My Balanced Money Formula

Wait, I am not a cheat if this is the conclusion you have come to from my last two posts new budgeting style and goals for 2013.

 

Remember how I confessed that I need my own balanced money formula. And then I go ahead and say I will be doing budgeting again with all percentages.

 

Actually those percentages define my balanced money formula.

 

20% - Retirement

30% - Midterm Savings/Mortgage prepayment etc

50% - Needs + Wants

 

Time to explore next step in budget

I have always worked with detailed budget, watched every rupee coming in and going out of my system.

Now with a baby in picture, that is just too time consuming.

From last so many days I am working on seeing where my time is going and what all I can cut back to save on TIME.

And I know too much detailed budgeting is one thing which eats up time that I should free.

So finally, I am writing this post and ACCEPTING that it's time to change.

After exploring lots of things I have decided that I need to come up with something similar to balanced money formula as preached by JD Roth of Get Rich Slowly.

His exact formula is something like

     30% wants

     20% savings

     50% needs.

I have to come up with something similar.

I am going to come up with my own balanced money formula by November.

(This is because I am joining my job only on coming Monday which means no pay cheque at end of september also.)

If you have any suggestions on this, please let me know.

Every rupee saved is a rupee that earns 6%

This is my favorite line now a days.

I totally love all the advertisements of kotak bank on this theme.

• Save on petrol and that saved money is the money that is earning 6%.

• Save on eating out and earn 6% on your saved money.

• Even when you are spending, use their debit card and earn cash back which is then going to earn 6% for you.

If that doesn’t motivates you to save, I don’t know what else will.

P.S. I still don’t have any account with kotak bank. Go figure out!
 

My money is mine so are decisions associated with it.. period

Sometimes you come across a post that exactly describes your state of mind at that time. From last few days I am frustrated. In general I am way more irritable then normal me. I am trying to introspect and understand what's bothering beneath the surface but it is not an easy task.

Well I know for sure last year has a big role in that. As I have mentioned several times here already it was a year of murphy. I read an article by J.Money about stuff new home owners should think and it struck an immediate chord. There was probably not a single month where I didn't need to replace or buy something new for home.

I know, that's why we save emergency fund (my EF also includes my contingency fund). But I am a saver. I always like to save first and then spend. So, it was tough for me. Very very tough to part with so much of our saved money month after month. It's very hard to see your 18 months of EF depleting to 11 months EF.

On top of that what else can frustrate you. Don't waste brain guessing, its when people comment that when you have so much money (in bank) why you crib about expenses and why you do price comparing, why to delay some purchase, why not to keep full time maid? Why why why? That's something similar to what FB wrote recently in her article that how people think others get rich.

Let me just dribble my answers here, for my peace of mind sake:

1) I have money in bank because I am thoughtful about expenses which you are not.

2) I understand that 100 Rs. wasted each day costs me Rs 3000 in a month and in a year, Rs 3000 * 12 (Go do the math), that’s a very respectable sum FOR ME.

3) I have money because I work my a$$ for it. Even in pregnancy when sitting for long hours was next to impossible I worked as much as I could, because I understand that money needs to be earned.

4) I simply didn't inherit anything in this world. From my house to my car to everything I own, I have earned by working HARD.

5) I do price comparison because I understand that every penny saved is equal to 2 pennies earned.

6) Because I want to retire one day without being dependent on my children.

Frugality is tough especially when you come across such people. This blog and my Google Reader provide me with much needed motivation and peace of mind at such times. Thanks to you all PF blogger out there. You all rock.

Couple of Frugal Tips

I was always a frugal growing up. I would have been big spender in my late years if I would not have faced something like Mumbai Floods so early in my spending days. It changed my outlook towards money and stuff completely.

Side effects of my experience, I might not be a minimalist but I am not a collector either. I use and possess lot of stuff but I don't buy anything ever that is very good but I might need it after some time. I always postpone such purchases till the point I actually need it. 75% of the things it turns out that I actually never got to need it.

