Irrfan Khan spurs me on

What’s life without movies? Saw 3 movies coincidentally Irrfan Khan was acting in both. Isn’t he gorgeous? Such an understated actor! Maqbool really rocks because of Irrfan, Tabu & Pankaj Kapur.

Seeing Irrfan Khan in the Vodafone & Aegon Religare ad is also a delight. my gal pal has a collection of his videos from you tube. he really is soooo good. Will try & upload his videos here for now the link is here

Thanks to Irrfan got linked to the Aegon Religare website (btw didn’t know it was Aegon Religare, always kept thinking its Religare only- stand corrected) But thanks again to Irrfan went thru the site and mercifully it wasn’t too cluttered. Anyway I registered online and one of their representatives is supposed to call me. Will update here on how it goes.

Thanks to my 2009 resolution of planning for retirement & saving money wisely, have decided to go online and really understand how personal finance works. Have friends who can help, but more or less they try to sell their individual companies & their products. I once had to buy some shares from a friend as his father was a stock broker and needless to say that they tanked soon.

So doing my own study & trying to find solutions. Hope i can look back in 2010 and feel proud of myself:)

Self Discovery

Wanted a break from mundane life. So called up gal pals and being an easy day yesterday, we caught up last evening. Purple being the colour of the season, VBF (extremely fashion conscious) was in a smart lavender / black combo. As she’s the only one amongst others who’s obsession with the likes of Vogue, Elle is on the borderline of insanity, she’s our default guide to fashion.

I try to be dressed smartly, but as am not too obsessed with it - keep fluctuating between smart to mediocre. While VBF is top scorer & AS the worst (try wearing a yellow salwar & multicoloured short kurti with red dupatta and jhumkis in a bank and you are the odd one out) we others float in the middle.

So it was one funky group that spent quality time for greater part of the evening. Talks veered between marriage (all of us single and routinely walk down the road of “meet the guy”, “beta when do you plan to settle down?”, “lemme introduce you to this guy”), fashion, HR (what do HR guys actually do??), office gossip and finally money. As I wanted to clean up my financial mess started a conversation on current fav topic – MONEY!

Between the seven of us two of my pals are completely on tops. Name it and they have it…..insurance, MFs, pension plans and the works. Okay it helps that they work for India’s best private banks & MF house respectively. Free knowledge real time, what more to ask? While we are not exactly ignorant we have never been too serious about investments/ savings / retirement plans ( the attitude is, “retirement? But I have so many years of work left!”).

While our discussion was on, we came to a surprising finding……all of us are subconsciously dependent on parents or hope to get married and think the future will be secured! Surprising in today’s world that we girls in late twenties to mid thirties are actually not securing our own future but awaiting outside help! Hmmmm food for thought………………..

Noise pollution....

Noise pollution is so irritating! We have a building under construction (the bane of Mumbai and most metro cities of India) right behind where I stay. Though they mercifully don’t work late into the night, the constant whirring of machines is so irritating.

But more than the dust & noise what angers me is the state of the workers. Nearly always they work all 7 days. Come to think of it builders can get away with anything….the workers don’t get leave, they work nearly through the day with very little breaks, stay in filthy dingy huts etc. They wear a helmet but I don’t see any other safety gear. Obviously there’s no care to life for labour’s cheap. I don’t know what kind of wages they get or whether they actually even get the actual money due to them.

And while the governments talk of pension schemes, insurance, social benefits etc, does this class get enough to even live properly now? What kind of savings are they ever expected to do? What kind of pensions or social benefits can they ever look forward to?

People in white collar jobs and regulated blue collar guys may have forced savings in PF (off course with the economic scenario / scams galore / downturns etc one cant be too sure!!) and that too nearly always falls short in the long run especially if you have a long life & medical problems.

Guess we should really start early in life to plan but if I look at my own self; I also kept postponing anything to do with savings/ future / thinking about life after retiring. Even now my given choice is to spend! Think I need to visit some personal finace sites and use retirement calculators to see where I stand.

Pension gives me tension!!

Life is a collage!

Maids are now going to be given weekly off’s, annual vacations and pensions by the Maharashtra Government which is good for them….but how will the pension scheme work for them? Who does the actual computing? Some bits are still hazy but hope the government has thought thru all of this and it doesn’t become another scam in years to come.

While we in white collar jobs have our PFs and the works a lot of blue collar ones are the ones who actually live in a vacuum. More or less we manage to get our PF/ pension etc but scams are quite waiting to happen there. Off course there are reports already of companies not having made their part of the contribution, not depositing the right amounts etc.

Which got me thiking that apart from my mandatory PF I haven’t done any actual calculations on what is it that I need after retiring especially if I live long. The scary situation is where I am alone (my mom’s nightmare of me remaining unmarried comes true!!) and the money that I have proves insufficient. What will be I live on? Hmmm macabre thoughts but I need solutions. Am planning to do some searches online…will update here once I get info..meanwhile readers please update me of any proven solutions that you might have already undertaken or undertaking.

Religare ad gets me thinking

One of the effects of the downturn has been that I can no longer spend guilt free. Over the past few days, when ever I want to spend on non imp things I think twice. (Okay if I had been careful earlier I wouldn't be in this state in the first place). Can't believe that I walked past MNG and didn't step in even to check out. My depleted account came into my mind and with no hopes of any raise and bonus this year looks like the depleted account will only sink further. And off course that also means no more impulse clothes buying spree!!

While watching TV the other day saw Irfan Khan (he is one of the better actors of India) on this ad for religare (I think) talking about costs shooting up 20 years hence. Though milk at 3k sounds ridiculously high now, it will be a reality. But discussing with my VBF we realized we have no money to talk off now, forget about 20 years hence! Maybe Irfan Khan should have spoken to us earlier! But the ad did make us think, do we actually keep in mind inflation / depreciation etc while planning of the future?

My personal way has been to live in blissful ignorance. Never thought an ad could get us thinking so profoundly!

Hello people. How do I introduce myself? Have been meaning to blog for quite some time now but kept procrastinating. Finally the onset of 2009 made me think that time's flying and with so many uncertainties (26/11…shootouts…strike…possibilities of war…..and what not) I need to do things before time's up….so here goes…myriad thoughts finally find an outlet…

Am in my thirties (being truthful is also on the 2009 list), but not going down on specifics. Like countless others work in a large corporate house (well is it still large after the meltdown? Hope so!!) and like countless others do the daily 3 hour commute. Well Mumbai traffic can take you to another level all together. My life is currently centered around work & home as am too tired by the time i get home to even think of doing anything.

Some days after an especially bad local (Mumbai lingo for our inter city trains) & bus journey don't have the stamina to even move but the thought of not having enough money makes me wake up again and go thru the same hell. At least am going to work unlike a few friends who have been laid off. It's scary to not have a job one fine day or have your company shut down. Reading so much about unemployment & shut downs can have a bad effect on the morale! And as am on the poorer end of the scale, this entire meltdown has got me worried.

So that's me! Young (thirties is young!), ambitious (ethics still in place though), good cook - all set to conquer 2009. This will be my year to make things happen - including saving money (the big one) and catching up on life and avoid procrastination.

Welcome to my journey!