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Chapter 60
필요한 물건보다 훨씬 비싼 것을 사는데, 낭비함….
60
Not Knowing “Enough”
Do not let wicked desire blind your eyes.
-Brad KongThere is a big Polish supermarket not very far from my home. (Chicago has a lot of Polish residents and they even have their own supermarkets and food brands.) It has a sushi bar inside just like Mariano’s market or others. They do a 50% discount on every Sushi after 7:00 PM as the market is closed at 8:00 PM everyday.
I often go there and pick three boxes of sushi up, so my wife does have to cook dinner; these are all less than $5 each after the discount. These actually taste pretty good. I know that one fat Japanese guy makes all those alone; he must be a real chef in Japan. I always tell this to my wife and daughter: “I can try to find better sushi than these with more money. But that will not be necessary. Actually, that would be overkill.”
What I tried to say is it is pointless to spend more money to try to find a better one; that is nothing but a waste; I have eaten all kinds of sushi for thirty years as a Korean and know which one is good or bad; this is more than good enough.
When I think about it, people make that sort of mistake all the time. People just over spend for something they do not need and be broke. Sometimes, people just do not get out of poverty for this. Imagine I bought a $2,000 gaming computer only to write these articles. Does this make sense? I bought a $400 Dell desktop computer this year and it works just fine for what I need. In the worst case, I can use this computer for gaming as well since it is brand new in 2022; this Windows 11 has a lot of gaming features and I turn it all off to make this computer faster.
I know one Mongolian grandma ordered a cable TV and got ripped off by the company for good. I believe Mongolia is not a cruel capitalist country yet and people do not deceive each other that way. She ended up having a $110 a month package with thousands of channels in 2012. They gave her one big extra remote control also, and I heard she complained that she could not even figure out how to use it. Although she got deceived, people voluntarily order that kind of package in this country. They end up not even watching half of the channels, but still pay the huge subscription fee every single month. People just get blind by greed of wanting more, more and more.
So far, these were just ridiculous mistakes. Once this gets into a house, people actually lose a serious amount of money. We all know there is something called a “mortgage”: people get a huge amount of debt to get a house bigger than they need. This is fine since the house price can go up. Actually, this is not fine since there is one crazy shameless dog barking all the time at a Korean web community; there is one Korean website I used to go to and one member always tried to argue with people and leave nasty comments on people writing frugal life is good. I can live with debt at most, which I certainly do not prefer. But, I will not be proud of it or argue with people that it is the best life. Anyway, I do not care any more since I am not going to pay for others’ debt. It is his or their loss.
I personally do not think a family of three people needs a bigger house than 850 sf; my one-bedroom condo is 850 sf now. I can try to move into a bigger house, but this will be a big waste. Although three people live in this place currently, my wife plans to go back to her country for a job next year; my daughter will go to college within 6 years; I plan to travel around later in my life.
It is possible this house will be empty later on: It may be a small house, but no one will even live here. It is pointless to spend more money on housing; I am more than happy that I bought out this house 9 years ago and solved the housing issue for good; it will only cost more if I do anything. Some people just go for 3,000 sf single family homes with debt no matter what. Please trust me on this one: No one needs that kind of property; at least, it is overkill for a small family like us.
When I read a book titled “Stillness is the key” written by Ryan Holiday, it had an episode regarding Tiger Woods, his father, and the “E” word.
Some people are poor simply because they do not know how to be satisfied.