Funny Money and a Lesson in Saving

It's two stories this time. One of them is real world.

So there was this rich guy who made a lot of money in life and was able to keep most of it too. He had very modest tastes and would not like to spend on anything that had to be bought with money unless extremely necessary and nobody had an old one to spare. Obviously his wife wasn't very appreciative of his lifestyle but poor thing had to put up with it somehow since legal help was not easy to come by in those good old days. So all she could do was nag him from dawn to dusk and dawn again hoping that one day, he would listen and change...may be just a bit... He may not buy good clothes and ornaments for her, may not take her to Las Vegas, may not get her the latest iPhone but perhaps, some day may be .. at least take treat her to good food... for she was very fond of good food and but could get any since Mr Richy Rich thought it was extravagance.

Next door to Mr Richy Rich lived Mr and Mrs Happy Harry. HHs' were no rich. They had very limited sources of income and most of the time they just about managed to make ends meet. Knowing that there wasn't enough money to make for them in life, they believed that there is lot more to life than just money. So whatever came, they enjoyed it to hilt. Mrs HH was always seen buying trinkets around and trying different styles, not expensive of course, but colorful and catchy. And yes, they were both fond of good food. Often when Mrs RR opened her door, or window and the wind was blowing right, she would get a whiff of delicious foods coming right from the house of HHs. That always made her feel so futile, then jealous, then depressed, then mad and then furious. After all, what good was all that money she was sitting on if she could not enjoy it. And that day Mr RR would always get quite an earful and a lot more than that.

It happened once, twice, ten times, fifteen, thirty, fifty and then one day he decided that something had to be done about it. He knew ordering pizza was not a long term solution to it. And he knew what the solution was too. Only, it was going to cost a lot more than the pizza. But he thought he will go ahead. In one of those rare flashes of charity, he smiled to himself. "It's going to be fun" he said

Next Morning, when Mr HH came out to pick up the newspaper, he found a beautiful bag outside with his name on it. It was with love from some Santa Claus. He opened it and to his surprise, found that it had money in it. And it was a lot of money too. He counted the lot and found it to be $900. "Wait, where's the last hundred?" he thought. He looked around, but could not find that last hundred. But even 900 was quiet a lot of money to him. Never before had he seen so much money together. It was almost $1000. All he needed was put another $100 and it would be a Grand. One full Grand. So, next few days, he worked hard and spent less to make it one full grand. By the time it became a Grand, HH was already thinking and calculating and planning as to how long will it take to make 2 grands out of it. Or may be 10.

Mrs RR did not smell much from HHs' house afterwords. She never understood what happened but could clearly see that Mrs HH was not as happy as she used to be. "May be they have spent all their money and have not much left now" she thought..

Often when I see young people just into their new jobs and blowing money like there is no tomorrow, it reminds me of this story. And it reminds me of an acquaintance. Next story is about him.

He was young, came from a well to do family and was fond of good food and good life. He grew up in Delhi and whether he earned a hundred or a few grands, he was sure to spend it all on the good things in life.

Then one day, the company sent him on a very long assignment to a steel plant which was located a hundred miles away from civilization in the middle of nowhere. He got better salary there, plus his stay and food was taken care of by the client. It was no good food (the only place to get food there was the workers' mess) but he got used to it after a while.

So for the first time in life, he was in a situation where he had good money but most of it was no use to him. Because there was no way to spend it there. Soon he almost forgot that he was even earning something and got himself busy with work. He would not even go check whether he was getting paid regularly in later months. It lasted for more than a year and then he was called back to Delhi office after completing his assignment.

Back in Delhi, when he checked his bank balance, he was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of dough in there.

His friends found somethings changed about him after he came back. He used to get his own packed lunch from home and wore the same shirt thrice in a week. He also found ways to excuse himself from Friday eat-outs. One more thing. He begen to check his bank balance very often now. And when he did that, you could not miss that twinkle in his eyes.

Back at home, we refer to this phenomena as Ninnyannave ka Phera... or the spiral of ninety nine. Always starts with the intention of adding one more to make it hundred.. and never ends after that.