As for the OP, sure, maybe he could have saved a bit more, but on 5000 or even 10,000 rmb a month how much can one save? Sure, if you want to live on jiaozi and noodles and catch buses everywhere you can save a bit. Who wants that lifestyle though. Certainly not me!

no worries, we are just at different stages of life.

You are retired and rich, and I am not. I do miss jiaozi and noodles though. Taxis can be a pain in China, due to them always trying to rip you off. An old chinese girlfriend of mine went mad at a rickshaw driver for overcharging a couple of RMB after going past where we wanted to stop, thus making us have to walk back a long way, of course he did the old "wo bu zhi dao" trick:-)