A Hundred Days Of This - Day 22

I binge watched Salt, Fat, Acid and Heat when it was out on Netflix and a particular part about different types of honey caught my attention. Until then, the only exotic kind of honey I knew was the Girijan honey from Araku. My mind was blown away when I watched Samin Nosrat taste the citrus-ey honey.

It was at that exact moment a lot of things clicked and I understood why we earn money, why should I be earning money. To collect these experiences. Sure, money cannot buy happiness but it can enable you to buy tickets and hop on a flight for your first ever solo trip, it can get you custom made Jaipur lac bangles, it can bring some of the amazing dal Khichdis and unlimited servings of aam ras to your table. Huge disclaimer: please budget your wants after you have finished accommodating the earnings to your needs first. And no, you do not have to take a consumer loan to buy the new model of iPhone. That is not a necessity and that is not building your wealth. 

True wealth lies in a sense of security, knowing that you can always afford to face all the curve balls life throws at you. There is a greater satisfaction in having a truck load of stories to tell your family and friends about how rich of an experience you have had recently. Sitting on a bench at the end of the Indian mainland and staring up at the Himalayas is a feeling that no one can take away from me and I cannot stop yapping about how I thought I would die on my way to the Badrinath Dham. How does one describe the peace you get when you plant your feet firmly on the shore and the waves keep coming back incessantly to kiss your toes. Oh, that should answer a very cliché question, I am both a mountains and beaches girl as long as I do not venture out to trek or swim. 

Anyway, my point is, the other day I saw a post on Instagram about how "my salary is not enough for my expensive lifestyle" with a train of sad emoticons next to it, I laughed it off and scrolled to the next reel. But it made me think why is it relatable? Why is it being normalised? Then the banker and a finance student in me said "excuse me, ma'am, you too once spent quite an obscene amount of money on unnecessary things". Guilty as charged. But there was always a budget. An equation that read my disposable income comes only and only after my savings and investments are taken care of; as opposed to what I was taught at school: disposable income = income - expenditure. I will talk about this later, I guess.

Did I tell you about the Swedish honey that I bought at the weekend fair? It is the exact same colour as Pantone's Cloudy White and is as soft and smooth as butter! Boy, was I so happy after buying a bottle of it. There is even Mānuka honey straight from New Zealand which looks more like halwa than honey. My husband made me try it and always keeps saying we have to travel the world and collect more of these experiences and make memories. That is a good advice to follow. And no, do not do it for the gram. Build a museum of your life to make it more interesting for yourself. Meh, that is too preachy. Please do get yourself the Spiderman action figure if that is what makes you happy! (Even if your parents say dabbulu emaina chetlaki kaasthunnaaya)

Bonus tip: read The Psychology of Money and The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel to figure out why our relationship with money is more emotional than rational and how that makes us stay stuck in the oka chemchaadu bhavasaagaraalu.

And that's Day 22 for you!