5 ways to save money!

Ever since I figured that I am basically earning money to fill fuel so that I can drive to work to earn money to fill fuel, I realized I am caught in a vicious cycle of earning and spending and spending more than I can earn. Let’s face it. Everything is getting more and more expensive and no matter how much we earn, the rise in cost of living is always going to be directly proportionate to the raise or the bonus we earn at work. Hence, we’ll never save.
It’s the law of universe.

So I have been putting my brain to work and wondering how I can save money. Not that I am not scrimping now already, but more money in hand never hurt anyone. 
Ultimately, the following is what I came up with. It’s called ‘5 sure-shot ways to save money’.

1. Don’t own a credit card
I have learnt this the hard way but I have learnt my lesson well. A credit card is nothing but a con artist. It gives you money that you don’t have. Trust me, there is no feeling worse, than discovering that the money with which you bought those 3 t-shirts off your favourite online store, never really existed. What a credit card really does is, create the illusion of wealth and you start to feel economically empowered when it is actually making you economically weaker.
You wouldn’t catch me saying this often but I do feel like a participant or a case study ready to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show to tell the world my story.
So, take my advice and DO NOT OWN A CREDIT CARD.

2. Make a deal with the tele-marketer
In the unlikely event that you cannot resist the temptation of owning a credit card because you couldn’t argue with the tele marketer, try making a deal. Now, don’t get me wrong but you must try giving them a taste of their own medicine. You’d be surprised (as would I) to see how it may work like a charm. What you need to do is, everytime the tele marketer/sales rep tries to sell you something, you must make it clear that for every insurance/connection/loan/credit card you take, the tele marketer must buy something from you first. So you can afford to pay for whatever it is that you are buying.

3. Don’t miss the festivals and be more religious
Festivals are awesome. I love celebrating them, because it’s that time of the year that just brings everyone together, but mostly because it’s also that time of the year when you can catch your parents or your grandparents at their generous best. I don’t know what it is about festivals but everyone is in a mood to give; Cash, clothes, food and whatever you may name. So, the next time you decide to skip a family gathering on a festival, you might want to consider the losses.

Many of these religious institutions too, offer you something you can’t usually find anywhere else: FREE FOOD! Entire meals are served at many temples, gurudwaras and mosques, while snacks are commonplace at churches. I’m not suggesting, of course, that you go there just to eat. You can also get something to drink. 

4. Spend more time in office and less time at home.
Not my favourite option but you have to consider the gains. The more time you spend at work, the less electricity you spend at home. The more time you spend at work, the less you spend on water used at home. Moreover, you can just as easily cancel your newspaper subscription at home because you can read the free copy at work. You even save on food bills and phone bills when you share food brought by colleagues and call using the office phone.
It’s a genius plan.

5. Avoid shopping during Sale!
Actually make that ‘Avoid shopping’, whenever. You’ll realize you’ll get enough clothes as gifts through the year (if you consider point number 3) and won’t probably need to buy clothes, especially during sale. Also, if you are going to spend most of your time at office, I reckon you won’t need fancy clothes anyway.

Life's upcoming option: CTRL+Z

Isn't it a shame that life has no undo button? I could really have used an undo function in my life this week. It seemed to be a week of events that caused life to become chaotic and small things happened that were giant annoyances. In a restaurant a waiter walked by trying to carry three dishes of hot food. Suddenly, without warning, one of the dishes hit the floor and smashed at my feet with broken glass going in all directions. I felt sorry for the guy, but what could I do? If life had an undo button, one click and all the pieces of broken glass would fly back to the tray and reassemble themselves. Instead, the glass and food had to be cleaned up.

The undo button (CTRL + Z) on Microsoft Word is a wonderful thing. Backspace will fix a little error, like forgetting that the caps lock is locked or typing when you got on the wrong row of keys. But for really big errors, you need the "undo" button. Sooner or later, nearly everyone who uses a computer tries to do something that doesn't work. You are clicking along and doing the best you can when something goes terribly awry. You try to fix it only to find that your page has turned into a crossword puzzle. You don't have the foggiest idea how to fix this because you don't even know what you did to cause it. Then you remember that most wonderful of keys on the computer tool bar, the undo button. You hit the magic button and everything returns to normal, just like it was before.

An undo button would be a great thing to have around the house. Smudges and dust that accumulate in a week could be zapped away and I wouldn't have to spend the entire weekend cleaning. Wouldn't it be great to hit an undo button, see dirt fly out the door in a whirlwind, the dishes hop from the sink back into the cabinet, and the beds make up themselves?

I have always wished office elevators had an undo button. It seems that would be a much easier problem for technology than an undo button for life. Press a button on the elevator and you are going to that floor whether you made a mistake or not. Life is sort of the same way. But I’m sure even undo buttons would have their limits. If you make too many mistakes, undo only will undo a limited number of the most recent ones. If life gets really out of kilter before you notice, you might be out of luck even if life did have an undo button.

Adele is my greatest enemy

The other day while sounding out the words of a website called howigotdumped.com (this was during my post break up phase, stop judging me), it was ironic that I came across an article which talked about, how there aren’t enough women writing comedy pieces. So, I put down the giant chocolate bar, wiped my tears and thought to myself, “Yes, this is what I will do”. I will write comedy. I will make others laugh. This will be my true calling.

                                          

So, I switched on my pink laptop, opened an empty word document and told myself “Let’s do this sh*t”! As I waited for an inspiration to kick start my first ever humor article, the song on my ipod changed from a rather upbeat Motown song called “My Girl” to Adele’s sorrow filled “Someone like you”. It is then, that it struck me that as long as I continued to listen to Adele, no matter how heart wrenching, soul stirring her songs may be, I will never be able to think happy, write happy or even be happy. Not only did that girl unabashedly encourage my morose behavior post break-up but her songs also gave me some solid fool proof  ideas for writing my first novel on ‘How to live a successful life as a lunatic ex-girlfriend’ (I think that title is a winner)

Take for instance the song that’s playing on my ipod right now ‘Someone like you’.