Secondly, as some of my friends here are aware that I am on actually spending freeze for one year. I am restraining myself from buying anything new for more then a year. In retrospection that's what I always do. I always abide by the policy of "Only Replacing the things that I Love". What this means is that generally I am very satisfied with 5 skirts, 2 jeans, 4 pair of shoes and so on. Whenever I go shopping I can easily curb the urge to buy anything new till all my possessions are in good shape. If, however, any of the things are torn off, I feel absolutely comfortable and OK to go ahead and buy them.

This helps in achieving two goals, one not possession loads of stuff and second never having materialistic possessions of more then 3L. Side effect, this tuning of money attitude saves me load of money.

Give it a try on your own. Start with any one thing, and decide how many of them are just good enough for you. Once you have that number train your mind to not buy them new till they are in good shape and replace it soon once it is torn off. Once mastered, it will help you save a lot by curbing the urge to buy the unnecessary things.

What leads to frugality?

I have heard this so many times that being rich people generally are miser and very conscious about spending money. And I have also heard lots of people commenting on someone's frugality like, "he was poor when growing up, he is a compulsive frugal now even if he can afford it."

The latest comment really provoked my thoughts if that is true. Looking around me I don't actually agree with any such characterization. I have seen all kind of frugal people, those who were always rich, those who were poor once, and those who were middle class once. I have actually seen lots of frugal people in all the above categories. (As a side note: I guess that’s why people say Indians are Miser, Indians are actually very very frugal, I dare not say miser. P.S. I am an Indian Too.)

Why Rich can be Frugal?
I have already written a post about my thoughts on this. Read it here.

Why "one-time-poor" are frugal?
When you are poor you just have to struggle more then any one else. Even necessities are tough to get in such circumstances. Hence, they need to watch every penny they spend, because even a penny waste might mean that you won't be able to pay some bill.

When they get any extra money, they tend to save it, so that it can be used to pay some future bill. In the process, after working very hard and saving all the extra bucks rather then spending them on wants, they never realize that they are above the threshold now. They never realize that they can actually now pay all the bills even if they splurge some part of their money. They don't know how to put a full stop at the attitude of save-for-future. It's just like a law of Newton, A body in motion will always be in motion until some external force is applied. In their case that external force is just not there.


Why "middle-class" people can be frugal?
I think for two primary reasons, one they are scared that if they won't they will go to poor category and second they want to be in first category of being rich. I am now in middle class and both these reasons are personal. I am scared of first and my DH thinks latter way.

What do you think? Any special people are frugal or it is more to do with an individual rather then class you belong to?

Guilt of affording it

Early life
Throughout my childhood I have lived a frugal lifestyle. Ours was a single-income home and hence, money was limited and generally less then everybody's cumulative needs. I used to get my pocket money and I don't remember even one incident when I had no money at the end of month. My money philosophy used to be simple, "avoid splurge today for a need of tomorrow". My dad sometimes, to tease my frugal ideas, used to say that I have more savings then him. Then I started working and was still frugal. I had a goal to save for my further studies and hence lived like a student even while working.

Some of my friends used to tell me that I am living a life of deprivation and I agree. There was no balance in my life at that point in time. I made those choices in earlier life because of two reasons, firstly because I wanted to enjoy my working life and second because I used to feel guilt of spending my dad's earned money on my wish lists. In those days, whenever I used to feel sad, I used to tell myself that this is the only way to have comfortable life that I dream about.

Employment Effects
I officially finished my studies in 2005 and started working thereafter. I told myself that now is the time to get rid of frugal attitude and enjoy the materialistic things. I started splurging on things that I loved clothes, jewellery and travelling. I convinced my self that it’s OK to spend 40% of my salary on these things and save rest. I know that it’s not necessary to save all that I earn now.

Marriage Happened
After 3 years I got married. Then came few months where I was only spending all the money that I am earning. First year of my marriage I could hardly save anything for retirement. I understood that I am building my home from scratch and hence this is bound to happen. Before my marriage completed first year, recession hit. We took pay cuts and got little more conscious about spending the money. As a result, we sailed smoothly in recession year as well.

