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.