Help Desk?

It's 4th day into the New Year! 2 person called and asked for a loan.. 

On Friday, SIL called for a loan.. Hubby refused. Then MIL called to scold hubby for turning SIL down saying that that is his sister, if he don't help her, then who will etc etc.. Well, they have got to realize that they have got to make their money last a whole month and not going around asking for a loan and jumping at us when we refuse to lend (should be give since it never comes back anyway!)!  *pissed*

This morning, a not so close friend called saying her son is ill, and needed a loan to bring him to the doctor.. I was puzzled.. About 5 months back, she was complaining to me that the house she bought was so freaking small and there isn't enough space for her and her kids. She said that she should have insisted her husband to buy one 1 with the size like mine.. 2 months back, she called and told me she's done with the renovations and it has costed her 60k!! That's hell of a lot for a 3room flat!  And according to her, she's re-done the whole house including hacking up the entire flooring!

I remembered that same evening hb came home, i was telling him i feel so short-changed. 

Our very 1st flat was a 3room.. Very small.. We barely paid anything in cash since CPF covered the entire downpayment. We forked out 300 bucks for paint and we ended up going down to the house every evening after work, painted till 11ish, took a bus back to my parents place to sleep. There were times when both of us were just too exhausted after working and painting and we ended up sleeping on the small mattress in partly painted house that smelled of paint!  

Our 1st sofa was sponsored by my grand-mama since we are so cash striped.. Water heater was paid by my dad. We didn't even had money then to pay for a new toilet bowl or new cabinet that we used back whatever was left by the previous owner.  Mum sponsored a ceiling fan for the hall. That was it.. 

We moved into the new home with a sofa, a water heater, our old queen size mattress, an old 15inch box television, a ceiling fan, a cooking stove we bought from giant at $29 and a small kids table for 1 dollar so that we could sit on the floor and eat. Dad pitied us, he gave us an old bar fridge and bought us some new plates and utensils. That was it! 

We lived in that manner for the next 1 year+. Then slowly, we saved up for a dining table, so almost 2 years after moving in, we had a decent dining table.. Slowly, a mini size fridge, then a system 1 air-con, then a slightly bigger television and it went on. 

It took us almost 3 years to save up for a downpayment for a small car, so that we could fetch our ,then 4yo son, who was living with my parents. 

Then, things got better and we moved out into our current place. Still, i didn't bare to spend that much on reno for our new home. We left our flooring untouched as we aren't sure if there will be an enbloc for our new home, so it didn't make much sense to pay 15k on sometime we will only use a couple of years if the enbloc went thru.. I shopped around for a decent sofa, went out to buy all those plugs and stuffs etc so that that will lower my entire reno cost, got individual contractors to come in and built up different items which brought my whole ID cost down from the original 45k to a mere 11k including all my sofas, plasma TVs and air-con units.. 

Perhaps we learnt that money don't drop from heaven the hard way, so we didn't feel a need to pay 45k or to apply for loan just to renovate the house!. 

Oh, back to that friend.. She apparently took a loan from 3 bank (i was told), thus managed to loan the full 60k, her husband is the sole bread winner at home bringing slightly below 2k a month (i was told), she has a maid (i dunno how she applied since u need a min of 30k per annum to apply for 1), her 3 room flat has 3 plasma tvs (i am not against people who buy big and nice flat screens, but i don't agree that you buy something nice and put it at home, while the kids have no food to eat or no money for them to see doctor when they are ill).. 

Anyways, i gave her a 50 bucks loan... Am not sure if it would come back, but ya.. The 1st and the last time.

All the best to her!