Living in times of recession: 18 ways to cut costs

The basic needs of man are food, clothing, shelter and entertainment. Today, most of us have graduated from needs to luxuries. Today, the challenges are not just high standard of living, high commodity prices, it is job loss too. How do you deal with meeting your basic requirements with less means to buy them? While eating just one meal a day is good for yogis and is a nice way to cut down costs, that is not what I’m suggesting. Instead, Try something simpler.

Eat at home

Eating out can be expensive. If you are spending Rs 200 on eating out compared to Rs 50 at home, you would be surprised to know the kind of amount you are spending. A systematic investment plan of Rs 150 (200-50) a day saved for 30 years can give you returns in excess of Rs 5 crore.

Know what you are buying

Plan your shopping. If you fill your cart with everything that catches your eye, chances are you will be spending a lot more. Instead, plan your meals for the week ahead and make careful note of what you need to buy. Purchase only the items on the list, avoid the rest.

Wear your blinkers

Stores are designed to make you go through a long walk to reach for your most basic items. Reason – you can tricked into buying what you don’t really need. Most basic commodities are found towards the end of the store. So, the next time you go shopping, you could skip the other outlets and move towards your destination.

Shop on a full stomach

When you are hungry and shopping, you may end up buying lot of things that look like food. You might also pick up what you don’t really need. On the other hand, you can easily avoid unnecessary shopping when you’re a full stomach.

Do you really need bottled water?

You can take a bottle of water when leaving home rather than buying when you’re out.

Shop sans the kids

 Hungry, tired, cranky kids increase the amount of time it takes to get your shopping done. Kids can really bug you into buying things which are bad for your health and for your purse. Leave them at home when you go out shopping.

Buy in bulk

You can save a significant amount of money if buying in bulk. Pay attention to the prices and pick up the family size package if the per unit cost is lower. However, you need to realise that bulk buying has a dark side too! If you are not a big user of any particular product, it could mean wastage.

Use store reward cards

If you visit a particular store often, you can sign up for their reward card. In some cases, stores raise their prices when they offer reward cards, and without the card your bill will certainly be higher. If the card offers other benefits, such as a preferred (or free) parking, free schemes, etc., be sure to maximize your benefits before they expire.

Buy local products

For instance fruits. Whenever I step into a big branded store, I was pushed into buying ‘American grapes’. I fell for it once, and realised only on billing that it was Rs 400 a kg! The Indian variety is normally available for Rs 40. Locally grown or produced food is often available at a cheaper price because you don’t pay for long transportation costs. Stick to them.

Choose unbranded goods

There is a huge cost difference between a branded product and an unbranded one. Even in case of ‘expensive’ items like dry-fruits, if you buy it from a wholesale-retail shop you will find a 20 per cent price difference. Some branded foods like cornflakes, are more expensive than dry fruits on a per kilogram basis. If you thought potatoes were selling at Rs 12 a kg, you are correct, but when it gets converted to branded chips, it becomes a little expensive, about Rs 300 a kg!

Men are bad shoppers

It is not so much of a gender issue. But the truth is men do not have much patience and that shows while shopping. So, if you are a man, realize that shops know and understand this. So things are arranged in such a way that when you are in a hurry you will end up buying the most expensive items. Look around to find cheaper items.

Compare prices and stores

I personally do not compare prices and stores but my wife has a degree in this! She knows which shop is good to buy vegetables, branded goods, unbranded goods. And she plans her shopping accordingly.

Shop in sales offers

In India, September to December months are considered as ‘festive season’. This is the time when most of the shopping happens. So, stores generally keep a pre-festive sale in July-August and a post-festive offer in January. Use these sales to build your wardrobe. You can even get good deals!

 Shop less frequently

 The lesser the number of trips to the shop, the lesser you will buy! So, if you are making more trips to the store, it is time you reduced them.

Pay in cash

When you buy your day-to-day requirements with your credit card, you run the risk of paying your credit card dues late. So, for all the saving you have been doing, you may give it away in the form of interest. Cash is a good option. Besides, you tend to be more careful when making cash payments.

Check your bill

You should check all the statements which have a financial implication be it your credit card statement, mutual fund statement or your groceries bill. Scanners are fine, but there are possibilities of mistakes. So, you must see the bill before you pay.

Buy leather goods in monsoon and umbrellas in winter

 Buying goods in off season will cost you less. If it’s monsoon, check out for sale on leather goods and umbrellas in winter.

