How To Reward Yourself

When you received a bonus in your salary, was it celebrated with a nice expensive meal in the restaurant? Food? When you were young, and you received top scores in your exam, was it rewarded with food? How about the recent New Year's Day, and Valentine's Day? Food? Did you reward yourself or your family with food?

The next time you want to do so, think again and reward yourself with a massage, a health book, or an AirAsia flight!

It is not uncommon in most Asian cultures, even Mexican cultures to do so because of the rapid change in status and disposable income. In the olden days, food was fuel. So if you have more food, or some special food, it's considered an honour, a prestige. Eating rice or tapioca 364 days a year, then a nice little chunk of meat, or fish, would have been a super celebration.

I read about this Mexican short story:
"Everything in my family and in our Hispanic culture revolves around food. Celebrations, accomplishments, awards, sad occasions, even death is surrounded by food! When we were kids, if we did well in our report cards - food! If we received an award in school - food! When Aunt Fela died - food! And in Christmas time, means tamales - pork filling wrapped in thin corn dough, menudo (soup made from dried corn), bunuelos (fried flour tortillas covered with sweet sugar and cinnamon mixture) and hot chocolate made from real chocolate with cinnamon sticks."

In summary - it was food and lots of sugar and carbohydrates.

Well it was fine in the olden days, like a hundred years ago. When people are working in the fields. Burning carbs at a prolonged and continuous rate. Nowadays, we are indoors most of the time, and sweating from the hot sun and not from hot work.

So the next time you reward yourself - be creative and attentive, and conscious. Mindful of what is actually a best reward for you. The trojan horse of a huge meal will be more harmful than beneficial.

Some more reward examples that are within a price range of a nice restaurant meal:
Buy a book or two - that nice photo book, or that Lonely Planet travel book to your destination of your dreams Peru
Buy a yoga mat or Pilates mat, or that Pilates Swiss Ball - usually comes with some DVD video to get you started
Buy a map book of your country or a country you wish to visit - do you know most of the streets around you city, and do you often got lost? How about finding a new shortcut or park route? If you have visitors coming, they will be happy to have a map to refer to
Donate to Kiva which isn't really a donation but a soft loan you can offer to others and help them start their business (see here for more details and explaination - http://denzukefinance.blogspot.com/2011/02/kiva-field-update-message-from-kiva.html )
Make your own healthy restaurant meal - look up some special recipe online and then go out to have a nice grocery trip. It could be some exotic recipe from ChaoZhou
Experiment with no electric, no transport and no water for a day - you'll get the reward at the end of the day

Kiva Field Update - Message from a Kiva Fellow in Indonesia

Thank you for supporting an entrepreneur in Indonesia.

This past year has been a busy and productive year for Koperasi Mitra Usaha Kecil (MUK). Highlights of the year have been the openings of two new regional branch offices. In March 2010, the Singaraja branch opened in Pengarakan and in December 2010 the Tabanan branch opened in Baturiti. MUK plans to open two more branch offices in Bali in 2011 - in Badung and Gianyar. With five regional branch offices, MUK will qualify for a Provincial License and be able to serve small businesses throughout Bali.

Even as MUK moves closer to obtaining a provincial license in Bali, the groundwork is already being laid for serving other provinces. Most significantly, MUK has been working in Papua with stakeholders, village leaders, and advisors to develop microfinance, savings, and business consulting services there in 2012.


Currently, there is no microfinance industry in Papua, yet the need is great. Papua has had an tremendous influx of transmigrants who have been benefiting from the enormous natural resources, including oil, gold, and forest resources. The indigenous Papuans have largely been left out of this economic boom and their population is now out numbered 3-to-2.


MUK's plan is to support small business development amongst the indigenous people, beginning with more modern and eco-friendly pig farming. (Currently, many indigenous people raise pigs on the edge of the sea and allow the tides to wash the waste away). Pig farming is seen as a good beginning as pigs are a symbol of harmony amongst Papuan cultures. A second project in Papua would be aquaculture with the raising of catfish.


And so, after a successful year in 2010, MUK is looking forward to providing services to small businesses in 2011 and beyond. MUK and Kiva appreciate your support of small entrepreneurs in Bali, Indonesia and welcome your support in the future.


This journal was written by Jerry Harter, who has been serving as a Kiva Fellow with Koperasi Mitra Usaha

Kecil (MUK) in Blimbingsari, Bali from November 2010 through January 2011.

This journal is about your loan to:
Melati Group -
View my Team Art of Your Mind Denzuke Finance Loans: www.kiva.org/team/artofyourmind/loans

Join my Team:
I want to recruit you to my lending team, Art of Your Mind - Denzuke Finance, on Kiva, a non-profit website that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur across the globe. You choose who to lend to - whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq - and as they repay the loan, you get your money back.

If you join my lending team, we can work together to alleviate poverty. Once you're a part of the team, you can choose to have a future loan on Kiva "count" towards our team's impact. The loan is still yours, and repayments still come to you - but you can also choose to have the loan show up in our team's collective portfolio, so our team's overall impact will grow!

Check out the team http://www.kiva.org/team/artofyourmind?default_team=artofyourmind

Merry Christmas 2010

Soon it will be Christmas Day.
Instead of giving handouts, perhaps try Kiva - give responsible micro loans to needy humans all over the world. Can just start this Christmas and 2011. See my Kiva post(s).

Loans that changes lives Denzuke Finance Art of Your Mind Group

Join me and a worldwide community dedicated to make the end of poverty a possibility. Here's my team profile. You choose which community you wish to help by giving them a micro-finance loan starting from just $25 (about $33 SGD or 75 RM). This is a loan to the community and it means you will get the loan amount back.

Essentially this is a very good concept and method in helping end poverty. You are helping but not giving free handouts which sometimes result in inefficiency. For instance, donations to UNDP usually is inefficient because over 90% of the amount donated is spent on logistics, promotional brochures, and salaries of high paying first-world country executives being brought into the third-world country in an expatriate package!

http://www.kiva.org/team/artofyourmind
Art of Your Mind - Team Denzuke Finance

I've setup the links above and you can browse first, read all about the steps in giving out the micro-finance. I've also setup a "Team" meaning can track how big my Team is doing, helping others, which communities, how much loan given and returned. It is a nice statistic to view. You know we are always attracted with some statistics, like football or simply how our stocks are faring. So this is great.