A Cookie's Quirky Finance

Looking back, there was something quirky that I noticed about my expenditure such that there was a relationship between my money (well, in terms of cash. And this isn't referring to the cash cheque thingy. I mean solid [OK, it's not so solid after all since it's paper/plastic], physical cash.) brought to school and the amount of money spent.

Well, logically speaking (or rather, typing), if one were to bring a lot of money out, the chances of expenditure would be high, whereas should a person bring little or no cash out, the expenditure would be low. But for me, the following happened on a frequent basis:

- On days when I brought about $30 to school to last through the week, I spend about $30 - $40 (that's because I drew money. And usually the pathetic atm in NTU would only allow $50 notes. But it was a good thing as that $50 might well have limited my spending. Well, this doesn't make sense to you? Read on...).

- On days where I brought no cash to school, my expenditure was at $40 - $50 or so, which meant that I spent $40 to $50 over the amount of cash I brought.

- On rare days that I brought $100 to school, my expenditure barely made it across $20 - $25.

Thus, based on this pattern, one could deduce that the relationship between expenditure (E) and the money brought (B) could probably be estimated as:

E = abs( (B - 40) + -40 * Log(B + 1) / 5 ) , for B = 0, 40 or 100

where abs(...) = absolute; if the value is negative, make it positive.

Just in case you're wondering, yup, I tested the calculations and this function works. Hey, it's the holidays. What do you expect, right? And nope, formulation of such an equation goes to show that I do not have an idle mind, although it could well be quasi-transiently-idle. But hey, although it is mathematically correct, this equation only works for 3 fixed values (namely [or rather, numerically], B = 0 , 40 or 100. And if you were to try values above $100, expenditure would shoot up. Thus, I do not base my theory on this mathematical expression. It is just an illustration.

OK, back to the theory. Based on what I deduce, for every 3 times more money I bring, by expenditure would go down by a third. Thus, in order to bring down my spending to a negligible amount, to less than a cent, I would have to bring $100 * 3^20 = $348,678,440,100 to school. Hmmm, based on that figure, I must be richer than Bill gates and all the top 10,000 richest men in the world put together plus all the value of gold in the world (including that of King Solomon's), and bring that amount to school (hmmm, did I just mention it?), so as to avoid spending money. Although crazy as it may sound, it could well be true. Think about it - if I were to bring so much money to school, I would be fearing assassination, robbery... etc. attempts and as such, I wouldn't dare walk around, much less eat in the school canteen, nor would I have the appetite to eat anyway. And as such, my spending would truly be $0.

Conclusion: Seriously, I'd rather just bring $40 or $100 to school. It's too much trouble to save up and/or earn $348,678,440,100, much less bringing that amount to school.