Why does a bonus burn a hole in your pocket but your savings feel untouchable?
Money is money, yet a windfall feels like free cash while the same amount in savings feels off-limits.
Mental accounting is the habit of sorting money into separate mental buckets by where it came from or what it is for, then spending each bucket by different rules. Logically a dollar is a dollar - it is fungible - but a year-end bonus, a tax refund, your salary, and your emergency fund all feel like different kinds of money, so you treat them differently even when the amounts match.
A 5,000,000 VND Tet bonus gets blown on a new phone in a weekend, but if the boss had just added 5,000,000 to your normal salary you would have quietly left it in the bank.
Before spending, ask how much you have in total, not which bucket the money happens to sit in.
Spotting your own buckets stops a windfall from leaking away and helps you treat every dong as the same dong.
Same money, different jars - and you guard some jars far more than others.
Learn the idea and practice English at the same time.