Current Situation
Now I am again at point of time where I have no immediate expenses. I have everything that I need at my home; I have bought my new car with down payment, hence less of recurring cost of maintenance for now. I am again on track to save for retirement; I am again building my EF.

Of course I feel blessed and happy about my financial status. I am doing OK, not making any dumb choices, cutting the corners where needed and enjoying a balance between today and tomorrow. I can afford to indulge in few things that I love but others find extravagant. That makes me feel guilty of spending, guilt of being able to afford it. Not so encouraging comments from friends and family in some cases make it even worst. I find it very annoying and depressing when somebody comments on my indulgence without even considering that it might really matter to me or it might be that I have first saved for it. I have actually heard few things like, "wow, can you really afford a lunch at 5 star hotel on some XXX occasion", "you spend Rs 700 on a game, that's too much." At such occasions, I feel guilt of being able to afford some thing that my peers probably can't afford.

Why should I feel guilt on such occasions? I have worked hard for being at a place where I am today. I have made some very difficult choices in my life to have my current life. And above all, when I was making those choices and my peers were having fun, I never felt bad for myself or them. Rather I used to feel happy for them and used to motivate myself that I am going to have better life someday. But the ground reality is I feel bad.

Does anyone else also experience same? If yes, how you guys handle it?

Excess of anything is bad

Not long back, till just one and a half months back, I used to be obsessed for tracking my expenses. I am maintaining my excel sheet from last so many years and never thought that I could survive without doing this.

In fact, I used to love playing with my excel sheet. It's so elaborative and detailed that I can tell all the transactions of my all bank accounts just looking at my detailed sheet.

Then one day I realized it is actually controlling me. This happened when my DH asked for something and I told him that "we are over budget in this category, so will you mind waiting for one week so that I can buy this for you next month." Very bad of me. He was being very supportive with me on budget and all after he managed the expenses for a month, but he didn't take it too well. He told me you are being too much finicky about small things and don't realize that probably in few years from now we might not be able to consume these things.

I actually thought about it and then realized that its true. My budget certainly is a very useful tool. We allocate a fixed amount of money each month for our monthly home expenses. Budgeting and tracking helps me save some money every month from our allocated money for home expenses. But what will happen if I'll not be able to save that amount each month. It will not derail my savings plan or retirement savings at all.

So I decided to try something very different for the first time in my life. I paid all the bills as usual. Then I withdraw one-third of original allocated amount as cash and kept in drawer. I told my DH now he can buy anything he wants from the money kept in drawer. No need to inform me as I am quitting tracking for some time. After paying all the bills and withdrawing one-third of the money as cash, I was still having some Rs. 7K in my home account. Few of my bills come towards the end of the month. This made sure that I have money for them. I prepared my self that I might go overboard by some 5K this month. Once the cash got finished, I got more money from my account and again kept them in drawer.

At the end of the month, I was over budget by only Rs. 1500. Yes given due to my strict tracking and budgeting previously, I generally used to save 3-4 K of my home expenses money. It meant that we spent around Rs 5K more then usual. But rather then counting this as failure, I was satisfied. This is the amount that I can certainly afford to spend to have more peaceful life. I am convinced that because of all the good habits that we have developed over years, we will be able to do well just like this month even without strict budgeting.

So, I changed my budgeting and tracking system for now. I am not going to enter each day expenses in my detailed sheet. Rather, I'll just be tracking when I am paying bills directly through my bank account or withdrawing money from there. Once money is withdrawn, it can be spend without noting anywhere where we are spending it. This one month change helped me in realizing that I actually loose my peace of mind sometimes because of excessive tracking. And excess of any thing, even good thing, is bad my dear friend.

As a side note, it was very difficult for me to not-track my expenses. You guys might not believe but in initial few weeks, I used to still open my excel sheet around 5-7 times a day and used to keep staring at it. I used to feel bad for not entering my expenses. But now finally I am evolved. Now I open my sheet only once a day, that too just to update my stock balances and to enter any transactions through my banks. It was tough but worth it.

How about you? Do any of you are also so obsessed for tracking as used to be? Or You guys plain lucky to be not insane just like me?

This also happens sometimes...

