What the Vietnamese taught me: where money goes when nobody steals it

When I was almost thirty-eight, my wife's parents asked her:

"Why doesn't he have anything? Where are his savings? Where's his property? He's nearly forty."

It stung. Not because they meant to hurt me — they honestly didn't understand how that could happen. And, to be fair, it was a perfectly reasonable question.

I hadn't spent my life on the couch. I worked, I earned, I bought things, I traveled. I lived like any normal modern person trying to make life a little better.

But that was the first time I really thought about it.

Where did it all go?

What happened to the money I'd been earning for years?

The answer came from an unexpected place — from people who had never read a single book on how to save money.

My wife's parents were never wealthy. They didn't hold important jobs, didn't build business empires and, as far as I know, didn't find a suitcase of dollars under the mattress.

They simply lived, worked and set a little aside.

And by their age, they had built three houses.

Three houses!

And there I was, thinking that I'd probably earned more than they ever had. But compare the results, and the picture looked rather interesting.

They had property, built out of years of work and saving.

I had experience, memories, some stuff — and that same question: where did the money actually go?

Of course, you can't measure two lives by the number of houses. Everyone has their own circumstances and priorities. But the contrast was so sharp that I couldn't just brush it off.

It turns out you can earn more, live more comfortably — and still end up with less over the long run.

That's when I started paying closer attention to how people in Vietnam treat money.

Let me say this right away: I don't think all Vietnamese people are the same, or that everyone else lives on credit. In both places there are people who handle money well and people who spend every last cent.

But in the Vietnamese families I know, one thing stood out. Saving here isn't something you start once you're rich — it's simply part of being a grown-up.

You earn money — you spend part of it on life and put part of it away.

Nobody gives lectures on how to save money. People just do it, the way they brush their teeth.

Not because they're preparing for disaster. Not because they begrudge themselves a good cup of coffee. But because they understand that the money left with you today may one day matter far more than the money that went on yet another nice purchase.

Maybe it's family tradition, upbringing, the memory of hard times and the habit of relying on yourself. I don't know all the reasons. But the result made me think.

It's as if they have an unwritten rule: you can't spend your whole life counting on the next paycheck.

At twenty-five, it feels like you have forever. At thirty-five, you still think there's plenty of time. Then one day you're nearly forty, and it suddenly hits you that youth isn't an endless installment plan you can pay off someday.

And the question comes up: what have you actually built in all that time?

It seems to me that modern consumer culture has become very good at selling us today's pleasure with tomorrow's money.

Want a car? There's a loan for that.

Want a home? There's a mortgage.

Want a new phone, even though the old one works just fine? Pay in installments.

Want a vacation you can't afford yet? No problem, pay later.

Each step on its own looks reasonable. You need the car for work. You need a place to live. The phone really is getting old. And you need to rest — we're not robots.

The problem isn't one purchase. It starts when your whole life turns into a chain of payments.

You haven't paid off one thing and you've already bought the next. You haven't built an emergency fund yet, but you've decided it's time to upgrade your lifestyle. Your income grows — and so does the list of things you owe on.

At some point you realize you're not working for your own freedom, but to keep running a system you built yourself.

It's like a treadmill at the gym: you run, you sweat, you get tired — and when you look up, you're in exactly the same spot.

The funny part is that from the outside it can all look great. A nice car, decent clothes, photos from trips. Nobody knows how much is left after all the payments.

«Sometimes a person looks rich precisely because they haven't finished paying for their beautiful life yet»

There's another thing the Vietnamese taught me. Not only to save, but not to put wealth on display.

Here's a story I've probably told twenty times by now.

A friend once invited me to a wedding and introduced me to his parents there. My first impression: just parents, just ordinary people. His mother in a nice dress, everything as it should be. His father deeply tanned, with dark, weathered skin — he looked more like a farmer who'd just come in from the fields. And he was wearing a jacket two sizes too big. Honestly, it didn't fit him at all.

That's all I remembered.

Some time later my friend invited me to visit them at their farm. I got there — and my jaw dropped. The farm was huge. Not a big vegetable patch, but a real operation that stretched as far as I could see.

