If the price is right

Last week, my company payed out quite a hefty bonus over a very encouraging financial results. It was the highest ever profit ever recorded since the beginning of the company. I, too, was very proud of the results and knowing that I was part of the team that helped to achieve it was even more satisfying.

When the bonus payment was made, I had a lot of plans with the money. This includes increasing my investments, settling off some debts and spending the extra for a much needed family vacation. But the sad truth was, after settling off some of my debts, there was very little to spend or even to save. It got me to wonder, I have been living with quite high debts all this while. Sometimes we tend to overcommit ourselves financially that we forgot to take stock of the income we earn to cover it. The thing is, I am not the only one. From several conversations that I had with some of the people around me, friends and acquaintances alike, I gather that most of them too have the same problem.

Is living in the current society have put too much strain on your financials? If we look around us, most of us pay for our convenience. Remember in the good old days, whenever there's a wedding in the neighbourhood, relatives and neighbours will come in throngs to help with the big do. Nowadays, everything will be done by caterers. The thing that got you worried is that what is really the price of convenience? I notice that the warmth and the excitement of a wedding do has far dwindled nowadays. No doubt, the wedding is much nicer, the brides looks prettier, the do is much more organised and of course the host will not have to worry about cleaning up after the mess, but once you leave the wedding, there's nothing much to remember about. I use to have this warm feeling whenever I attended a wedding during my childhood days. I remember having good times playing with with my cousins, helping in the distribution of 'bunga telur', washing tonnes of dishes, catching up with my relatives and list go on. Now, people are so busy that we always opt for convenience. We rather pay for things rather than having to endure too much of hassles. But what we fail to realise is that, with the money, we are trading off other things in life such as closeness and bond with your neighbours and relatives. Is this the right price?

Do we realise that all of us are too busy working our ass off to get high bonus so that we can pay for our convenience? We would probably have avoided all this if we spend some time away from work and start investing in the relationship with your neighbours and relatives. Can you really put a price to good neighbours and close relatives?

Luke and Nique carrying 'bunga manggar' at a relative's wedding