My Stingy Habit

Yesterday, could have been my father's birthday if he had survived his medical ordeal but sometimes, things weren't meant to be and as upsetting as it was to see him go, no one could bear to see him suffer anymore. If you read my earlier posts back then when my father had not been hospitalized yet, I wrote about my mum who kept finding faults with my father. And now that he is really gone, she keeps harping on the good side of him. She likes to talk about how my father used to buy the family food and even in his weak state, he still travelled to buy the food for the family to eat.

Now, she is upset with me because she said that I was so unlike my father. I am very calculative over food prices and would rather not buy for myself in order to save money if I buy for them food.

Look, I dont like to argue with my mother because it will always be a losing battle for me. She gets upset very easily like if I dont get what she wants exactly or I forget to buy for her something that it's really no point trying to protect myself. True, sometimes I am pretty harsh to myself and would rather eat just bread for breakfast and lunch even just to avoid spending money on lunch.

It's not that I am very restrictive with my budget but it is because I have no choice. I am the sole breadwinner of the family with my measly income which is only left a little after I deduct bill payments and my mother's monthly share of my pay. My colleagues can afford to buy lunch every day because they dont have to buy groceries like me every single day and buy snacks for them on weekdays followed by breakfast and lunch on weekends. Some days I spend a bit on groceries and sometimes, I may spend more than ten dollars if there are many things to get. I only get my salary once a month and then from there, you can do the maths.

I know you can say why not I bring this up to my mother so she knows my share of hardship in order to bring to her nice food to the table or even the basic necessities. My mum's stubbornness will not do any justice to me and she will even ask me to keep quiet so she can just heap lots of criticism on me like I deserve to be reprimanded.

She asked me why I must think in advance like planning to have money for the next few days or weks. People want to eat now and not think what they want to eat tomorrow or the next day. Thats what she says but later, who will play the blame game if we are short of money? It's her. Like I got nothing better to do than to squander all the money for myself and then she will make herself so worried because she doesnt know how we are going to survive because of the lack of money.

So I just let it be. Of course it hurts to have abusive words hurled at you when you, on the other hand, is trying your darnest best to keep the family together and to make sure that not only do they have food on the table, there is also water and electricity supply in the house. But that's life. No matter how much good you are trying to do, people will always try ways and means to make you look bad.

Later on, my family has to go to the Muslim court in order to go to a hearing regarding the inheritance left by my late father. According to the Muslim laws, the male in the family will get more and that male will be my brother. My mum wants him to share the money with her and that's fine by me. All I am asking for is that they dont use the money too freely because I have lived with my mother long enough to know if she wants to buy something, she will buy something. One good thing is that she does not spend on luxuries for herself anymore and will buy only things for the family. Namely, er..household items or even the kinds of food that I do not agree on buying because I think they are really unnecessary and pricey.

She also said if she gets her share of money, she does not want to spend money on me either because I am so stingy with mine that I dont buy for them food if they request especially if it's expensive in my terms. So recently, the McDonalds breakfast or KFC breakfast that I bought for them this weekend, the two packets of dinner food I bought last Thursday, I paid with what...dried leaves?

Seriously, like I said earlier on, fine with me if she wants to impose some dumb ol' shit like that on me about my stinginess and how that is going to be my downfall one day. If they think they can survive on their own with their share of money, go ahead.

But just remember. Whenever she uses up her share of money so quickly whenever I get my pay or let's say, by any other means that she gets her money, who does she rely on after that? It's me. You tell me now, can I afford to splurge on myself, or even splurge on them when later, the responsibility will lie on me whenever her money dries up?

So once I get my share of inheritance, it's not going to be an all ho yay moment for me. Eventually, the same thing will happen and then they will start relying on me to keep the family going without relying on monetary help from other people.

But I am not going to hold it against them. They are after all still my family even with all their shortcomings. I just wish that my mum will not be so selfish as to think about herself only and that the things I do, no matter how extreme she thinks I can be, is eventually for their own good too.