Thanks to the person, who made this forward.

Hungry Vs Greedy

In situations when something goes wrong, we people often find fault with people and blame them. In the view of the nature, all actions are neither wrong nor correct. Every body has their own perception & support for their actions. In the end, luckiest person wins.

 

Why lucky?

Let’s take the case of fisherman and fish.

Fisherman: He is hungry. He wants to survive. He finds fishing as a good source for his needs. Everything is perfect from his view.

Fish: It is hungry. It wants to survive. It finds the insect in the hook of the fisherman as a source for its need. But it is greedy. From the point of fish, fisherman is doing wrong thing. As long as greedy fishes are available, fisherman will also be there.

 

In the practical world, as long as you willing to be a fish, fisherman will be there in any form. For namesake say fake saints, fraud politicians, cheaters, thieves… There is nothing wrong in their acts. They find, it is an easiest way to survive.

 

Just think, if all the fishes are planned not to take those bright insects. Then the act of fishing will lose its interest. Fishing will be history then.

An expression of gratitude

 

Hi all,

I like to start this blog with a small thanks to my company, which provides me training whenever I needed. (of course, it is for my boss also) J.

 

In our day to day life, we come across many personalities. We can classify them as three types

• Persons who make us happy
• Persons whom we make happy
• Others

Even though I said we meet three types, most of us are not fortunate enough to meet the first two kinds of people. In my view they are struck into a web. If no external source enlightens them, they can’t come out of the web. So which tool shall we give them to come out of that web??? – Appreciation.

 

Yes my friend, have you ever noticed when you are becoming happy? If your expectation is fulfilled, then you are. Some examples,

When your mother gives you tips and says “good work da”, after you bought some milk & groceries from stores for her

When your friends appreciate you for the risky catch you had taken to eliminate a high scoring batsman.

When you get a French kiss from your lover for giving a valuable gift.

 

Just imagine. If the appreciation is not there, how would you feel for it? Will you go for the store again with the same zeal? / will u take a risky catch? / will you…..???

The obvious answer is nay… nay…

 

Nanba, appreciate people. Because if you do so, they would get encouraged to continue their work in a more effective way. But some selfish motive is also there. According to Newton’s III law, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”. So, when you start to appreciate the people around you, a cloud of happiness will form around you. It will generate an atmosphere, which will help you to see the first two kind people mentioned above in your day to day life.

 

The above concept is not limited to people around you alone, you can extend it to people who work for the welfare of the society/country. That will inspire them to work more enthusiastically.

 

I like to share some real life experience with you here:

After the NANO launch, whole NANO team was in an euphoric mood. Many interviews were hosted on news channels with the MAN behind the project, Mr.Ratan Tata. In one of the interviews he had said that “if Ravikanth and Girish go back to their home, there will be a beautiful family to welcome them. But if I am going back, I‘ll be staying alone. I am all alone”. One of the TV viewers was a small boy, who just had a letter writing practice in his school. On seeing this interview, he wrote a letter to him saying “We are there for you, why are you feeling alone? Come to our home, when you are feeling so”. This letter had a drastic impact on the mind of Tata. He had written back to him with a special gift. He gave him the privilege to meet him, at any time and without any prior appointment. This appreciation made him write continuous letters to higher authorities (national level), to appreciate them for their works.

 

So my dear friends please don’t hesitate to appreciate people.

 

“If I give one penny to my friend, he is richer than me by one penny and I’m poorer than him by one penny. But if I give him, just a pint of appreciation, both of us will be happy and it will grow exponentially”

 

Are you a good business man??? Lemme see…

 

 

 

 

ML (Vs) NL (Vs) GL (Vs) LL

The topic seems like a wrestling match title, which is supposed to be played by four players (WWE Fans… will know more about these matches), but definitely not a physical wrestling. But yes it is a wrestling happening in the minds of people like me who were moved miles from home town (especially from “The Great South India” ) to work in some World’s renowned ( So called ) companies in northern parts of India ( some reasons for more money and more reasons for unknown factors !!!! – mystery not yet resolvedL ).  

 

Yeah I can hear, “arey stop ur intro and tell what is this topic first!!! *$#@ ”. Ok, ok… I’ll tell about it, bcos the whole post is about this only. 1st explanation then to post J

 

ML – Mother Tongue (for rhyming here its mother language  … he he he)

NL – National Language

GL – (No prize for guesses) it’s obvious Global Language

LL – (oops!! here ur guesses may get rewarded…) it’s Local Language.

