Rant & Raves

Growing pain. How many of you have experienced it?

When we were young, for example, during high school time, all we got to worry was the exams and the endless homework. But once the exams were over, we partied. Once we finished our homework, we watched movie or went out with friends for drinks. Those were the only things that we had to worry.

But once we grow up, and step into the society to be a real adult, the pain starts to come.

The first pain is the job. We got to decide which job to take, and then take full responsibilities during our course of employment with that company. The work is endless, and we have to deal with the politics within the company.

Then, we will feel the pain of money. Yup, financially, we are responsible for ourselves. We earn the income from the job, spend on our daily necessities, or some leisure entertainment for ourselves such as movies, popcorn, DVD, and all that. If we start to date, then we got to think of romantic dinner once in a while, or some gift during anniversaries or birthdays.

How about car? Yup, we have to decide which car to get, something that is within our budget. After we have picked your car model, the color, and the number plate, we have to decide which car loan we want to take because there are so many financial institutes, aka BANKS, aka licensed loan sharks, and there are so many different kind of offerings with different interests and terms, we have to study them carefully to make sure that we are making the right decision.

When we grow older still, we have to start looking for buying a house. Well, first of all, we have to decide the budget for the house, and then we have to source the location to ensure that it is located in a prime area. After checking out all that, we have to decide with mortgage to take because again, buying a house is a very long term commitment that the mortgage can run up to 30 years. With so many different offerings, interests structure, all the technical terms like Basic Lending Rate (BLR) and all that, it can be a real headache to decide which banks aka financial institute aka licensed loan shark that we are going to take.

Even though we can say that, “Oh we have a great job that pay us well,” but the fact remains that the more we earn from our job, the deeper we are going into debt. Why? We start to buy bigger car, which not only cost more on the initial buy but also cost more for maintenance. How about the petrol cost? Petrol price is going anywhere but up, so we are spending more every day. Or how about we start to buy bigger house? Yup, it will be more expensive. The mortgage will be bigger. There are more furnitures to buy to fill up the place or else it looks empty. And don’t forget about the tax that we need to pay for the land and stuff.

Of course, if you are financially gifted (like, you have a super rich dad), then all these are not worries but just some hassles that you have to go through.

There are professional service provider, such as real estate agents, that can get all your requirements, source the location, do a summary of the mortgage structure from all the banks in the country to provide you the best choice. Still, it is a pain to be tied up to a 25 or 30 years mortgage.

And then, if we meet the right person, then maybe it is time for us to get married and settle down. The wedding ceremony is a cost. The honeymoon is a cost. Even the professional mover that help move our spouses belongings to our place will be a cost.

Then, when we grow older still, we might plan to have kids. Now that is one big cost, something that will cost us an arm and leg. During pregnancy, the medical bill is expensive. When the kids started to grow up, there is one more mouth to feed so groceries are escalating, and the clothes, and most importantly, the tuition fees, the books, their education fund. Can you start to imagine the pain that we are going to feel?

The reason why I am writing this is because the other day when I was at a shopping center, I saw some kids happily picking the things they want whereas their parents were checking out prices, making sure everything was in order, and sometimes the parents will sigh quietly because those were the money that they needed to spend, but those were money that they wanted to save.

So yeah, when we were kids, we didn’t have responsibilities. But once we grow up, there are more responsibilities in life that we need to tackle and bear.

And that’s called growing pain.

So my dear blog readers, if you are still studying, enjoy your responsibility-free lifestyle for as long as you can because you will feel the pain when you are an adult and step into the real world to be a real adult.

And for my blog readers that has became a real adult in the real world, you can certainly feel the pain that everyone else (well, not everyone as there are so many financially gifted people out there) is feeling.