#248 Spend your New Year's money right away! And I want to make a book!

2023.1.1.
Happy New Year, everyone.
I look forward to your continued support this year!

"You should spend the New Year's money you receive right away!"Ever since I read that on Chikirin's blog, I've been completely convinced, and I've been spreading the word by telling the kids in my class and writing about it in our class newsletter.

What's wonderful is that Chikirin posted this on January 1st nine years ago. I think it's amazing that she was able to leave behind an influence that doesn't fade even as the years go by.

And then there's this statement that actress Yuriko Ishida made on Another Sky.

Well, first of all, I don't have much of that paper to begin with!!!

Chikirin and Yuriko Ishida are saying the same thing. It's not about spending money wastefully, but rather that if you're going to save money by denying yourself things you want to do, you should spend it on experiences instead! That is surely priceless.

Anyway, when I woke up this morning and was getting ready, my mother spoke to me quietly.
"You've prepared the New Year's money, right? We're planning to give 3,000 yen to niece 1 and 1,000 yen to niece 2."

Oh, oh, oh,

I forgot!!!

My sister's family has been staying at my parents' house from December 30th until around the 2nd or 3rd of the New Year. My mother has to prepare meals for 7 to 9 people depending on the day, just like a dormitory matron. And that includes niece 2, who has severe food allergies. I'm worried my mother might collapse.

I am an aunt who only gives souvenirs and birthday presents on a whim, but since I'm spending this year at my parents' house, I really have to give out New Year's money.

I wrote on small envelopes for stationery by hand... The bills are kind of showing through, but please forgive me for this!

It was surprisingly better received than store-bought ones, so both my mother and younger brother said, 'Maybe I'll order from you next year.' All's well that ends well.

I'll just recommend that they use it without being too pushy. I hope the two of them use the money for some good experiences.

While saying that to my nieces, I wonder how I am doing myself.

[Income Section]
Retirement money / Junior high school support / Cram school instructor / High school PE instructor

[Expenditure Section]
National Health Insurance / Pension / Various taxes / Moving due to renovation / Rent to parents' house / Domestic travel / NZ airline ticket I couldn't use and threw money down the drain / FIN trip / The NZ trip I eventually went on

I am working much more than I imagined for my post-retirement life, and I haven't spent so much money that I'm in trouble. And among my expenses, being able to go on two overseas trips was a wonderful way to spend money in the sense of 'making it my own experience'.

I feel like I should do something more... bold...

So, I've decided to make my challenge for this year 'making a book'!

The reason is that the other day, I happened upon such a wonderful article...

The author of the article, Masari-san, has such an incredibly interesting background: 'I entered Waseda University because I admired Seikima-II, researched Seikima-II, wrote a great thesis, self-published it, and then became an illustrator thanks to the illustrations in that book!' I read it with excitement, laughing and thinking, 'What on earth is that?'

I have also accumulated quite a few articles written up to this point, and along with my interest in education for children, 'how teachers can work happily' has become a major theme for me, so I'm thinking of restructuring them from that perspective,

and wondering if I could make something like 'a book that teachers can read lightly, laugh at, and find just a little bit useful.'

Kindle is good, but paper is hard to give up. Maybe I should just make it and donate it to university education departments or something.

That sounds like a fun way to spend money!

It would be great if I could do something like that before this year ends!
It was a New Year's Day filled with expanding dreams.

#TeacherEssay
#HowToSpendNewYearsMoney
#TurningIntoExperience