ALARORO 1: My Accounting Standards

I always prided myself in the fact that I am not a materialistic and demanding person but recently, I have begun to think differently.

For people that know me well, they know that I am a serious money manager, I am not stingy in any way but I always like to get the best out of every penny I spend. And this is one of the reasons why I normally don’t eat out, I prefer to cook my food from home because I believe that there’s nothing I want to get outside that I can't make for myself, considering the fact that I get to spend much less. Another reason is that I believe the food sold in my firm is just too boring for me to spend money on everyday.

It happened that on one week day, I had a date in an eatery, it was about 3 weeks ago, during my break time at work. We went out, and I was asked to take my order. Without looking at the prices, I just ordered what I wanted although I didn’t order too much because I used to believe that I am a considerate person (now I know better), my date also ordered, by the time the bill was collated, it was somewhere between N2000 and N2500. I was like wow, this thing is just too expensive, ahn ahn, what did we buy? Anyway, the guy had money so I didn’t bother again and if he did not, I had the money (our net income falls in the same range but I just don’t like to spend), so I was sure we couldn’t run into troubles. Well, the date went well and was over.

Two weeks later, I decided that I wanted a day off my cooking and so I chose a particular day to go to the same eatery I went to earlier because I could not bear to eat the boring food in my firm. I budgeted a maximum of N1000 even when I know that I could afford so much more. The inclusion of a budget is the first indication that there’s a difference when I am the one paying. And so I embarked on the eye-opening outing. When I got there, the accounting standards I always live by came into full play. First thing I did was to check the prices of everything I was interested in so that I could get the best bargain. It was then I realized that most of what I ordered during my last date was what took a large percentage of my friend’s bill. I was so ashamed, my selfishness confronted me in the face.

By the time I finished using my ISA, SAS and ISRE IFRS standards (don’t think too far, I did not major in accounting), I ended up having to spend about N450, I thought it was too small since I came to ‘spoil’ myself, so I upped it to N730. I ended up with one small fried rice, one miserable goat meat, 5 pieces of plantain and a bottled water, I wanted to die. I could easily get all these from my mama’s cooking pot at home but no, I had to pay to be cheated. Anyway, I tried to forget about the money and enjoy my food.

You see, same scenario, two different mindsets. What was the difference? I was the one paying this time. I realized that this is not the first time that someone will take me out without me trying to correlate the price with the person’s capability but when it is me spending, the story changes. By the time I was through, I vowed not to go there anymore (at least not alone).