When life is hard...there's always a brighter side...

Now that I have my own college student to send to school, the more I am amazed how my parents were able to send all their seven children to good schools. Ahhhh, no wonder why my mother was so thrifty at that time. She would go to the cheapest grocery shop or to the local wet market to buy the food we needed. Only the basic. No junk food or whatsoever. Then we were taught not to waste water and electricity. She would save the laundry water to clean the bathroom or water the plants. Smart mom, she was and still is! The money she could save from cutting the bills would help pay for our tuition fees. That's how she managed my father's take home pay and that's how we all got our degree.

Another thing that my mother taught us was to maintain a good credit score. Her very words were "You still sleep well even without money because you know you don't owe anybody." She said that we have to save the opportunity to loan in hard times and only when necessary.

I'm not sure how much am I like my mom to my children. Maybe I'm not as thrifty as she is. I only have 3 children and she has 7! But I surely like to learn from her example.