Then it turned out that my friend's family are dollar millionaires. His parents run a large business, and his brother has lived in America for years.

The same man in the jacket two sizes too big.

The second story is smaller, but it stuck with me just as much. On Facebook I saw an ad: a chef was holding a cooking class at a very well-known restaurant in an upscale hotel in Nha Trang. That same evening I went to eat at an ordinary street stall that sells the simplest, cheapest soup. And there was that chef. Sitting on a little plastic stool, calmly eating his soup like everyone around him.

Maybe there's nothing special about it. But he could have had dinner anywhere.

I think there are a lot of stories like these here. These two just happened to me.

And they show a difference I didn't notice for a long time.

The way we usually work: there's no money, but we want to show that life is rich and beautiful. Meanwhile, people who really do have a lot often don't try to show it at all. They live simply and modestly.

You don't have to seem like someone you're not. And you certainly don't have to pay to seem like it.

And if you're thinking about how to save money, this is a good place to start: a big share of what you never manage to save goes into "looking the part." A car for the neighbors to see. A phone so you don't look behind. A restaurant so there's something to post. My friend's father simply didn't seem to take part in that race — and he only ended up with more money for it.

Of course, plenty of people in the West know how to save too: they invest for decades, build wealth, secure a comfortable retirement. Pretending that culture doesn't exist would be unfair.

But I noticed something I'd never really thought about.

When we see someone with big savings, we assume they just earned a lot. Maybe so. A high income really does make it easier.

But what about someone who doesn't earn much?

That's where you see the difference between being able to save and having the habit of saving.

It's a simplified example, of course. There are kids, illness, debt, high rent — and saving really is hard. Not everyone can just start setting aside ten percent.

But the principle holds: saving doesn't start with a big income, it starts with the decision not to automatically spend everything that comes in — if your circumstances allow you to put anything aside at all.

That's probably the most useful lesson I learned from watching the Vietnamese.

When you spend money, you rarely feel you're losing your future. You feel you're getting something right now.

Bought something nice — got pleasure.

Went on vacation — got memories.

Changed cars — got comfort.

And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not at all for wearing the same old jacket forever, eating plain rice and dropping coins into a glass jar. Money exists to make life better.

But there's a fine line between enjoying life and constantly buying yourself the feeling of being well off.

Imagine: for ten years you earn good money. Every year you allow yourself a bit more than the year before. A pricier vacation, a nicer apartment, a new car, restaurants, gadgets. Every purchase feels like a well-earned reward for your work.

Then you sit down and try to remember what's left from those ten years.

Lots of memories. A couple of old phones in a drawer. A car worth half what you paid. And far less money than you expected.

The money didn't disappear in one day. It left in small portions, each of which seemed like nothing.

«Big money problems don't start with one huge mistake, but with a thousand small decisions, each of which we honestly praised ourselves for»

When I started figuring out where my money had gone, it turned out most of my purchases happened without me.

Not that someone else made them. I mean the decision was made before I even noticed it.

Saw a sale — already in the cart.

Tired after work — ordered delivery.

Bored in the evening — scrolled a shopping app "just to look."

A friend got a new gadget — and mine suddenly seemed old.

Between "I want it" and "I bought it" there are a couple of seconds. And during those seconds, almost nobody's home.

Mindful spending isn't about spending less. It's about being present when you spend.

Buddhism has a word for this: taṇhā. Strip away the terminology and the idea is simple: desire promises that after the purchase you'll feel good. And you do — for a little while. Then the next "I want" appears, and around it goes. The same treadmill, only on the inside.

That's where, to my own surprise, I connected money with meditation.

Meditation is basically training one skill: noticing what's happening in your mind before you react to it. First you notice a thought. Then irritation. Then desire.

And once you can notice desire, a pause appears between it and the purchase. A small one. But in that pause you can already ask yourself: do I really need this — or am I just bored, sad, tired?

If you want to think about what's actually worth spending your life and money on, there's a separate article on life values. And on how gain and loss swing us around inside — about the eight worldly dharmas.

