Winning the Bread; Bringing the Dough

In this era, it is common to see DINKs (Dual Income No Kids) and DIK (Dual Income with Kids). To have SIKs (Single Income with Kids) may sound preposterous, given the higher cost/standard of living as well as higher self-fulfilment needs/wants to satisfy. Being a middle-income SIK myself, my colleagues wonder how I do it while my (real) friends can only give me their heartfelt sympathies. So how I do it? Simple - have absolutely NO life other than to bash through 12h a day for work commitments, 4h for family commitments, 2h for work commitments at home and 6h of sleep. Not forgetting to having worry about household finances the moment my mind is off from work.

Who wouldn't want to be leading a life without having to worry about finances, to spend in fulfilment of a short-term need/want or to leave the running of finances to a trustworthy person? To a SIK who is 'slogging' hard to meet work expectations and then back home to meet family expectations (and that not having enough monthly savings isn't helping the situation), how can he be not worried about the dollar and cents?

I think CFOs everywhere have the toughest job. They are in the know of every finer details and they know how deep a shit the company is in. To the CEO, he is just a convenient scapegoat.

Anyway, my point is, I know how deep a shit my finances are in and I've been 'demanding' to myself these years. Eating cheap nutrition-less bread for breakfast, eating-in during lunch at work with cheap canteen food and economical rice for dinner. A day's meal budget for me is on average $6. And mind you, I don't even order drinks. Literally I eat to live, no longer live to eat like in the past.

Being a SIK means my income gets diverted to my parents and my own family, not to mention meeting household expenses, paying my butts off for my family's insurance, the house and the car. Seems like I'm asking for trouble and reaping the seeds that I've sown. What to do? LL. BB. I 'ask' for it.

I always tell myself that I should always 先苦后甜. I seldom take a break or so-called reward myself. Generally, I've always been harsh to myself. Whether or not people around appreciate or not is another matter as long as my conscience is clear. Although at times I do feel life is not fair but what to do? I'm a f**king SIK. LL. BB.

Alright, time to climb up from self-pity and start bringing in the dough and bread again.