shoe-d i give up

I discovered much to my grimace yesterday that this slightly-over-a-week trip to New York and Beijing has cost me much more than I imagined. Thrice as much. And the weeks prior, with mom visiting were not easy on the wallet either with restaurants, shopping and cooking but not eating leftovers. I wince on behalf of my bank account. Usually I try to rent out my place to vacation-goers and that helps me offset the cost of my trips (sometimes all of it, sometimes just the cost of the plane ticket, sometimes barely but every which way it helps). As my luck would have it, I didn’t find a renter for neither my California trip nor my New York and both were painfully expensive on tickets alone.

This New York + Beijing bender cost me almost 5000 USD (maybe it’s only 4500 but I dare not be precise in my calculation). Thankfully the ticket is in my current credit card bill, about 900$ I withdrew in cash and the rest go towards the next month’s bill. No mean amounts these are.

I am not saying that I am broke or anything. But I do have a definite year-end target for my bank balance and when I have to pay half my salary on a credit card bill, it makes me cringe a little. And the realization that I will not own an apartment in Hong Kong by the age of 30 makes me cringe more. So I feel like I have to punish myself a little and restore the balance.

My point is that once again, some damage control needs to be done. I am thinking on the food and liquor angle. Maybe no partying till the little brother gets here (that’s in a week) and maybe no eating out. I assure you I am not one of those people who buys a bag and then eats toast for 2 months. I am too much of a glutton – that’s the trouble with having several vices – you have to sacrifice one for the other but in small doses and you have to rotate them like fucking crops.

I had Vietnamese rice paper rolls for dinner the last two nights with scrumptuous grilled tofu and peanut dipping sauce. You’d be surprised but that barely cost anything. Lunch yesterday was a 21 HKD subway sandwich and the day before it was cheap grocery store sushi. One has to try to make up for the debauchery. Even at the grocery store last night, I showed restraint, I didn’t buy every single vegetable that looked pretty and I didn’t buy any cheese, which is just as well considering I need to give my stomach a break. And I am trying very hard to resist or at the very least delay the urge to bake. (I haven’t baked in a while, it’s time consuming and hitherto time was the one thing I didn’t have)

Nonetheless, I must shamelessly confess that there is only grimace at the consequences but no guilt whatsoever about the actions. If I had more time, I swear I would have bought more. I mean, look at these babies, not too shabby eh?