 

Obviously, the story starts from my childhood days (pat on back to our Tamil directors, bcos of them our viewers are good at guessing the story how it’ll start and how it’ll end J ). Yeah my parents were studied in local language @ mother tongue @ world’s ancient language (one of), so they taught me the mother tongue. Once I reached my schooling age they searched for a good school, as there were prestige issues in society that pupils studying in eng medium only are brilliants, that too not in govt. schools.

 

Later I joined in an English medium School, where I got options to choose two languages to study out of two languages, strange right.. Yeah it happens in India. The two are TAMIL and ENGLISH. What a great leap right, from mother tongue to global language.!!??. But where the hell did the national language lost in the system of education. Aren’t the Central Govt supposed to include it in all schools of whole nation.

But as a student nature, at that time one language less means one subject less (osl), OSL means less time for study and more time for play. So we welcomed it and enjoyed.

 

Later the initial stages of adolescence, the turning point occurred. Some of the friends (not really girls L ) around our house are gone to HINDI tuition (hanh our rashtra basha @ National Language ), since we are friends driven people, so me too joined without any interest of learning Hindi. After started to attending the classes only, it came to the mind that they (the Hindi fonts) are the important aliens than my MATHS figures and chemistry symbols. This time the hero took the decision to quit the class firmly, but here comes the villain. Some *$%& reasons, it can’t be told here; I continued to three tests and successfully completed three levels. There comes the Savior TENTH Exams, to save me from Hindi classes and iyya escapeddddd…… J there I kept the big full stop for the Hindi ●.

 

Then I managed to cross all the Student levels of life to reach my Professional life. As the Society conscious society is there, I have to work in a prestigious organization to get some honor to my family; along side it should satisfy some of my needs and interests. That’s how I chosen A Org to work, and they also liked me (or forced to like me by me, by getting the top rank in the written examination). Unfortunately or fortunately that organization is only situated in northern parts of India only.  The game started with Hindi again … J J

 

I landed up in the new organization and started to learn; in the early period language didn’t matter for me, as I was surrounded by some gifted friends. But the encounters started when I was given a personal project that too in shop floor, where I have to encounter with the real kings of the local language, and my new problem “MARATHI”, the Local language of Maharashtra.

 

As a One man Army, I tried to face them with defensive weapon (of course my smile, I don’t know how bad it is… I know if it were beautiful I would have roamed around with my Pune girl friend in Pune and learned Marathi a lot from her!! L ) but it worked. I got one good Marathi teacher who teaches me small small words and making me to understand it. Now I’m able to talk with them and even making fun with them. They are thinking me as their friend. (Don’t say winning hearts is easy… I crossed lot of hurdles for it… L ).

 

Before finishing it, I had many more untold stories of humiliation and sarcastic moments, cos of the single fact that I don’t know Hindi. But I don’t want to recollect those things here after.

 

Why this hurdles in the life on an citizen, who were not been taught the national language to survive in the country. At least three people a day who are talking to me asking me the question “why Hindi is not compulsory in your state??”. Even I don’t know the answer for it. Some say it’s politics. Isn’t any good educationalist here that can change the system by educating the ego politics? If, some body is asking me, “why somebody, why not you??”. Then this is the initiative by me through this blog to change the system of education.

 

Please give hands to make human chain to change this system before next generation asking for it.

 

 

Sizzling Similitude Between Lifespan & Thread

Since I got aware of sages, I always got amazed of one specialty in them, “Their Lifespan”. Whoever I concerned their age ranges from 100 to 200. Then I started to question the secret behind their lifespan. Some said it’s because they are able to slow down the heart rate. Their heart beat frequency is of 4 to 6. (That means they are able to control their subconscious mind also.) They are attaining the state, in which they can take any decision without any hassle. (ie. They neither get excited nor depressed for the moments happening in their life). They never worried about shelter, food, cloths etc.

Now I like to introduce one physical thing that we have in our life which have some simile to our lifespan, a constant length thread. God is impartial, he has given everybody equal length of thread. It’s up to us, to maintain the length.

