Financially Smart?

Yesterday my dad was talking to me about his life before I was born. My dad had a dream to do this his M.E and work part-time. But when my parents realized they had me coming on the way, he had to ditch his plans and work full-time to support his family. I got emotional hearing this, because I did not know about this so long and I suddenly realized what my parents had gone through to give me the life I have today. This made me really think about how easy things have been for me and whether I was really managing the hard-earned money smartly.

I don't know if I will ever be financially smart, since I never manage my finances actively. It has always been somebody else's responsibility. The only time I managed my finances was when I was doing my Masters and I had convinced myself that my finances were not the priority at that time and focussed my energy on studying. Whenever I needed cash, I would ask family and things would be solved.

Today I work full-time and manage a home, but I still feel I am financially challenged. For example, when somebody asks me "how much is that stuff at Indian store?, I have absolutely no idea what the price is. I know how much our weekly grocery bill comes up to, but I have never bothered to remember the prices of individual items. For the longest time, I did not know how much a gallon of milk costs. While I trust my husband to take care of our finances and I feel very guilty for being this way. I think my ignorance and disinterest in learning and actively managing finances has got to something with how I was raised. Though I come from a middle-class family background, my parents have never made any issues about money when it came to me. Being the only daughter, my dad would buy me anything I fancied. Even when money was tight, my parents never really made a big deal and did not explain the situation to me. I think this sort of spoiled me. Even after years of living away from my parents, I still have not learnt to manage my finances actively. I cannot blame my parents for this, because I think their lives were about fulfilling their kid's desires. But, I think it is going to be different with my kids. I will teach my kids early on to be financially accountable (after I learn to be one) :-)

Earliest Memory

I cannot believe that it has been more than a month and half since I blogged. I have been preoccupied with so many things, that I have not had the time to blog. But, I have started to read many blogs quite frequently.

My good old buddy Sachita tagged me to write about my earliest memory. This is really an interesting and good tag.

My earliest memory is of course an incident that happened in my childhood. I think I was a toddler and I was sitting in the living room, when my dad was sitting on the sofa and reading the newspaper and drinking his morning coffee. I don't remember if I was wearing a plastic bangle that I removed or I found one on the floor, but I took it and put it in my mouth and was trying to swallow it. My dad who was just next to me, though engrossed in reading the paper, suddenly realized that something was wrong and looked at me. He saw me trying to push the bangle down my throat and his face turned blue. I clearly remember him screaming for my mother, while he put this fingers inside my mouth and pulled the bangle out which was really close to my throat. Apparently I was really young when this happened, but I am surprised how vividly I remember this incident, the living room, my dad reading the paper and all. :-)

My dad remembers his incident very well and how it scared the hell out of him :-)

The 10 Revelations

Mitr tagged me to reveal 10 secrets about myself. Here it goes:

1. I am a couch potato. Though I might discuss interesting hobbies with my friends and family, I can almost spend the entire day watching TV.

2. I can stay at home without stepping out of my house for months and months, if need be. I love my home and do not feel the need to venture out much, even though I might keep suggesting to my husband what places we should visit all the time.

3. I have always wanted to learn more in my field and qualify myself, and I know I can do it if I put my heart and soul into it, but I rarely do.

4. I can be extremely motivated at work to complete the task assigned to me. I will go any lengths to get my work done on time.

5. I hate letting down people who trust me - be it my family, friends or co-workers. I will put pressure on myself to not let down people, even though I know that sometimes it is inevitable and not in my control.

6. I sometimes evilly test the levels of my husband's extraordinary patience.

7. If some issue is bothering me, I cannot carry on day to day activities normally. I will be obsessed about it until I have a solution for it.

8. I envy my husband's ability to stick to a routine and not get bored by it.

9. Even though I prefer others be blunt and open with me, it is extremely hard for me to say what I feel sometimes.

10. I did not rag my juniors at college much, but I enjoyed ragging them when I did. :-)

Top 3 qualities

Everyone hates some qualities in others- be it dishonesty, arrogance, cheating, etc. It is often relatively easy to avoid such people, because you cannot envision having a decent relationship with them. But avoiding people who have only annoying qualities, but are generally good people, is very difficult. I am going to list such qualities of people, that I dislike and find extremely difficult to cope up with. The reason I am choosing to list qualities I dislike rather than like is because there are many qualities I like in a person and it is difficult to capture them as top 3. However, there are few qualities that really annoy me in people and I thought it would be easier to pen them down. Luckily my interactions with such people has been minimized greatly and I thank God for it.