"I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,

But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it,"

It’s the perfect plan. There is nothing better than landing up at my ex’s house uninvited. Imagine the shock on his new girlfriend’s face. I already know where he lives. Now, all I have to do is to practice my sad-eyes and look like a mad weirdo. Yeah, that’s definitely going to scare her away. There’s no way she’d want to be with a man, who once went out with a freak like me who refuses to give up even after a spate of midnight calls were left ignored.

"I had hoped you'd see my face,

And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over,"

Sure my ex may have met someone new, courted, married, been on a honeymoon, moved into a new house and is even visibly happy. But it’s always fun to remind him that with me around, things may never be safe. I’ve been practicing my haunted-face look for a while now, where else do you think I am going to use it.

"Don't forget me, I beg,"

This one is the best. So, basically what Adele is telling me is that I must lose all my self-respect and do all that I can to make sure my ex never forgets me. I have already tried everything I possibly could and now I must beg.

 "You know how the time flies,

Only yesterday was the time of our lives,"

My ex may as well be married today but we were together only till yesterday. It doesn’t take much long to be reminded of that. At least that’s what I learnt from all that incessant calling, texting, emailing and often gate crashing.

"Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?"

Hopefully all my efforts in proving to be a lunatic ex-girlfriend left a good taste in your mouth. The last time I checked, it tasted pretty good to me.

Well, would you look at that? I’ve totally run out of time, and now instead of writing a comedy piece, I now feel completely inspired to stalk my ex-boyfriend on Facebook. It’s the one thing I haven’t tried yet. I need some dope on him you know. Otherwise how else am I supposed to ‘lay his sh*t bare’ like Adele sang in Rolling in the deep.

Oh well, so maybe I will never be able to write comedy but I sure would be able to rake in the million bucks writing that novel I mentioned. Maybe that will be my true calling; thanks to Adele who continues to encourage my lunatic behavior. Now, if you’d excuse me, I’d like to return to my day job of knitting tampon cozies and being best friends with everybody.

5 Unethical People in an elevator

As children, we are all pretty much taught very early on in our lives about the importance of etiquettes and social ethics. Parents across the world have tailor made their own set of commandments, which if followed by their children, will apparently make them socially acceptable/ liked/ applauded/ appreciated (add any other appropriate adjective). For some parents, educating their children about good ethics and manners is as important as defining that thin line that differentiates man from animal.  Sometimes learning how to say thank you, please is as important as learning how to walk. One must learn how to be polite before one can even talk.

However, ones understanding and knowledge of these social ethics and how well they have been imbibed is really put to the test in an elevator. For some reason it’s that one place on Earth, where children and adults alike throw all kinds of etiquettes out of the window. Or, should I say, out of the elevator. The same people who greet you with a warm smile out on the street, turn obnoxious inside an elevator. And it’s not only that one person but everyone in that elevator seems to behave in a similar fashion. Sometimes, it makes me wonder, if every elevator in the world releases some kind of elevator-occupant friendly-obnoxious fumes. Which when inhaled, turns everyone into invidious clones of each other. Because, surprisingly enough, no matter the country, the state, the building, the floor, the elevator; one will always find the following 5 types of people in every elevator. Without exception.

TYPE 1: The Button Pusher:

The species which pushes the button over and over again is called the ‘Button Pusher’. They push the elevator button multiple times, sometimes ferociously, as if it will make the elevator come any faster. Many a times, they are also found pushing both the up and down button as if the arrows are actually meant for the same direction, but have been designed for the convenience of the button pushers, so they could push as many buttons as possible.

TYPE 2: The Impatient Traveller:

Very common tale in our country but nevertheless the impatient deserves a mention. The species is often found jumping on in the elevator before anyone else, naturally breaking the queue. Obviously they believe that the elevator will take them to their destination a lot sooner than others if push on it first.

TYPE 3: The Lift Driver

Yeah, who would’ve known that an elevator would also have it own non-designated driver? This strange species is obsessed with being in control and being in the driver’s seat. They are often found standing too close to the buttons making it practically impossible for the other occupants of the elevator to press the desired buttons. Sometimes they pretend to be polite by asking you “which floor?” just so that they can push the button for you. Other times they just like to be in the driver’s seat, even if there is none.

TYPE 4: The Social Monster

These species hate leaving a conversation unfinished. So, if they had already indulged in a conversation before boarding the elevator with someone, they are often found holding the door open, shouting across the lobby until the conversation is finished, as if everyone was interested in their conversation. They are also the same people who just cannot shutup long enough to ride an elevator. They usually chat up every uncomfortable being in the elevator. Sometimes, when they don’t find people to talk to, they resort to fervently texting or calling up someone in the midst of their elevator journey. It seldom makes a difference that their phone will receive very poor signal, inside the elevator.

TYPE 5: The inconsiderate Nincompoops

There are a variety of nincompoops with different talents found in the elevators. Often the most potent and annoying of the lot; they are usually the ones who’ll walk in with big backpacks, brief cases, bumping you around carelessly. Then there are those who walk in with toxic body odours, tobacco odours and other kinds of lethal odours; coolly indifferent to those around. The worst are the one who suffer from uncontrollable chronic flatulence. The only time they find the need to release themselves is amongst unassuming innocent people trapped for 5 minutes in an elevator. I needn’t say anything more about them. Much has been experienced by us all.

Anyway, my elevator is finally here. I have to go now. I don’t have anything else to say except, man these elevators in my office are bloody slow.