“No, no, no! I’m not buying Smith’s Potato Chips this week. They’re not on sale, $3.00 for one bag this week. Crazy.”
So says my mum every time I finish the snacks when I lived at home and want more. She hardly buys toilet paper, detergent, chocolate and other necessary household items unless they are on sale. You can call her thrifty. Frugal. Stingy. A penny-pincher.
Tall towers of coins on the shelf in my bedroom. Yes, 5-cent coins make up the tallest one. A sign of a thrifty Asian person, perhaps? Photo: Mabel Kwong
I used to laugh at my mum counting her coins when she came home from buying groceries, making sure no cashiers had shortchanged her and that she didn’t drop a single cent on the way back. I laughed and clapped my hands like a seal until one day when I was in between jobs, I needed money. I realised then my parents and many Asian generations before me work hard for their money and save for a number of reasons.
Mabel Kwong 