An ode to my mum

The women in my family are savers. Well, maybe by "the" women I only mean my mum and me, and also my aunt. My sister doesn't seem to fall in this category but that may have been a result of that period when our household was just eking by.

I've been very close to my mum ever since I was a wee kid. Being close to somebody inevitably means that you pick up a lot of their habits and philosophies. I would have turned out very differently if I had a working mum who comes home too tired to care. Not to disparage the efforts of all working women, I can't deny that there are definitely potential advantages to having a stay at home mum. Working mums just don't have the luxury of time.

Anyway, in our household, my mum is the chief finance officer. She determines how much to spend on which item. Usually, her own needs are the last in line. At home, I rarely even see the leftovers; my mum eats them for lunch. She works like the Google founders who are working for $1 except without the lucrative stock options. Mums have it really tough.

All that aside, I think I've picked up her frugal habits. I grew up in the generation of consumers yet I find myself reluctant to consume. While most people are cashing out on their future with the use of credit cards, here I am thinking of how to save my measly first wage even before I start working. I don't mean I will be a penny pincher but somehow the idea of budgeting and accomodating all my needs have become more of an intellectual exercise. After all that's what operations research is about, looking for balances between tradeoffs and getting an optimal allocation.

Sometimes, I get on a high just from learning new things. My sponge of grey matter is surprisingly thirsty, even after all these years of sometimes boring formal education.

I hope my mum is as happy as I am about how I've turned out. My gradual independece forged a big part of my philosophy but it was built on the foundation of good sense that she helped mould. One of my goals in achieving financial freedom is to provide her with a well deserved retirement and provide for her future as she did mine.
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