Spare Ang Pao, check!
It's an exercise in budgeting, preparing red packets during Chinese New Year. What is the going rate? You don't want to give too little and appear to be stingy. On the other hand, it's alright to give more, but you don't want to kill yourself and end up asking for a government bailout.
And then there's the spare ang pao packets that you (or the wife) needs to carry around in case some extra children pop up somewhere unannounced. In such situations it's like "oh, I didn't know you had an extra (1,2,3,4,5) child(ren)!" and all the adults start clamouring to give their red packets to these previously unknown children. You hardly see people rushing to give money away, this is one of those rare occasions I guess.
Having three children, you tend to end up collecting more than you give though. And with all the reciving (especially in a crowded relative's house), we end up with a pile of ang paos not knowing who the actual receiver was. So what we're going to do is add it all up, divide it by 3 and do the deposits. Straight forward. Probably not even taking anything for ourselves - selfless and convenient - until people start labelling their red packets :)
And then there's the spare ang pao packets that you (or the wife) needs to carry around in case some extra children pop up somewhere unannounced. In such situations it's like "oh, I didn't know you had an extra (1,2,3,4,5) child(ren)!" and all the adults start clamouring to give their red packets to these previously unknown children. You hardly see people rushing to give money away, this is one of those rare occasions I guess.
Having three children, you tend to end up collecting more than you give though. And with all the reciving (especially in a crowded relative's house), we end up with a pile of ang paos not knowing who the actual receiver was. So what we're going to do is add it all up, divide it by 3 and do the deposits. Straight forward. Probably not even taking anything for ourselves - selfless and convenient - until people start labelling their red packets :)