Minimalist and Frugal Life

I recently opened an account and was sent a debit card. The leaflet had discounts of 25% and a lot more offers. Shop more was what it advocated. I opened this account because I wanted to have a separate account for emergency fund and when I saw "shop more" all over the card, I was a bit irritated.  This is the world we live in today. We are encouraged to buy more, to buy new and just keep adding more and more. We are made to believe that we need all the things that these big corporation wants to sell. If we really look closely, there are very few things we actually need. Most of the things we feel we need are not actual need of the product but the need of fitting into the society.  It is only natural to want to buy a house or a car or new clothes when you see half the world doing those things. We begin to feel that that is what is right for us. And to some extent it is true however sometimes we get caught up in this consumerist behaviours that we forget that it is depl...

Is it possible to live without money? Don't think so. But, it is possible to live without it for at least a day or 2. That is if you have all the necessities. I have read a lot of blogs where they do the no spend month and was inspired by it. So I tried it myself for 3 days. It was not tough at all. How I was able to follow the no spend days I was occupied:  I was in the office for 9 hours a day so I did not have any distractions or boredom. When you have something to do or look forward to, it becomes easier to divert your mind. I also was more productive because I avoided taking many breaks to stay away from temptations :) I take my own lunch:  The reason I take lunch is mainly due to health rather than save money. But it has helped me a lot in saving some cash. buying lunch everyday can be expensive and more over it is not healthy since we end up eating fried food Honestly speaking I think these are he only things I did. I think it was pretty easy to do it for few...

I have always loved wide open spaces. Free. Clutter free. But somehow I was made to believe that we need to have more in order to be happy. Beautiful decor for home, new clothes to work everyday, makeup, going out and all the things that we consider as fun. My life has not been dictated by what other's think yet there is always that little iota of doubt. You don't want to be seen as weird or crazy. You want to fit in. Just a little bit , you know.  So I did somethings which I felt would make me look nice and like everyone else. E.g , insisted on renting a bigger house, buying new clothes, buying new gadgets etc. Now I have realized that I don't require half of what I have. That is a freeing feeling. It just has made me more confident about my beliefs and values.  I have toyed around with minimalism for quite a while but have now begun to truly embrace it. I cannot point at any one particular incident that made my mind up but I guess it just finally got into my thick...

 Hi All, Lately, I have been searching a lot about frugality and saving money as I want to be more savvy with our money. I am a fairly minimalist person without any bad spending habits, or so I think. Yet, I am struggling with finances. Mostly because we have no budget system and do not know where our money is going.  Hence I  had been looking for a really very simple budget system and came across The Envelope System. It is a super simple way of budgeting that appealed to me. It is something that our grandparents would have done yet I feel it is very practical.  How the envelope system works: Here are simple steps you need to follow - 1. Set a budget for the month. E.g: you are going to spend Rs 10000 on grocery, rs 5000 on eating out and rs 5000 on miscellaneous 2. withdraw the amount. In this case Rs 20000 3. Take 3 envelopes . Put rs 10000 for grocery in one envelope and rs 5000 each in the other 2 envelopes for eating out and misc.  ...