Getting rich is everybody's dream, at least, that can be general statement which applies to 50% of the population on this earth. I am not against anybody's dream and effort to become rich. What I am totally against is when people push me in their get-rich-quick-scheme-with-little-work. Yes, I am very skeptical of all these ideas and am totally uninterested in becoming members of anything like Amway, Oriflamme etc.

Last weekend, couple of my DH's friends were supposed to visit us. They brought some more 3 people along with them. My DH's friend decided to keep silent and one of the 3 strangers started talking to us. He took out an A4 sheet and pen from his bag and here was how our conversation went:

Stranger#1: What you all do?
DH: We both are engineers.
Stranger#1: Why do you work?
DH: To earn money.
Me: (Interrupted them to add) and to keep ourselves busy and do what I love a lot, programming.
Stranger#1: (looking towards me) Wow. That's unheard of. I myself work in same field for last 12 years and he (stranger#2) is in this field from last 18 years in XYZ Company (a very big company).
Me: Great. It's nice to meet you all.
Stranger#1: So, imagine what you will do if you are told to retire today.
Me: (looking little confused) and that means?
Stranger#1: If you get some 1-2 crore rupee today and you get some monthly income throughout your further life without your current job what will you do?
DH: Don't know.
Me: (DH is already looking at me, means ball is in my court) Will probably still go to my job because I love my work if nothing else there.
Stranger#1: (Little surprised) you have no dreams or goals in your life?
DH: We do have and we are already living our dream life kind of. (I was elated hearing this.)
Stranger#1: Would you still like to work.
DH: Yes, may be then I'll be doing more of farming, probably apple farming somewhere.
Stranger#1: Wow, I would also like to do farming after retirement. (Turning to me now) So, what will you do then?
Me: Nothing extra ordinary. Pretty much the same what I am doing now.
Stranger#1: (More surprised) so what do you do now with your money.
Me: Nothing. My DH's salary is sufficient for two of us. Mine is used for extravagant things. That's all.
Stranger#1: (Thinking that he is not going anywhere with me) won’t you like to go on shopping spree or jewellery collection if given lots of money?
Me: No. I am very much happy with what I have and what I can buy today.
Stranger#1: I am shocked. You are the first woman who is saying that she is not interested in jewellery and shopping. (Well please note that I never said that. All I said that I am content with what I have.)
Stranger#2: I am shocked too. My wife last month demanded Rs.40 Lakhs bangles from me.
Me: (Now I am shocked) Good. But I am not interested in them.
Stranger#1: (giving disgusting look to my house) is this your dream home?
Me: Yes very much.
Stranger#1: I am surprised. I have never seen a more content person then you in my life. All the credit goes to you (to my DH).
Me: (Just smiled)
Stranger#1: (To my DH now) so do you like travelling?
DH: Yes.
Stranger#1: Where will you go travelling when you will have money?
DH: We both love exploring India. We will visit rest of the places that we have still not visited.
Stranger#1: Why India. That's the problem. We all learn to dream small. You don't want to go anywhere outside India?
DH: Yes probably once to Vancouver again because I have studied there.
Stranger#1: See, and we have a scheme where this all will be possible in just
few years with little work.

Do I need to tell you that I hated him and his ideas! I absolutely love my house. I live in one of the posh most areas of my city. I drive the car that I love. I travel in India because we both are crazy to explore India and let me tell you visiting places like Kashmir, Sikkim, Kerala cost you more money then traveling is so called destinations like Malaysia, Thailand etc.

He approached us all wrong. He must have come across those people who think that their life sucks and that more money will make them happy. Not me at least. By demeaning the things that I absolutely love he is never going to get what he wanted. I am never going to join what ever quick-rich scheme he has.

I don't know but I can't stop thinking bad about that day and those people.
What do you feel. Am I too skeptical for these kind of people or were they actually so annoying?

Anxious of tracking and budgeting

A earns 6 figure salary, believes that lives decent life and not extravagant but still at the end of the month always devastated by looking at his bank account that he is left with so less. You never know where you spent all that money?

