Two dollar anyone?
There was one time when i went to the hawker center to buy wanton mee for my lunch. The food prices varied from minimum $2.50 or even $3. Wah..so expensive but yet the food was so little; i could just finish up the mee within a few bites and that’s it..gone!!
It is very rare that we can see $2 meal in many food stalls. Living expenses in Singapore is getting higher and higher; be it food, transport, lifestyle etc. I have been living in Singapore for more than 20 years and i have experienced the great change of these expenses: In the 1980s, when i was in primary school, my parents gave me 50 cents to 60 cents everyday for my daily meal allowance. Using this 50 cents, I could buy a small bowl of noodles with 40 cents and a drink for 10 cent. In the 1990s when i was in secondary school, my daily meal allowance is $1 and using this $1, i could buy a plate of rice for 80 cents. And now in the 21 century, like my younger brother who was in secondary school, being given $3 everyday, he bought a plate of chicken rice from his canteen for $2. However he was still not full yet, and kept on complaining of hunger upon reaching home. As for transport, top-up $10 in the ezlink card was never enough, especially for those people who had to travel by public transport to work. $10 would sure be finished within a few trips. Unlike in the 80s, minimum fare for a single trip was just 15-20 cents!!!
It was such a big contrast. If i could turn back the clock, i had still prefer the life of the 80’s or 90’s. It was not because I was stingy, wanting cheap stuffs that was seen everywhere during that period. Actually all i just want was a simple life, without having to worry how much i need to earn and save in order to get that kind of life i was supposed to live in.
October 31st, 2005 at 7:56 pm
Nothing comes cheap when the living standards have risen to our whims. Bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger schools, everything bigger. Maybe we are asking for so much more and thus, end up with such circumstances.