Top Ten Signs You Should Watch Your CNY Spending

It's that time of the year again. Decorations in all shades of red, blazing songs with Chinese drum tracks, piped in firecracker sound - signs in a shopping mall that you're within 1 month of Chinese New Year. It's also the time many people get their bonus (not me though) and that can only mean one thing: shopping.

Let me tell you this: it's not easy to spend and watch your expenses at the same time - they contradict. Just ask most members of the female species ... there's some in-born, hard-wired instinct to buy that red tank top. Even when you've already got 87 pieces of tank tops in various shades of red. And you know you've got RM25 before you bust your credit card limit and only RM5.84 cents in your pockets. And you still need to pay toll and top up your car's fuel afterwards. You still wanna buy that red tank top - otherwise you'd probably be tossing about in bed at night thinking about what could have been ...

So, to you all, here's some signs you need to watch for, signs that you should watch your Chinese New Year spending:

• The Ah Longs need to take 'some pictures' for loan collateral.
• Your regular mamak stall has stopped giving you credit.
• You're on a new diet: nasi kosong with kuah kari/soya sos 2 times a day.
• You've only maxed out on 6 credit cards. 4 more to go.
• Isetan and IKEA are totally depending on you for a profitable Chinese New Year shopping season.
• "You mean I can't trade in my boyfriend for the 5 pairs of jeans? C'mon, he makes a good slave ... "
• You have just given a press conference about your RM 1.04 billion contribution to cancer research.
• Lately, you have been checking under your sofa, under your bed, under your car seat, in your wardrobe, etc. etc. for loose change you might have dropped there very, very, regularly.
• Instinctively offering your Petaling Street Tag Hauer to people at the 1 Utama parking lot for 5 bucks so that you can pay your parking.
• You have resorted to selling pirated DVDs and your name is moz monster.

Chinese New Year (or any ocassion) is really no excuse for splurge spending, unless you have 46 billion bucks in the bank .. ;-)

I'll probably make a top ten list for ways to cut spending on Chinese New Year. Let's see how much work materializes over the next week.