When people hear the word "saving," many picture someone who denies themselves everything.

Never goes to a café. Never buys anything nice. Never travels. Lives as if pleasure has been officially cancelled until retirement.

I think that's the wrong way to see it.

Saving doesn't mean you stop living today. It means living today so that you still have a choice tomorrow.

You can eat out if it fits your budget. You can travel, buy good things and enjoy life. The point isn't to forbid yourself everything.

The point is not to turn every want into a financial obligation.

If you can't buy something without a loan, it's worth at least asking whether you really need it right now. If nothing is left after all your expenses, the problem may not only be your salary, but the level of spending you've gotten used to.

And if you can put aside even a little, make it a regular part of life, not something that only happens in an especially good month.

Financial stability almost never comes from one heroic act. It's built from boring decisions you repeat for years.

Yes, it's not very exciting. Nobody's going to make a movie about a person who handled their paycheck sensibly for twenty years and didn't buy things just because they felt like it.

But one day that person has something you can't buy on credit: the ability to calmly get through a bad month, change jobs, help family — or simply say "no" to what doesn't suit them.

Now that's a different kind of luxury.

Back to the three houses.

I don't think property is the only measure of a good life. Some people invest in a business, some travel, some help their family, some deliberately choose to live more simply.

But that conversation showed me my own life from an unexpected angle.

I used to look at money only through earnings: how much I make, how that compares to others, whether I can afford this or that.

But it turned out there's another measure, just as important.

How much is left after all of that?

Not how much you got last month.

Not what your car is worth.

Not how impressive your life looks from the outside.

But how much you have that you don't owe anyone.

Income shows how much you can earn. Savings show how much of your work actually became yours.

They're not the same thing.

You can earn three to five times more than someone else and still be far less secure. Especially if you have big obligations, and they have savings, property and the habit of living within their means.

And then it turns out that the person you thought was less successful is actually much freer.

Not because they're smarter. Not because they got luckier.

They simply did one simple thing for many years in a row: they didn't spend everything they earned.

A few everyday situations that show the difference between buying on autopilot and buying mindfully.

A flash sale notification

"50% off, today only." Mindfully: notice that the want appeared with the notification, not before it — and close the app.

Friday night

It's been a hard week and your hand reaches for the delivery app. Mindfully: not forbidding yourself dinner, but realizing you're buying rest, not food — and deciding if that's the rest you need.

A coworker's new phone

Yours suddenly feels old, though it was perfectly fine this morning. Mindfully: notice the phone didn't change — the comparison did.

Payday

First, move an amount you decided on in advance to a separate account, and spend from what's left. Not after all your spending "if anything's left," but before it.

A gift for your child

You want to buy the most expensive one so you don't look worse than other parents. Mindfully: ask who this gift is really for.

And this is no longer mindful spending

Refusing yourself even shoes you need for months and feeling proud that you're "holding on." That's not mindfulness — it's the same dependence on money, just from the other side.

I'm not telling everyone to give up loans and skimp on every cup of coffee. Everyone's life is different. For some, all their income goes on the bare necessities. Some have obligations they can't cancel. And for others a loan makes sense — if they understand the terms and can handle it.

But sometimes it's useful to look at yourself from the outside.

We talk a lot about how to earn more. And much less about how to save money and keep part of what we earn.

We learn to build careers, grow businesses, get better at our work. But the habit of saving gets put off until later — as if it will appear on its own once our income is big enough.

And if it doesn't?

If our wants, expenses and obligations grow along with our income, there will never be enough money, no matter how much we earn. The treadmill just gets faster.

Maybe that's why my wife's parents made such an impression on me. They didn't wait to get rich before building their future. They built it out of what they had.

Here's what I learned from the Vietnamese: you don't need to earn a lot to gradually build something. But if you want something to be there over the years, earning isn't enough. You have to learn to keep part of it.

One day your age will stop telling you how much time you have ahead. It will start reminding you how much time you've already had.

And the question won't be how well you lived each separate day.

It'll be what's left of all those days.