Does this sound familiar? Then A can be you. Where is the problem after all? The problem can be anywhere from someone duping you of your money to you duping yourself of your money. But how will you come to know?

There come two of my favorite tools of personal finance, tracking and budgeting. I know that they sound very intriguing to start with. Truth is they are pretty easy. You don't have to do it perfectly. It's OK if you miss entering few of expenses and still better then tracking absolutely nothing.

Start with it, for the first month, note down all the expenses. This will give you an approximate idea of where your money goes. Then try to look at the things that are more then what you thought them to be and see how logical your spending is? For example, if eating out comes to be double then what you expected them to be, check if you really need to eat out so often? Then do this again next month and once again the following month.

Make a budget and compare your expenses with your budget. Tweak your budget where needed and try to work on your expenses at other places.

Trust me; the toughest part of this whole process is the first step. Take it, jump on and fly.

How about you? Are you tracking savvy like me or scared of it?

My Spending Spree

I have been a personal finance savvy since childhood. I love saving money, seeing my money grow, tracking my expenses, reducing my spending and so on. I never had any problem with money not even when I got my first job. This is because I had a goal of saving for further studies at that time. But then, when I finished my studies and got my real first job, I went mad with my money.

When I graduated, I had some 50K left with me. And I was earning close to 20K. But in two months I was left with 11K only, given I had no rent to pay at that time. What went wrong, almost everything? I had too much of cash flow but no goals for me. Now I didn't have to save for studies and other then that I never wanted anything at that stage. Thankfully, I realized my spending problem before it came close to becoming addiction and came back on correct track.

What about you? Have you faced similar attitude change?

Mental tricks to save money

Some mental tricks that can save you money:

1) Lots of research shows that paying through cash makes you think twice before you buy anything. In contrast, paying through credit card seems to increase unnecessary expenses.

2) When paying with cash, keep big bills with you and some small bills. This will help you in curbing the urge to buy small unnecessary things because it is relatively difficult to buy an Rs 50 item with Rs 500 bill then with Rs 100 bill.

3) Whenever going for grocery shopping, eat something before leaving home. You tend to buy expensive, ready-to-eat items when hungry.

career vs job

While browsing, I read some article on Job vs. Career. The article differentiated the two of them as: A job is something you do simply to earn money; a career is a series of connected employment opportunities. A job has minimal impact on your future work life, while a career provides experience and learning to fuel your future. A job offers few networking opportunities, but a career is loaded with them. When you work at a job, you should do the minimum without annoying the boss. When you’re in a career, you should go the extra mile, doing tasks beyond your minimum job description.

With all the due respect to the proficient who have written this, I don’t agree with most of it. Can you discriminate a job from a career? Fine you can! I am an engineer by occupation. When I passed my college, industry was in decline so I joined a BPO for a part time job. Working as insurance claim processors was indeed my job, but not a career. A job because I was sure I was here for short term and not long term. So, basically, what I understood from above words is, Job is short term and Career is long term.

My job was undoubtedly not a humdinger for my career, but I used to work very hard, scarcely ever taking my breaks, always looking further for the ways to perk up my effectiveness. And not to reveal, I really excelled in my job, got good hikes and promotions.

So a palpable query that comes to my mind, why I worked so hard? That was a job after all and not career! I think the rationale is not short term vs. long term, but relates more with your standards of life that you your self define for yourself.

Consider it this way! Look at the value you add against the hours you endow at any place. Be it your job or career, you giving it some X hours of your existence every day. If you are not content with it, are you not slaying that part of your life too? Whatever you do and how you do basically reveal how passionate you are in your life and has nothing to do with short term or long term goals. Life is not about what you accomplish at the conclusion of 10 or 20 years, it’s after all how you expend those years.

It’s all in outlook towards the life. You can either wait for holi to get colors and diwali to get light or else you can make every day holi and diwali by adding colors and light in them everyday. It’s all your opinion, and all your life at the end of the day. Happiness, contentment, pleasure, performance is all part of you and not short term and long term goals. So you cannot decide to not give something your best because that’s merely a job for you, can you?

