SM City Cebu | Chynnita in the City

Daddy H, Olive, me and Yaya Jane are all tired tonight. We went to SM (SM City Cebu) to canvass a laptop and digicam. The laptop is a replacement for Toshi (Daddy H’s 4-year old Toshiba laptop) who retired last January. We’re eyeing for a Lenovo Thinkpad. The specs are compatible for Daddy H’s work related requirements. Meanwhile, we’re hunting for a Lumix LX7 to replace his old digicam so we could capture Olive’s growing up moments more dramatically. We’re opting for the LX7 because of its semi-DSLR features.

image from http://tech.gaeatimes.com/

image from http://www.geeky-gadgets.com

Fortunately and unfortunately, we came in time for the last day of mall-wide sale. It was great that there’s so many tempting bargains and we’re both armed with our credit cards. Unfortunately, there were so many people (more than the crowd at the Ayala Mall sale I went to last Thursday) that it killed the mood for me to enjoy window shopping. The people made me nauseous along with the fear of losing the sight of Olive and Jane from the sea of shoppers. Despite that, I think Olive enjoyed seeing so many colors around. She was never irritated all the while. Just sobbing a bit when she’s beginning to feel hungry. We bought her glow in the dark stickers of celestial bodies and a few scrapbook picture frames. Later, we had snack at Starbucks using the GCs Daddy H won from the Emerson event.

Prizes from Emerson’s Product Launching Event 🙂

So after whirling around the mall, we found our target gadgets on display at several retailer stores in the Cyberzone and at the SM Department Store. They’re available for purchase on 12 months zero interest installment. The sad thing is that they’re also offering the items with a bigger discount if paid in cash. *SIGH!!! So much savings if only we have cash!

I used to believe that its wiser to buy anything in cash than in credit. Never buy something you can’t afford. THEN CAME MY CREDIT CARD. I have my BPI Edge Mastercard for more than a year now and it has been my friend in times of need. The most desperate moments were during my pregnancy and after having delivered Olive. Thank God I’m not that much of an impulsive buyer. I have this constant fear that we might not be able to pay the next month’s bill. Luckily, we haven’t been able to miss a due date. I always see to it that we’d be able to settle both of our credit card bills. My husband has Metrobank with double my credit limit. Oha! Daig ako! The laptop, digicam, the LED TV, and a new airconditioning unit were large eye candies for us. But mentally summing up all of them, I know we’d be in debt for 100,000 pesos. Divide that by 12 months and that’s more than 8,000 pesos on the credit card bill. Ansarap bigla umuwi. I know of a few stores in Manila where we could buy the Lenovo and the Lumix for almost half the mall prices. But of course, they wouldn’t offer installment options.

A parody of mall sales as depicted in the movie Zohan. Clearance sale ang peg ng mga Middle-Eastern immigrants. XD image from http://www.movie-censorship.com

I know this is another price to pay since we had a baby in the family. We couldn’t just buy anything at a whim without considering the next month’s checkup, her vaccination schedules, milk and impending baptism. We have to have a purchase plan. This is also the main reason why we as parents are driven to work doubly hard. The gadgets, a vehicle and a house – we need everything but we know we can’t afford to get them all at once. I could double my earnings as a freelancer, but that would need me to stop being a mother. And that is not an option.

We’re not even halfway through Olive’s vaccination checklist @_@

Again, I remember when someone told me “your baby’s gonna be a handful”. I didn’t expect that I’d be almost paralyzed from working. I was even a bit proud to decline my mother-in-law’s offer to send a yaya immediately after I gave birth. I am now thankful that she did. Otherwise, I’d be crazy right now. And even if Olive has recently been sleeping through the night, I could still barely manage accepting new design projects. Add to that my memory gaps – side effects of the general anesthesia administered to me.

Slowly now, I’m like a car being overhauled and tuned up in getting back to work. I wish and pray really hard that this year wouldn’t be as tough as the last financially. I know with faith and action, it will be!