On the 2008 worst financial crisis since Great Depression...

Sometimes, too much bad news will numb you (as long as the pain is not imminent). Such is the case with the daily dose of gloomy news of where the economy is heading around the world. We know how it's like in US: subprime and property market going down the tube, credit market crunch, bailouts and more bailouts, stock market nose-dive. And now, Europe and Japan are going down too, as expected.

Closer to home, we had cut down on eating out. The kids don't really fancy eating out anyways. While we adults like to sample different restaurants, it's not really the case with the kids. One time, when I asked them whether they like going to restaurants or not, they told me they don't like it, because when we're at home, they can keep playing with their toys and games until the meal is ready. When in restaurants, all they can do is to sit still and wait. There's nothing for them to play, and they can't mess around with the table, should they bring toys with them. Towards the second half of this year when the economy gets worse, they get rid of eating out altogether. Well, we mostly eat out over weekends when there's no school. Given that they have different weekend activities now, there's not much time to eat out leisurely anyways. (We're always in a hurry rushing to different classes.) I must admit, it saves up alot.

And gone are all the discretionary purchases, like occasional liquor purchase, buying of new books, even monthly toys that I've promised the kids. But the kids are fine with library books (they love reading all sorts of books and it's impossible to buy 10-15 new books every week anyways).

Ultimately I realize that our basic needs are actually fairly small. The regular bills (like DSL, utilities, cell phones) and mortgage are unavoidable. Other than that, subsistence living is not that hard, actually.