Keep Smiling. :)

Saving for long term goals

Secret to save for long term goals, like retirement, kids studies etc, is simple. Start early, be disciplined in savings, increase the saving amount as your income increases and adjust savings allocation periodically.

Start early because it gives lots of freedom. First you have abundant time in your side and hence you can use power of compounding for you. Also, because you will be starting early, you can start with small amounts.

Being disciplined is important because you are trying to save for long term goal and it might happen that short term goals sweeps away all of your money. Hence, automate the savings as much as possible and then set short term goals based on leftover money.

Adjust your allocation as time passes. For example if you started to save 10% of your monthly income, increase it every time you get a hike.

Last but not the least, review your allocations periodically say once every year and do necessary changes. As and when you are approaching your goal, reduce risk in your portfolio. If you started with 70-30, 70% in equity and 30% in debt market, with age change this allocation to 50-50 and then to 30-70 eventually.

These all simple steps will make sure that you can save for any long term goal without much of pain.

What is your financial personality?

I came across lots of people in my daily life and no two are similar. But when it comes to financial pattern, I see some common types of personality:

Dominant Miser - They are the one's who will never offer you an extra scoop of ice-cream over smoothie when they are treating and will always order the expensive most thing on the Menu when someone else is treating. They never forget when others owe them money but will never remember if they owe the money to you. And they are so dominantly miser, that even their partners will dread spending in their presence. (A very personal experience of a real-life couple I know.)

Recessive Miser - Their heart aches to spend money. They will never buy a gift for you on any occasion. They just don't feel the need to buy something for this occasion. But when in the group, they are absolutely OK to pick the tabs. When they go shopping with their partner, they find it hard to spend for themselves, then for their home and hardly any problem in buying for the partner. Buying gifts for others if they are not around is still a problem. So basically they are miser, but recessive in a way because it is not transferrable to their partners.

Recessive Spender - Personally I find them most irritating. They are the ones who will not think twice before buying something for themselves. They will have latest gadgets, branded clothes but will never have money when it comes to treating others or picking tabs when in group. They never refuse a treat from you but will be super busy post 2 months of their birthday. Their partners have to save because of all the financial goals. Not FAIR! I remember that Fabulously Broke once mentioned a story of her brother who falls in this category. And no I still not read her.

Dominant Spender - Well, they are the ones who love spending money. They are the one's who will not think twice before buying something for them, for their family and friends. They are so cheerful doing it that their partners feel obliged. When they are around, even miser partners want to splurge on themselves.

I think I am little bit of Recessive Miser and little more of Dominant Spender.
How about you? What kind of person are you?

Mortgage and its impact on one's money habits

House Loan has a big impact on one's lifestyle. This is what I have seen around me in so many couples and individual.

I have a friend who bought his house after 5 years of job. He always used to share his stories that he used to eat-out quite often when without a mortgage, but now after a mortgage he can't afford that much of eating out. I know of other manager who jokes that now because he has a mortgage, he can't buy that new shirt on this birthday. I know lots of people who postpone family planning because of huge mortgage.

Hearing to all these tales I always used to wonder why this happens. And now, when I have my own mortgage to deal with I precisely know what triggers all these changes:

If you are not paying mortgage, you have no financial burden of monthly payments. Yes you still might be paying rent, but rent's per month in Noida are 10K-15K where as EMI will be somewhere from 30K-35K. This obviously leaves you with the less money to spend hence the lifestyle changes become must.

Also, when you are paying mortgage, interest amount is very high. Most of the home-buyers pay almost same amount or more then original loan amount as interest to the lender. i.e. To say if you get a loan for Rs 30L, you might end up paying 70L-80L in whole. Once you understood it, you definitely want to save for loan prepayment.

My Childhood Frugality Obsession

I have a confession to make. I have been picked up by lots of people for my frugality. Not, it's just not my friends or an acquaintance, even my family some-times teases me for my frugality.

I still remember how when in my childhood days I'll not buy a candy for Rs 1 because I don't want to give away Rs 5. for this and get some change back. Till date when I go for window shopping, I take all big currency with me to avoid any kind of silly temptation.

