Case study: My relatives trip to Shanghai from Yichun in 2000

Dec. 8, 2018

Introduction

It was most expensive trip to Shanghai in my life, I paid six people train tickets round trip, 3 day hotel in Shanghai and costed me over $5,000 US dollars for less than two weeks vacation in China.

Case study

My mom just went back to China, and she was in her early 70s. She had her first stroke. She could not bend knees when I walked down stairs. We had to help her learn how to walk since her stroke affected her in several ways.

Analysis 

I paid cash to purchase a brand new TV for my mom over $2500 Chinese yuan. I did not know how I came out the idea to have a trip for all of us. I did try to please my mom and help my mom recover from stroke. I did not believe that the trip could help my mom recover, since she needed two people to handle each side.

$350/ one room for two rooms, train ticket for each person with a bed costed more than $200/ one way each way. At that time, a college graduate's monthly salary is around $120 Chinese yuan.

I did not carefully consider how much money I spent on those nonsense trip. Considering that a college graduate only makes a salary around $120 Chinese dollars, I spent over $5,000 US dollars, a person 4 years salary for a short trip for a group of six people

Never underestimate the bad behavior from the very beginning. I just could not believe that I made such poor choices and wasted $5,000 dollars for a trip, which could be used to purchase a two bedroom condo in the city of Yichun in 2001.

Actionable Item

There are so many articles to talk about visiting parks nearby your home. Take a walk and other things. I have to take seriously to read those articles again.

Case study: a $1800 Sony laptop purchase in 2002

Dec. 8, 2018

Introduction

It is hard for me to reexamine myself since I may be a financial irresponsible person. I had net income over $100,000 from 1999 to 2001, but I had nothing left in 2010, I had to borrow money from home equity line. I did purchase a most expensive laptop in my life and it costed me over $1500 dollars, 12 months interest free in 2001. I like to do a case study on this laptop purchase and how I handled it. I like to analyze my behavior and figure out how to fix the problem.

Case study

It is so tough for me to reexamine my behavior as a consumer. I had a friend who reminded me that I had a laptop in his house in 2014. I did not try to sell it in 2010 when I left Florida and immigrate to Canada. I purchased second laptop in 2003 or 2004 around $500.00 dollars, but I did not choose to sell the expensive one SONY one just after the purchase in 2003. I could not find the receipt, but I did find my SONY laptop receipt.

I still remembered that the first day I went to Motorola in the city of Plantation as an intern in 2001, I took my laptop with me.

I only used the laptop to write one coding assignment for graduate algorithm courses. Most of time I did not write code using my laptop.

This is the impulsive shopping. I did not choose cheap one with discount, waited until on sale. I chose most expensive one on the market and put it on 12 monthly interest free. After the purchase, I did not do follow up to make sure that the laptop was still in good quality, I should continue to use instead of purchasing a new one, cheap one. The series of behaviors I found out are not acceptable for me to review and audit today.

After I came to Canada, my Florida friend asked me to send a photo we took in the Miami to her. I asked my friend in Florida to login the laptop and then found the photo.

Super expensive one

Here is my copy of receipt. I like to document my mistake and then remind myself to be a humble person, and never purchase full retail price of a merchandise.

Actionable Items

It is very important for me to learn and start to document all purchases. I should reduce the risk of waste. Always I should think about purchase of cheap one or used one. I also have to learn to follow up with review, how I use them or do I need to sell them.

Do some research how to celebrate the life event without big purchase like this SONY laptop.