1. People who dominate/control others:

These people are basically "control freaks". They generally like to control everything and anyone whom they can manipulate and control. They seem to derive some pleasure in doing so and often do this in order to feel important. People with this personality trait can usually be a pain at work. Especially if you work for them or work in a department that they generally dislike. I think the best way to deal with these people at work, is to just maintain your stance on what you feel is fair and not buckle down under pressure, as these people can be very forceful and demanding about what they want. If that does not work, just escalate the problem to your management or HR. When you encounter or have to deal with such a personality within relatives, it can be quite painful. They will have a say in everything you do and will often give you unsolicited advice. I have little tolerance to people who try to control me. Kids generally might feel that parents are the greatest control freaks, as they try to monitor and control all their activities. But, one adult trying to control another can be very traumatic to deal with. I try to avoid presence of such people in my life as much as possible.

2. People who have made bragging their habit:


Let me be honest here..everyone brags about something either intentionally or unintentionally during some point during their lives. I have no problems with that. I don't consider myself to be perfect either :-). But, there are people who make it a point to brag all the time. It is like a habit for them. Whenever you talk to them, it will always be about them - their kids milestones, their house, their car, their jobs, etc! I have read that people who are really insecure brag more than people who are secure..I am not sure how much of that is true. However, again I have little tolerance for such people. I do not have a good strategy to deal with such people other than to stay away from them.

3. People who are very verbose:


I am not talking about people who are generally talkative. I love people who talk a lot. I am talking about people who cannot stick to the topic at hand. For example, to say 'the color is white', they will generally say the 'color is not blue, not red, not purple, not black, blah, blah'. No matter how much time to give them they might not say the color is actually white. I find it extremely difficult to have a conversation with such people without interrupting them all the time. I find it very ill-mannered to do that, but it seems like I am losing precious time in letting them yap so much. Dealing with such people at work can be extremely unproductive. The effective strategy I feel to deal with such people is to just be direct and honest. Just say that you have something important to work on and will talk with them later. However, this is always not easy, especially if you need some information from them.

Now, I want to tag Mitr, Sachita and Priyamvada to write the top 3 qualities they like or dislike in people :-). Do it if you want to!!

Happy Day for you?

Read this article:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/finalword/2008-06-17-final-word_N.htm

Today, I believe has been declared as the happiest day of the year. Let me know your experiences..:-)

"Summoned" to read

I have been wanting to blog on this book since the time Mitr booky tagged me. I have been quite busy for the past few weeks, at the home front and at office. Finally today I wanted to get this done, as this felt like a 'nagging unfinished task' and you know according to Dr. Roizen (famous RealAge book guy), nagging unfinished tasks (NUTs) cause more stress, than other general everyday stress. This particular Grisham's book made an interesting read.

In "The Summons" we take a thrilling ride with Ray who tries to unravel his father's secret. Ray's choice between ethics and greed, the pain and burden that a secret causes can be easily identified with. The fast-paced read and unexpected ends are what makes Grisham's novel a par above other thrillers.

Now to the Booky tag rules...Page 123, fifth sentence and onwards reads...

"He's rumored to have a half a million bucks in cash, and she's after it. Got the ole boy wearing golf shirts and eating at the country club. He told his buddies he takes Viagra every day"

Probably there will be more hits to my blog, due to a particular word in the sentence above ;-)

I like to tag Sachita as she is yet to do the Booky Tag...lazy girl!! Get to it :-)

Sorry Mitr, will try to find four other people to Booky tag soon!!

Nothing very memorable for Memorial Day!

I have not posted any new blogs for the past week or so, mainly because I do not have any new stuff to post and I have been really busy relaxing!! :-). But, I have been reading other people's blogs frequently.

I read many blogs where bloggers had posted about their memorial day trips. It was fun reading them. We did not make any trips this memorial day and it was great. Right from childhood, I have always been a home person. I love staying at home and relaxing (or being lazy :-)). I love the relaxed pace of doing things during the long weekend. Previous two Memorial Day weekends we went to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe respectively. I am posting a pic. of Lake Tahoe just for the heck of it. :-).



So, this memorial day was a lot of fun just relaxing. But, we did a lot of prep work for my father-in-law's trip- getting his room organized, some basic shopping for him and basically doing everything to welcome him. :-) My father-in-law landed yesterday and it is great to have him with us.