I used to make notebooks from the papers that have one side blank, be it printouts, bills, envelopes, newspaper. This is something I do till date. My friends in college and some distant cousin used to call me cheapster to take out such papers from News Paper or from any other source for that matter. Yes, when I was a kid I was doing it primarily for saving my pocket money, but today I do it because I don't want to waste paper.

I used to wear hand-me-down clothes when in college and have been picked by my classmates more then once on not buying any new clothes even on birthday. I was absolutely OK with it because my sister is super-generous to hand-me-down very good quality clothes and besides I had tons of other things to do with my pocket money.

I never ever bought a pop-corn in theatre in my college days. No way could I afford it. Buying popcorn meant 1/10th of my pocket money. I rather will eat one burger in cafeteria to avoid even temptation. My friends never let this chance pass away to tell me how cheap I am.

If I'll list all other incidents off the head, this post will be the longest ever written. :)

How about you? Have you ever been teased for your frugal ideas?

Is gender biasing really true?

Yesterday I was watching "Mein aur Mrs. Khanna". If you have not watched it yet, don't waste your time by watching it. Very bad and predictable plot!

But it had an angle that got my brain to work. Lead pair, Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor, is having tough time in their marriage because our hero is unemployed and his wife is working and supporting him and house. He makes her life miserable as a result of this, by not communicating his feelings and not doing anything relevant for her. He was purely selfish in that part of movie.

I know this very Indian mentality even today. Indian males can hardly accept it if their wives earn more then them. It's an acceptable norm that male should earn more then female in the relationship. Women's career runs on the whims and fancies of male. She has to make lots of compromises in her working life, sometimes willingly and sometimes unwillingly, like leaving job for raising babies, not taking promotions to avoid increase work load etc.

I am not against compromises. I am a woman and have done so and will do more in future as well, because they were never forced to me. What I find problematic is why Indian males still feel that they have right to have superior career and that women should always make compromises. Girls work equally hard to raise high in working life and have to work harder to maintain a balance in professional/personal life. But when it comes to male, no such balance exists. They take it for granted to behave in any way if their professional life is not going smooth. They will stop communicating when dealing with tight deadline at work, will leave all house hold chores when dealing with work pressure. Can women also afford to behave so immaturely?

Have you also noticed this gender biasing in Indian guys or am I really a feminist?

P.S. This is not from my personal experience. I am really blessed because my DH is more balanced then me. :)

Save for Yourself

Lot's of people buy lotteries in order to get rich quickly. Lotteries are so addictive that I remember how Delhi Government put a ban on it.

People who buy lottery tickets want to use small sum of the money to get rich quickly. Well I am not sure of what will be the odds to get rich that way, but I know one sure way which will give you some wealth in long run. It's called power of compounding.

Let's say a lottery tickets is for Rs. 100 and you buy lottery ticket every week. At the age of 20, if you start saving and investing this Rs. 100 in some recurring deposit or mutual funds or stocks, then over the long period of time it may yield much better secure returns.

For example of savings give 9% of return, then this savings will become Rs. 59430 in 30 years.

So, don't save to make others rich rather save with discipline to build wealth for you.

I am not Impressed with this Frugal Tip

Yes, I do read lots of PF blogs. My GRS has approximately 50 of them. One thing that I have noticed is that many PF bloggers talk about same topics or tips at same time, and few of them don't even bother to link to the original post they got the idea from. May be I am being too sarcastic, it's just a co-incidence.

Recently I came across a tip on many many blogs, last one was at Times' Money. Tips that they claim to save money is to celebrate only special birthdays. Like 16th, 18th, 21st, and 30th and so on.

When first time I read about it (I should have saved it's link somewhere, darn it), it sounded so crazy but now after reading at some 3-4 places, I thought someone is really serious about it.

No way that I am ever going to do this. (I think now-a-days I have become too selective of frugal tips.) I will never do that. I seriously don't want to be an old lady in future who has lots of money in her bank but no memories, stories for her future generations. :)

I will rather always celebrate my birthday every year and have loads and loads of photographs of my aging process. :)

How about you? Will you skip celebrating a birthday to save some money?