Finance doesn't come easy to a growing adolescent who can't see beyond his present emotions.
So, this is my view on keeping the lawn green, by keeping a check on my grass, stewarding well what's been given to me by the Creator.
Costs, Costs, Costs.
Life's all about Costs.
Different types of Costs.
Keep a conservative and hardline check on expenses, to outwit the treacherously schemy banker or extorter targeting your impulsive, ever-heated young blood running down your spine.
Having good financial habits doesn't make you money-minded, but it makes you a person who minds his money well, as a disciplined and responsible steward of the Creator. Each expense must be scrutinized and loose change should be tightened.
I'm always in trouble when in a state of being nonchalant in my financial habits.
Taking things back to basics.
Keep this excited bunny called 'fixed cost' in the hat.
Major Fixed and Variable Costs include:
1. Rent
2. Electricity and Water
3. Travel expenses
4. Wi-Fi
5. Phone bills
6. Food and Entertainment, etc
7. Social commitments
8. Education
The only thing in life you can control is your effort. Your effort to put a leash round the monkey screaming Costs! Costs! Costs! in your head with a tambourine.
Now the Fix.
Strike a minorly stinging fixed cost weighing out the pros and cons and getting the best deal for yourself.
Completely demolish and restructure your variable costs.
Every time a buck leaves your pocket, ask: WHY?!
FOR WHAT?!
Take a small breath and then agree to the most mutually beneficial deal in any matter, big or small. As growing millennials, our pockets get hit by cyclones of random costs periodically leaving us drooling down on a couch deeming us inefficient and ineffective. But that's not so, a little control and conservative financial habits, could go a long way.
For example, if you've set a monthly budget for food and entertainment to ₹7000 a month, then stick to it.
Say your loudest NO’s if there arises 'apparent' lucrative social events. Draw up your boundaries and retain control.
Every 50, 100 matters; and at the end, these little disciplinary measures could mean exponential differences in your budgeting. You'll come to find all that money you saved could be used for reinvesting in your business or prop-purchasing for your own business venture that could possibly hit it big.
Then there could be a few hiccups along the way, bullies on the block, coming around with a few more years of self-tooting experience to constantly extort you with a 100 here and a 100 there, counting on you not learning the butterfly effect as to how every small fringe of a change causes a decisive difference in the end, as to who wins.
Like a scoreboard to a football game. If you're generous to your competition, allowing them to score open goals in a 3-2 lead, it’s a no-brainer — You're going to be losing 10-3 in no time.
So?
Keep the score, and always settle it, by making up for any extra expenditure for this month and in the months to come.
Your yearly budgets should make you feel accomplished. You don't need to be stingy in areas you want to splurge on, but you can be wise and choose a select few areas you'd like to splurge and the areas you'd like to sacrifice, as in, not spend on at all.
I'd like to splurge on:
Good quality food ingredients
High performance tools for my work
And the likes.
To supplement the above, I’d like to sacrifice:
Pointless social gatherings.
Further redundant education, with outdated syllabi.
Extortion pouches, any extorter demanding odd amounts, donations, fines, charity, out of the blue.
A plausible individual with a credible financial track record DOES NOT require credit.
A paradox to gaining true credibility is going credit-less, and still having enough.
Make a decree to yourself, like the fixed decree of the sand on the seashore that isn't overtaken by the ocean beyond a certain measure.
Allocate your desired sums of cash to your fixed costs and work to go as low as you could.
Allegorically put, it’s like you're being forced to submission by the world, by getting you to full-split. Your job is to play resistance, and stay steadfast on your two feet, through wisdom, self-control and stratagems.
Managing finances to stay afloat, with real positive cashflow. Avoiding debt as much as you can as a snarky little interest is always conspiring with the rate of inflation to shatter your sublime and orderly deck of cards.
Balance, and refute the money magnets. Or maggots. As they gobble into the yarn of your blessings.
As you journey forth, disciplined in your steps, controlling your inhibitions, kicking your addictions, bringing down your fixed costs, there come a few little guys from the hood, trying to extort you. Or some little dude trying to outsmart you by playing schemes with a book in his hand, taking advantage of the status quo and so-called experience of the middle-aged, constantly insinuating you to be an "irresponsible youth".
Not necessitating that we as the young generation must pay any heed to this screeching shank of a man.
Let him yap, till he looks at your wallet. The moment an individual, be it a guy in a costume or uniform, tries to coerce you into paying dues he's not authorized to demand, but by brute force is levying a heavy hand of so-called authority on you — Don't cave in. Take the person to conflict. Be it a bank manager, a supermarket that swindles a buck here and there, security officials, etc.
Don't budge. Not a single buck here and there. Repeat after me.
Have a superb budgeting practice, using an app or even better, traditionally book-keeping. Always knowing and being vigilant and sober minded.
Be as generous within the budget. Stay Harmonized. Stay sober and above debt.
A little rhyme to get you singing, loading wisdom into your minds.
"Old McBanker bought a farm, with your little loan.
And on his farm he made you slog.
‘Cause of that little loan.
Taking a 100 here, a 100 there.
Here a 100, there a 100, now it's a whopping 100,100,000.
Old McBanker made you a slave, with a little loan."
