You all love Warren Buffett, right? Would you pay $2.1 million to have lunch with the oracle of Omaha like this Chinese investment manager who decided to pick up the tab by taking part in a high-stakes online charity auction?
Zhao Danyang, 36, will have lunch with the US billionaire at a Smith and Wollensky steakhouse restaurant in New York. He can bring seven friends to enjoy Buffett’s company for, oh, maybe two hours. Three hours max… maybe.
That’s serious pogi points if you like to project a certain image. Now if you just want to be generous and donating millions of dollars to charity is your kind of thing, why not get a lunch with Buffett into the bargain?
Generosity is a curious thing. On the one hand, the world needs more of it. An interesting list of random acts of money kindness in this article have made life a lot more livable for quite a number of people.
I have also said in a previous post that we can’t always expect people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and that there will be times we will be called to give till it hurts — and we should.
On the other hand, (and I type this with a mountain of misgivings) sometimes we are too generous for our own good. A friend said she was looking at her credit card bill for June and found that she paid almost P6,500 for restaurant meals. The funny thing is, she could have pared that down to P1,500 if she wasn’t as generous in footing the bill. After all, her lunch mates –- colleagues and friends — were not exactly welfare cases.
At a Money Makeover dinner with Augustus J.V. Ferreria last December, Bianca* was quick on the draw when the bill came. Oh, the kind-hearted sermon that one brought about! Joe advised all of us to develop the habit of dividing the bill when we dine out with friends and colleagues.
There are many other ways we can be too generous for our own good. In the same vein, there are also many ways people can be ridiculously stingy! Oh boy, I’m sure you know the type.
From a scale of one to ten, ten being the most stupidly generous and one being terribly stingy, where do you stand?
July 4th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I believe I’m in the middle too.
If the budget is not high for treating friends when I got home, its fine with me. Or if meron kahati (may ibang umuwi besides me), then its better.
Kung barkada night out, its normally divided equally.
@nina… really? Your friends in the Phils wont let you pay???? Ok kaibiganin mga friends mo…. hehehe
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
share ko lang whenever officemates do eatout parties here in japan. wud u believe it’s always dutch treat? (except those being welcomed or se despidir) The bill’s split among party invitees the next day, 4000 yen ($40) is typical. Mind you, kahit bday or wedding pala invitees pay! (prepare 30000 yen or $300 for kasal). Kaya siguro talagang happy bday dito hehehe. Or at least the Japanese have the good sense of NOT making bdays, weddings and eatouts bankruptcy events as is the case in Pinas
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I think I’m in the middle.
Sa circle of friends/colleagues ko, unless it’s clarified before ordering that someone is paying for the meal, it is understood to be dutch treat. Normally, kahit sino kasama ko, I always pay/ offer to pay my share. Now, there are times when they would make “kantiyaw” pa-Mc Do ka naman - I sometimes give in or pag birthday ko - nanlilibre ako.
When I go home, it’s a different case. Ang usual experience ng OFW, nagpapalibre friends nila pag umuuwi sila. Kabaligtaran yong akin. Normally, kailangan ko pa kutchabahin yong waiter na ako magbabayad kasi ayaw akong pagbayarin ng friends ko.