• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Republica Press

Your Business & Political News Source

REPUBLICA PRESS
Your Business & Political News Source

  • Home
  • BUSINESS
  • MONEY
  • POLITICS
  • REAL ESTATE
  • SCIENCE/TECH
  • US
  • WORLD

Two Thousand Twenty One

From the Heart to Higher Education: The 2021 College Essays on Money

by

***

Despite the loud busking music, arcade lights and swarms of people, it was hard to be distracted from the corner street stall serving steaming cupfuls of tteokbokki — a medley of rice cake and fish cake covered in a concoction of hot sweet sauce. I gulped when I felt my friend tugging on the sleeve of my jacket, anticipating that he wanted to try it. After all, I promised to treat him out if he visited me in Korea over winter break.

The cups of tteokbokki, garnished with sesame leaves and tempura, was a high-end variant of the street food, nothing like the kind from my childhood. Its price of 3,500 Korean won was also nothing like I recalled, either, simply charged more for being sold on a busy street. If I denied the purchase, I could console my friend and brother by purchasing more substantial meals elsewhere. Or we could spend on overpriced food now to indulge in the immediate gratification of a convenient but ephemeral snack.

At every seemingly inconsequential expenditure, I weigh the pros and cons of possible purchases as if I held my entire fate in my hands. To be generously hospitable, but recklessly drain the travel allowance we needed to stretch across two weeks? Or to be budgetarily shrewd, but possibly risk being classified as stingy? That is the question, and a calculus I so dearly detest.

Unable to secure subsequent employment and saddled by alimony complications, there was no room in my dad’s household to be embarrassed by austerity or scraping for crumbs. Ever since I was taught to dilute shampoo with water, I’ve revised my formula to reduce irritation to the eye. Every visit to a fast-food chain included asking for a sheet of discount coupons — the parameters of all future menu choice — and a past receipt containing the code of a completed survey to redeem for a free cheeseburger. Exploiting combinations of multiple promotions to maximize savings at such establishments felt as thrilling as cracking war cryptography, critical for minimizing cash casualties.

However, while disciplined restriction of expenses may be virtuous in private, at outings, even those amongst friends, spending less — when it comes to status — paradoxically costs more. In Asian family-style eating customs, a dish ordered is typically available to everyone, and the total bill, regardless of what you did or did not consume, is divided evenly. Too ashamed to ask for myself to be excluded from paying for dishes I did not order or partake in, I’ve opted out of invitations to meals altogether. I am wary even of meals where the inviting host has offered to treat everyone, fearful that if I only attended “free meals” I would be pinned as a parasite.

Although I can now conduct t-tests to extract correlations between multiple variables, calculate marginal propensities to import and assess whether a developing country elsewhere in the world is at risk of becoming stuck in the middle-income trap, my day-to-day decisions still revolve around elementary arithmetic. I feel haunted, cursed by the compulsion to diligently subtract pennies from purchases hoping it will eventually pile up into a mere dollar, as if the slightest misjudgment in a single buy would tip my family’s balance sheet into irrecoverable poverty.

Will I ever stop stressing over overspending?

I’m not sure I ever will.

But I do know this. As I handed over 7,000 won in exchange for two cups of tteokbokki to share amongst the three of us — my friend, my brother and myself — I am reminded that even if we are not swimming in splendor, we can still uphold our dignity through the generosity of sharing. Restricting one’s conscience only around ruminating which roads will lead to riches risks blindness toward rarer wealth: friends and family who do not measure one’s worth based on their net worth. Maybe one day, such rigorous monitoring of financial activity won’t be necessary, but even if not, this is still enough.

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Filed Under: BUSINESS Tagged With: Children and Childhood, Colleges and Universities, Content Type: Personal Profile, Content Type: Service, Dollar, Education, Education (K-12), Family, Fish, Food, Friends, Higher education, Labor and Jobs, Money, Music, Personal Finances, Poverty, Rice, Savings, Seniors, Swimming, travel, Two Thousand Twenty One, Water, winter, Women's Rights

Primary Sidebar

More to See

ITT Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.264 Per Share

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 18, 2022-- ITT Inc. (NYSE: ITT) today announced that its Board of Directors has declared a regular quarterly … [Read More...] about ITT Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.264 Per Share

Former home of Sharon Stone, the first built in San Francisco’s Sea Cliff neighborhood, for sale

If you've been to Baker Beach in San Francisco, you've probably looked up at 1 25th Avenue. The home, which sits among several stunning homes along … [Read More...] about Former home of Sharon Stone, the first built in San Francisco’s Sea Cliff neighborhood, for sale

Today’s ‘Wordle’ Word Of The Day #334 Answer And Hint: Thursday, May 19th

More From ForbesMay 19, 2022,12:13am EDTToday’s ‘Heardle’ Answer And Clues For Thursday, May 19","scope":{"topStory":{"index":1,"title":"Today’s … [Read More...] about Today’s ‘Wordle’ Word Of The Day #334 Answer And Hint: Thursday, May 19th

Copyright © 2022 · Republica Press · Log in · As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy