Show me the money!

Uttered by Tom Cruise in the movie 'Jerry Maguire', I truly wish someone could 'show me the money' now. The heavy expenses for the exchange is slowly dwindling my saving account. Just how heavy is my expenditure? Take a peek below, the sum has been converted to Singapore dollars for convenience.

Residence at UWO - S$5596.68
International Student Card - S$15
Postage - S$60 (cost is shared between the 3 of us)
Transcript - S$6.20
Air tickets - S$1950
International Driving Permit - $18 (cost is shared between the 3 of us)
US dollars - S$1574
Canadian dollars - S$2824

total: S$11991.88

For someone who has known thrift all his life, the sum above is astronomical. My mother especially, starts to voice her concerns. Yes, her incessant nagging has begun. But who could blame her? Afterall, she is only worrying about her son's future. Every mother does that, no surprise at all, especially in a chinese family. You have to save up for rainy days. You should set aside a certain sum for your marriage. You should start saving up for my grandchildren's education. You should save up for your own retirement. I feel amused (not to mention ridiculous) at the notion of planning for my finances so far ahead, and I was wondering whether I should include saving up for my funeral expenses as well.

I'm only 23, and has not even graduated from my studies, how much can I save? Perhaps my mum's emphasis is to be frugal, afterall, she did went through poverty during her childhood. Hence, setting a sum of money aside for contingencies is always a wise option. She was motrified by the amount of money I have to spend on the trip. Despite my best efforts to explain to her that his trip cannot be justified in terms of monetary expenditures, but by the rare learning opportunity I can get to experience, her reservations remained. She reasoned that there will be plenty of opportunities for me to travel when I start earning my first paycheck. Exasperation rendered me speechless. Obviously all my attempts to convince my mum what carpe diem means has failed.

There is no doubt that I could feel the pinch of spending this huge sum of money in such a short time. But surely not everything on earth can be measured by dollars and cents? There are intangibles in life that defy any monetary assessment on their value. I agree with Jiahao that sparing our expenses on an otherwise enjoyable trip will be unwise for a simple reason: how often do you get to travel halfway across the globe and immerse yourself in a foreign culture for 4 whole months? There is always a chance that my age of retirement could be extended after this trip, but at least I know that I have accumulated enough stories to tell and pictures of my travel exploits for posterity. Carpe diem I say.