another way of saying he had best depend on my parents instead of learning to respect how difficult it is to earn such and thereby using it wisely.  i don't want my brother to become the annoying dude who keeps asking everyone "libre" and who engages in toxic, wasteful spending, just because it isn't his money he's wasting anyway.  we already have enough of them in the government!

my motto is to only spend what's necessary, and be extra careful when spending other people's cash too (what if they're in a financial crisis right now and are just too shy to back out on a promised treat,etc.?).  and as for your own, i wouldn't recommend wasting it all either, just because it's yours and you worked hard for it, but i would say spend on what you believe is right and well-deserved.

what do you think? what's your spending paradigm? i'd love to hear from you.