Tuesday, February 24, 2009
It's Been Three Years
Sunday, February 22, 2009
My Books Find a Home
Sunday, February 15, 2009
My Relationship with Money - IV
I always liked this quote that I remember reading in the Reader’s Digest – I don’t remember who it’s by: “Money is like sex. You think of nothing else if you don’t have it and think nothing of it when you do”, or something like that.
When the Guy and I suddenly found ourselves with two incomes to depend on instead of one, we felt much more rich and spent much more freely, though fundamentally not much had changed. We didn’t go overboard and collect a lot of debt (our frugal upbringing told there) but we didn’t bother saving much. After all, we would both be earning for a long time. Our incomes would only rise, or at worst remain the same.
But now things are looking bleak again, with the economy not at its best and with both of us working in the same industry. And we are digging to uncover all our frugal values, and have decided to live with them for a while.
We have gone through a period of spending. It feels great to be able to walk into a store and look at things, try on things knowing I can afford them – only may not want to buy if they are not good enough for me.
For now money means something other than good food and great clothes and going out: it means peace of mind, and that is what we are setting out to achieve.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
My Relationship with Money - III
Money also assumes importance because of how it affects relationships. I used to have a boyfriend who was so cheap that not only did I pay more often than not when we went out, but he even often asked me to pay for fuel for his bike. Now that in itself should have been enough for a smart, rational girl to dump him, but in some way I enjoyed the power. I know now that I was taken for a ride, but even now, I think I would prefer to be the one who pays more often than the one who pays less.
I suppose it boils down to trust rather than to money. I had always considered myself insecure about money. Once I started earning I hadn’t felt comfortable about thinking of taking a break from work, even for a while, and letting my boyfriend or husband support me.
At the beginning, we earned about the same. Then I got the new job and started earning a little more. It felt good, then, but again I guess money was more a signal that I hadn’t given up anything to be with the Guy, that it was a smart move for my career as well.
We opened a joint bank account after we got married, but our accounts had been joint for a while, in our heads and our Excel sheets.
Monday, February 09, 2009
For Valentine's Day
Why does the world celebrate a day of love?
Does not every couple have their own milestones to celebrate?
The day they met, the day they decided to be together…
Why sweep that shared history aside
for a bit part in a mass celebration?
This year, we are having friends over.
Celebrating friendships,
Celebrating our new home,
And – as always – celebrating our togetherness.
But that doesn’t need a day, or a name.
Yet I want to celebrate this day
to defy those goons who say
That love is filthy, that intimacy is a sin.
Who think they have the right to dictate
What I should wear, where I should be.
So go out, fill the pubs:
Wear pink, wear less, kiss, hug
Rant, speak, march, blog.
For our right to be in love - and in lust.
This day, and any other day.
Do look up: A Valentine for India, the Pink Chaddi Campaign and Mad Momma's post.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
My Relationship with Money - II
On one hand I have classified myself as mercenary. On the other hand I always knew that I didn’t want money for itself. Money was important for the freedom it meant. If you don’t have to worry about your basic needs, you can follow your heart. You can’t leave home even if you hate it there, if you don’t have money of your own – whether you are living with your parents or with a partner. I realised I was nothing without it. It was a difficult realisation for a teenage girl to make, but I think I grew up faster because of it.
I went to
That money seemed less important. The experience was worth much more, and I would have done it for free. After that summer in
Part III here.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
My Relationship with Money - I
I have always been a mercenary girl. Even when I was a child – maybe five – I used to come out with moneymaking schemes like sewing handkerchiefs and selling them. (Yes, I could sew then, probably better than I can now. My experiences with sewing in a later post.) I had an old plastic bottle of talcum powder in which I stored coins. I used to delight not only in adding to it, but in opening the can and pouring the coins out and counting them. More than planning what to do with the money, I remember laying them out in stacks, even feeling them. (Yeah, I think that was weird too. Maybe I was just bored?)
I used to read Enid Blyton books in which the little heroes and heroines would get pocket money from their parents and money on birthdays from other relatives. I wished for the same. A tentative suggestion to my mother got laughed away. My parents did not think children should handle money.
Maybe that was a good thing – I realised I would have to do something to earn money. Of course, it helped that my parents never implied that a girl could get by without a job. They made it clear that we were to study well and grow up and find ourselves jobs.
But I was eager to start earning right away. When I had enrolled for my BA, I decided to take up tuitions. I was surprised when my father became livid at the idea. He took the old-fashioned and absurd stance that a daughter working for pocket money would imply that the father was unable to provide for her. I was stunned at his unreasonableness, and sorely disappointed. After seeing me moping for two days, hardly coming out of my room except when I was called and when I had to go to college, he gave in.
I went to my pupil’s thrice a week (as far as I can remember), on my way back home from college. I had to walk nearly a kilometer to their home from the bus stop. There were often unsavoury characters on the way, who leered and sometimes called out. I glared back, but kept quiet. I valued my limited freedom too much to risk it.
I also took up a couple of short-term part time jobs. One was a nearly month-long gig as an announcer at a trade fair that my cousin got me (he was the announcer in Assamese while I did the English). It took up a lot of time and didn’t pay as much as it should have but hey, I got about two thousand rupees! That was a small fortune. I promptly bought myself a music player. Another similar gig got me enough money for a camera.