For Oli... the value of money

My Precious Flower,
Hope you are great today! By today I mean today but also future tense (15-20 years) so that you are wise enough, you have your own opinions on certain things, you understand, anticipate, think logically and critically.
Promised to write you about money, their value, meaning for at least two reasons. 1. your mum said I guess hundreds of times that money was something I cared for. 2. more importantly - I would like you to learn a lesson and understand and I hope you will find it useful and inspiring.

1. Money is neither good nor bad- depends on our motivation and intention to earn and spend it. Money does not have value in itself. The value of money is in time and effort needed to earn it. When we were together in Singapore, for me it meant 10 hours at work everyday from Mon-Fri.. and seeing you only for an hour per day.. It also meant stress, pain, suffering, illnesses and almost hospitalisation. Ever since we moved here in 2014 (till 2017) I took antibiotics 8-9 times. Before that I was always healthy, never got sick, the last time I took antibiotics was at beginning of the 1990 ties. By the way, I hope that by the time you are reading this post I am not dead or dying from a disease... I  am not exaggerating and know colleagues who went for work and never came back leaving wife and young daughter alone. Do not get me wrong I enjoyed and am enjoying my work as I believe it is of value for other people. Unfortunately your Mum did not care about all my struggles, stresses, etc. Instead she was complaining about not having enough money, or that we have to save money.. She could not understand that marriage is the partnership of love, support, understanding and also financial partnership. Instead of looking for solutions of her imagined lack of money or savings such as getting a job and sharing the financial burden of living in one of the most expensive cities in the world- she decided the only solution is to run away from solutions and come back to Poland.
2. One has to be pragmatic when it comes to money. The amount you earn at the end of the month must be spent wisely, i.e., for paying the rent, bills, food, cosmetics, etc. One simply cannot spend more than one earns. That was the approach I was using. Unfortunately your Mum thought the otherwise. She believed that spending  more is the only way to be happier. I earned a decent salary here but I was not a banker, and was not earning millions. From my salary, we spent around 100,000 SGD over the period of 10 months - everything for the aforementioned rent, bills, food, cosmetics, healthcare, eating out in restaurant, holidays, toys, etc. From Sep 2015- Apr 2016, when she was pregnant with you, she took from our mutual account almost 30,000 PLN- for your and her support e.g., insurance, your stem cells blood, vaccines, pram, food, etc (I spent 0 (zero) PLN on myself)). We also saved 0 SGD - all money from my salary during that period - all of it was spent for the living (have all the evidence such as bills, bank account statements, money transfers, and so on). It would have been all fine- did not say a single thing, until one day.. It was not enough for your Mom she said- she wanted more. One day I gave her PIN number to all my savings in case something happened to me (and she had tears in her eyes). She however dared to say that I cared only about money. So these are examples how I cared for you and the Family and I hope you appreciate that.

3. Respect the job/work as it gives you money (among other things like professional development, contact with peers, being productive/doing something good for others). Your Mum quit one job here after only one week in office because the toilet was too dirty she was saying. I have been working for the same employer for the past 3 years; and also wanted to quit on couple of occasions - but when you have Family - you cannot quit 'just like that'. You have to stay persistent, resilient, motivated and as I said before appreciate the good things the job offers you. Earlier in 2017 when we talked about her job - she said 'am not going to work for 2200 SGD per month'. When your budget is tight - each and every dollar counts!

4. Wasting food, energy, resources is not only unethical but also morally unacceptable especially food as hundreds of millions of people are starving worldwide. Your Mum just like her Mum would waste food very frequently. She would first buy tens of products (for the sake of having them) and then throw them away!

5. I first started working and appreciating the value of money when I was still in primary school - around the age of 10 (end of 1980-ies). Was helping my Parents with the production and selling of women skirts. Then in the early 1990 every summer (holidays) was helping them to run a small business and was selling women and children shoes. That gave me some pocket money to spend on simple things. Whole secondary school I used to work over the weekends in your Grandparents firm and every day during summer time. Sold something like millions of shoes :) IN the wintertime from the age of 17 I worked as a skiing teacher/instructor (every winter from 1997-2007). Then from Jan 2008- got my first full time academic job (9 years on and am still in academia). That is almost 30 years of appreciating the value of work and money. I met your Mum in 2009 and since then till 2017- she was employed for approx. 1.5 years (6 months n Warsaw, 6 in Zakopane and 6 here in Singapore). When one does not know much about the value of work, one cannot criticise others for working too much, or spending too little. Was never a workaholic and since we were here together - was doing everything to spend as much time as I could with you and as little as possible in the office/university.



P.S. Your Mum has started restricting our viewings to thrice a week. I said I would wish to see you everyday  - she said no giving me all sorts of bullshit reasons every time. As of August 2017, our contact, connection is getting weaker and weaker. When we saw each other every day - you used to smile much often, chat to me (via whatsapp)... now sadly this is not the case. Am still waiting for the court's decision (how often, when, how long, etc.) but am afraid your Mum is doing everything to harm you and me emotionally and physically.


Singapore, 02.08.2017