HDB Ice Cream Peddler

This is a common scene in my country local housing estate (HDB).

On alternate Saturday afternoons, at about 2pm, the ice-cream vendor will park his mobile ice-cream cart at a shady corner of the park and starts ringing his bell. He is very wise to choose a corner where there is always a constant human traffic. People walking to and fro the estate and the bus stop will surely not miss him, especially on a hot and humid afternoon. Anyway, he already has a regular pool of customers faithfully waiting for him on those Saturdays. One of them is my mum. My boy and her are supporters of his ice-cream. Cheap and good. One of the indulgences both grandma and her grandson will enjoy together every alternate weekend.

My mum will delightfully announce to my boy that the ice-cream "uncle" has arrived. She will stop at anything she is doing and go downstair quickly to queue for her turn to buy the smooth creamy ice-cream. Prior to that, she will usually discuss with my boy which two flavours they want to get for that particular Saturday. They have many nice flavours to choose from. Chocolate, strawberries, raspberries, vanilla, corn, durian and coffee. The ice-cream vendor will take out a big slab of ice-cream from his mobile cart freezer, cut them into smaller thick rectangular slices and stick each individual slice between two pieces of crispy waffle biscuits. Wala! there, he passes his ice-cream sandwiches to his queueing customers. Each sandwich costs 70 cents. Or you can also buy from him the whole ice-cream slab for $5 which is usually sold for $7 at other upmarket outlets. Each slab can be cut into eight smaller rectangular slices. So it is always more economical to get the whole slab home but do request ice-cream uncle to slice it up for you individually with the wrapper still attached. He will generously pack for you many pieces of waffles biscuits to be used later when you make the ice-cream sandwiches at home.

Home Flavoured Korean BBQ Dinner

It has been quite a little while, our family has not been to Da Zhang Jin Korean BBQ Restaurant for our favourite grill.

This evening, since knowing that my daughter was able to be home early to join us for dinner together, I quickly picked up some usual grill stuff, such as sukiyaki beef, pork belly, butterhead lettuce, tofu, Japanese fish cakes & fresh mushrooms from the supermarket to prepare a grill dinner at home. My fridge is always stocked up with all the condiments & sauces necessary to use for a grill, whether in Korean or Japanese style.

Whenever, we have our grill at home, my boy will always enjoy grilling the food for everyone. My girl will not mind not having to do the grill at all. She will happily layer her ingredients, dab it with the chilli sauce & miso paste; and wrap them in the lettuce then pop it into her mouth. As usual, she will cheerfully let her brother knows that she likes to have more mushrooms or pork belly or fish cake & etc. Her brother will just happily serve her. We will all slowly enjoy ourselves together over our dinner conversation.

I asked my boy did he prefer to have the grill at a restaurant or at home. His response is always warm & heartening. To him,in a restaurant, although we can choose to order many more other grilling ingredients & side dishes, it is never the same as having the grill dinner prepared by me because the flavour of the grill outside is never the same as when we eat together at home. He calls it "Home Flavour".

Wordpress Blog Has Gone KaBoom

For the last two weeks, I have been busy meddling with my gardening blog, trying to sort things out so as to get it running again as quickly as possible.

Sadly, being not technically inclined, I will have to learn from others either online or offline to help solve the problem.

Unfortunately, due to a serious mistake I've made in my hosting account, there isn't much thing I can reverse but to have my domain account reset. Thus, I shall have to start my gardening blog from scratch when it is up again.

Well, sad but it's ok for me. I shall take that as part of my learning process in my blogging journey.

Current Financial Crisis - Changing Financially Illiterate People Into Financially Literate People

The real issue of our current financial crisis making front page news these days is not just the end result started from the weak housing market, fallout from the US sub-prime mortgage fiasco, sliding home prices, stock market volatility or geopolitical unrest in the Middle East, the collapse of Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers, rising unemployment or inflation. Very easily, all these may be viewed as the real issue of our current financial crisis but in fact they are not. They are just consequences of the spending pattern in America, blowing out of proportion. So much so their country financial expert has put it as they are a country of financially illiterate people. Therefore, the real issue now is how to change this lot of "financially illiterate people" into "financially literate people".

This term "financially illiterate people" right away brings home a message for me. Our local schools have all along been paying a lot of emphasis on academic achievements. These days, some of them have even incorporated character building in our children curriculum. How about financial management education? Should the schools start to think about balancing their syllables - academically, character development and financial education?

Just before our country education system incorporate financial management education into their syllables or perhaps they may not even wish to consider it, won't it be better for us, as parents, to teach our next generation the value of money management or wealth creation, starting from as young as they can understand the value of money. Not to take the risk that their schools will look into the matter for us.

From statistics, young adults under 25 are now the fastest-growing age group to file for bankruptcies. Most social problems stem from financial problems. Therefore, it is always important to stress to our young ones that spending less money than they can earn is fundamental to their basic financial well being. Differentiating between needs and wants is a very important discipline we have to cultivate from young and be imparted to our next generation.

As parents, we have to set example to show our young ones that in order to lead a care-free life, arithmetically speaking, we need to have a personal net worth that is very heavy on the personal assets and very light on the personal liabilities. If possible, no personal liabilities at all.

Hence, "Living within one's means" should be our motto in life.



Writer: Doris Teo

A lover of nature. I truly enjoy and thank God for the abundant beauties around us created by HIM. Also blogging to share the joy of building lasting bonding with my children & living a care-free life with financial freedom. Feel free to visit my other blog. URL:http://doristeo.com