[Lessons] Stop exploiting friends!

I just have to get this off my chest.  Recently i went out with my friends, and there is this guy who is super into the rewards hack and maximise interest tier kind of thing.

So what happened was that i arranged to meet another friend but this other friend invited him along. And instead of the normal ala carte meals that cost around $20 to max of $30... this invited friend jio-jio us to this hotel buffet place.... Initially I was like.... " I don't buffet these days..." but since he suggested then okay, lets go with the flow.... and the cost of the buffet was $53 ++ (end up 60 plus bucks). Over the meal, we shared about our tips to optimize my savings account interest. But competitive him kept trying to "one-up" all of us! He shared about how he hits the 3.88% for standard charter (congrats to him) by purposely trying to hit all the tiers, he even one-up me when i shared CIMB fastsaver's 1% was one of the best no-frills acct, by countering with SC esaver (but turns out it is only on the additional amount).  So only at the paying of bill, then i realised he was trying to get these free reward points, not only by paying by his credit card, but by also selecting location under a website's reward program. 

I don't know how many of you will resort to such extreme levels, but to me i feel it is a wasted of effort to expend so much recurring energy in your life to:

• try to hit their hard to hit tiers for such bonus interest accounts. 
• try to pull a quick one on your friends

Afterall, we should not let our financial choices determine our lifestyle, instead.... our lifestyle choices should determine our financial choices. This friend's financial choices had made him blinded to the bad decisions he is making. e.g. spend $2000 on credit-cards and investing in standard charter's Unit trust ( EEKS!). Hope he gets awaken by it, since i don't think any further sharing will enlighten him! 😮😮😮