Vijay Basrur

Birthdays

Birthdays are always so special, especially if its ours or at least someone who’s close in the family. But when you get invited for a birthday party its a different thing altogether.

When we were kids getting invited to a birthday party was a thrill with no expectations. The fare was pretty standard. A samosa, some chips, some games, cake, a drink and if you were lucky, something to take back home, balloons/pencil/eraser or something very simplistic.

These days birthdays tend to be events. There is an elaborate menu, professional decorators, sometimes professional venues like Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, professional entertainers and highly customized expensive return gifts. Somehow though the thrill still prevails for children, the expectations keep increasing.

We (both my wife & me) don’t like it. We would rather keep things simple. For our daughter’s first birthday we took her to an orphanage and donated necessary things on her behalf. Just the experience moves you to tears and makes you thankful to God for everything you have in life. In the evening we had a small gathering with close family. So far so good.

Now that vacations are over & school has reopened, all of Mansi’s friends (or fans) are back and demanded a party. Most of them are from our building and dote over Mansi every evening when she goes for her evening stroll. So we were faced with this task of hosting a birthday party for kids.

We wanted to do something different. While we picked up small gifts for everyone, Snehal did something really interesting. She managed to involve a few kids in the party planning. 2 kids helped out in making hand made cards. 2 of them were responsible for decoration (which is basically choosing what goes where, not the doing part). One of them suggested we add something sweet in the menu. We made veg/cheese sandwiches, corn/cheese balls, chips & custard/jelly.

The party was fun. The kids had a lot of fun dancing & playing games. Some even took home prizes. The food didn’t interest them that much but the all of them were very eager to get their return gift. The curiosity & the smiles on their faces are a pleasure to watch. So all in all it was a great albeit tiring evening.

While we are sure these parties will get bigger as Mansi grows older, there are a few things we are hoping to continue, on Mansi’s birthday, as time goes by

• Visit any Orphanage (we are hoping to do this twice every year). Try and inculcate the joy of sharing.
• We would urge her to give away something precious on her birthday so that she doesn’t get attached to materialistic things as she grows up.
• Relive the simplistic things in life, with her friends if required. Something like a picnic, a double decker bus ride (I hope they are still around), a visit to the beach (with bhelpuri) etc.
• Enjoy the day. Let her do whatever she wants to but make sure its safe

Amen!

Verification Call

So I get nagged by a sales rep to sign me up for a new credit card disguised as a loyalty card. I give in thinking of the poor guy’s daily targets.

A few days later I get a “verification call”. Here goes the conversation
Agent (A): Good Evening Mr. Vijay
Me (M): Good Evening
A: I am calling from **** Bank. This is further to your application for a credit card
M: Yes I know. Go ahead
A: This is a verification call. Can I go ahead?
M: Yes
A: Is your name Vijay Basrur?
M: Yes
A: Is your DOB **/**/1972?
M: Yes
A: Is your residential address *********?
M: Yes
A: Is your residence phone number *******?
M: Yes
A: Is your office address ******?
M: Yes
A: Is your office phone number *****?
M: Yes
A: Have you been working here for the past ** months?
M: Yes
A: Do you want the billing address to be residence or office?
M: Residence
A: Thank You Sir. Have a good day
M: Are you sure this was a verification call? Because all I said was Yes and nothing else.
A: Umm Yes Sir
M: Shouldn’t you have asked me the information and cross checked it with your records?
A: But that is the process Sir.
M: Thanks
A: Welcome Sir

I rest my case for this supremely stupid process.

One Year

Usually when you look back upon a year after any important event, you always try and recollect the year gone by in a compressed format with memories just whizzing past. At the end of it you can’t believe that its’ been a year since then!

This time it isn’t any different but the importance of it is significant.

Our daughter completed 1 year about 10 days back and looks like we graduated to the next phase of being parents. It has been wonderful too see her grow up and even though there have been tough times, somehow in the memories that come back, all of it is fun!

I think watching a child grow forces you to notice the small things in life. The first time she sits up, the first time she ate on her own, the first time she had ice cream and all such. This is a very important learning. The more you start enjoying the smaller pleasures of life, the more enjoyable life turns out to be.

Another huge learning has been experiencing selfless service to my daughter. She doesn’t expect you to change her nappy. You want to do it for her. But when she is not in a mood to change and you want her to, so that you can get on to the next task, you must realize that it is a lost battle. When it comes to my daughter, she is the BOSS (which is our paediatrician favourite punch line) If you have to change her nappy don’t always expect a co-operating daughter. Having no expectations really helps in being happy at whatever life throws at you.