Now just imagine a thing that I’m going to describe you, take a constant length thread and straighten it in the horizontal axis, measure the length. This is the total lifespan given to you. Then now if you are getting excited just make a small semicircle kind of thing with the curve on upper side, if you are depressed make a small semicircle kind of thing with the curve on lower side.

If you are not understand the above Para (regarding that semicircles), just do the following things.

• Take the thread straighten it in the X-axis
• Leaving some initial flatness, then make a small sine curve with the thread
• Then make the remaining portion horizontal to X-axis

          The upper side semicircle is your excitation and the lower side is of your depression.

         I think now you understood, what I’m telling you.

v    The thread length is simile to the total no of heartbeats in your lifespan. 

v    The unit you are measuring in X-axis is your lifespan.

So whenever you get excited the curve is formed in the thread on upper side and the amplitude depends upon your excitation level. Same is the case of depression also but in the lower side of the thread. But both are doing their job perfectly by consuming your heart beats.

           So when u r getting excited or depressed the lifespan is getting reduced.This is the basic secret behind the long lifespan of sages.  

 It’s you, who has to decide “what you want?” Whether long life span or enjoyment or mix of both.

Oxymorons

We are hearing a lot of advices from our parents and society. Sometimes they are getting conflict to each other. Here, I like to discuss one among all, which confuses me a lot. 

 First one:

“People who get accused of doing wrong things (as defined by society around them) have to be punished.  

Second one:

“Whatever happens in the world is happening for good” 

If we say both are correct, then haven’t you felt there is a conflict between two quotes? 

Yeah if everything happens for good, then the persons who are doing the wrong things are people who drive some good things for others. Then why we have to punish them. 

Or if you want to be safe and want to maintain some rules and regulations among the society, then how can we accept the second quote.

 Think about it.

Can you clarify this?   

Face the Simple Truths

Hi friends,

It’s been a long gap since I posted my last post. What to do, sometimes we have to give priority to some social factors than to our personal thoughts and works.

After some struggles I came back to share some views with you all.

Human beings are made up of complex matters (say your hormones  … etc) so as his mind set. He never wants to look things in a simple manner. Even though if some times he has to face the truth, he put a mask on his face and avoids the truth.

One simple truth, I understand in my rotational training.

“Nothing in this world can make us unhappy. We should have to develop our mindset to face the simple truths. That’s all. Remaining everything in the world is created for you and it’s you, have to tap the opportunities and enjoy the situations that you face”

I like to give you a simple example. Everybody here likes sweet. Will you able to eat it as a food for one whole day. Surely not possible except some situations (when you’re starving for food and you don’t have any other food to eat). Like this there should be some unexpected turnings in the life otherwise life will get bored.

So Expect the Unexpected ones and face the truth in the life.

If you want to be happy in life, “Practice to think in simple ways”. Even simple solutions are better than complex solutions.

For example:

“To write in a paper in space, America discovered a non gravity pen, but Russia used Pencils”

Start thinking in simple ways and face the simple truths and enjoy the life.

  Site of this Post :

(This is the new section to share the best sites with you)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanglish

“Taste it & make World to Taste it”

Just imagine a situation, You are going for a sweet stall ,when you are in confused state and  in urge of doing some important work. Do you really give importance to new sweets and time to choose the delicious one among the new ones in that stall. Definitely a human mind won’t do it, it will choose it’s fav one and walk out of the stall, to do the most important work which is waiting in queue.

There is a Quote

“People See Only What They Want To See!” .

You may be amazed , why i am saying this.

There is a great simile between the situation i explained above and our real life. We are in the material world, Most of us are running like anything, in search of something that we believe valuable ( or the society around us think so). So at no point in abusing the people

• for not taking care of the society 
• for not taking initiatives for helping the poor
• for not spending time with orphaned children
• etc

This is the simple and practical truth. So if you really want people to take responsibility of society. You should make them to taste it first. I’m sure, the sweet will always be delecious to everyone who tastes it. (It’s evident from my experiences, i’ll write more detail about it in my upcoming posts). 

I Request You to stop blaming and give the World a pie of the sweet you tasted.

Thanks to all who inspired me to start blog $

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I would like to thanks all those who inspired me to start blog (especially prashant sree). I am bad at expressing my views to anybody in person( i am working on it ), but believes some what relatively better in the way of writings. So i chosen this path to express my views.

Bless and curse me to change my views ( by this way u will mould a citizen and also the readers of this blog ).

To know more about me, check out my profile.