I recently came across a wonderful article on parenting a daughter. Please do read it. The article is called What I have learned raising a daughter (Thus far)

We are sure in the times ahead, we will experience even more joy in our efforts of bringing up Mansi. We hope we can give it our best shot. Keep watching this space.

PS: We celebrated a few days back since we spotted Mansi’s first tooth

Passport Verification

We got lucky that we could complete the passport verification for Snehal yesterday. It saved me the trouble of taking half the day off. You pretty much need that half day since you need to make at least 2 to 3 visits before you can complete the task. When I went for the first time, I was asked to furnish copies of some of the documents which I had not carried along. The second time around I was asked to give a copy of Snehal’s old passport (of which there was no mention in the first meeting). So back I went & returned with the copy.

That was the final call and I though’t I’d be done with it. But heck no! There was the customary kharcha paani before I was assured that the task was done.

But I was relieved at the end of it and I am hoping the passports come in soon.

Financial Management update

So its been over a month since we promised ourselves that we would track our expenses. And lo and behold! we have been successful.

Ofcourse you may argue that its been just a month and that its no big deal. Well we think its a small step indeed but a big reason enough to celebrate! We are actually feeling happy about having been successful at being disciplined about something, albeit a small thing.

So have there been any learnings? Well not something we didn’t know. We seem to be buying groceries more regularly than we could imagine. I think there is scope for some planning to make the buying process more efficient, if not the expenses.

The satisfaction of seeing a detail expense sheet at the end of the month is indeed priceless. We hope this will continue and I’ll try and update the status in a few months with learnings, if any.

PS: Thanks Dada for pushing us into this.

Retail Tactics

Our shopping happens usually only on a few days of the month. One of the places we frequent is a small store called Spinach in Mulund East since its close to my Mom’s place.We also frequent Mulund (E) to buy veggies & fruits since they are much fresher than anywhere close to our place. Spinach is where we buy other groceries since they accept Sodexho.

At Spinach 2 weeks back, I picked up chicken salami (from Prabhat Poultry) as there was an offer going on (6 bucks off on every packet, which is like 15%).

When we stopped by yesterday the offer was still on and I picked 2 packets this time but I casually glanced at the billing screen while the guy was billing the items. Turns out the 6 bucks was not being deducted. When I questioned him, I was told that the offer is not valid. I was like huh? You have a huge signboard which talks about the 6 bucks off. If the offer has expired, you should not have that board! He sheepishly agreed to do so.

What I have realised and I think we need to be more careful these days, especially in large self service stores, that if there is something you buy because of an ongoing offer, you better cross check it during check out. I am sure atleast 50% people don’t bother. Even I don’t bother sometimes. And that’s the margin that the retailer pockets because you fell for the discount trap!

So next time you pick a deal, make sure you check the bill.

Financial Management Woes

I have always been on the opposite end when it came to managing finances. And opposite of the side to prudent financial management. I have always seen my Dad, and then my brother, on that end.

My brother takes on from my Dad in being very meticulous not only about day to day finances (my Dad wrote daily expenses for years) but also about investments (Dad kept records of every FD and every share he purchased. Not only that he used to record dates of dividend payouts as well). My brother has been doing, if not as much as Dad, quite a bit of it himself as well.

I have always been of the opinion that “look at the overall picture” should be fine with the financial planning. I would occasionaly whip up a budget for myself (inflows, outflows etc.), get a rough idea how much I would end up with moolah in the bank and that would be it. I wouldn’t even bother to save the excel file. I did pretty OK.  Infact I still do. The only thing I keep a track of regularly is my equity investments (Thanks to ICICI Direct). I have tried my hand at a few thingies like MS Money, Buxfer, Mint etc. but never got down to being disciplined about it.

So a few weeks back my Mom poked me about how bad I am at keeping records (I am bad at filing bills/receipts etc. too) and lauded my brother (which was expected), I decided to check with my brother on how he manages to do that. Turns out he has a simple excel file that does the trick. Ofcourse this one only tracks daily expenses but gives an overview about your bank balances etc. He has a complicated one to manage his investments. The most amazing thing about tracking one’s expenses is that you can figure where you are spending money uselessly and the ones which are necessary (but you tend to forget).

Since the times are looking grim and I think it will be wise to make every penny count, I am going to give it a shot too. What better day to start than the start of the financial year.

Ironically its April Fools’ day too. Hope I don’t end up making a joke of this. Watch this space for more updates