Changes in Life Style - When Does It Become A Problem?

Changes are natural and its a sign of life , but some times changes in life have bad impact on
it probably starts gaining strength when you experience a “significant” event in your life - like graduating out of school and getting on a job, making a large ticket item purchase (house, car, etc.), marriage (may be even engagement), getting a raise, etc.

To make this a bit clearer, in the following, I will resort to some crude graphs along with my narration. I will stress here that these are my personal opinions; you may probably have a different story to tell - in which case we would be pleased to hear about it.

First of all, I don’t think lifestyle inflation is something really bad. I consider it to be an essential element of life - as long as it is within reasonable limits. For example, you don’t need to drive a junker all your life - sometime down the line, whenever it’s feasible (affordable and within your means), it’s OK to upgrade to a reasonably better car and save yourself some headache. It’s OK to wear better clothes, it’s OK to wish for a bigger apartment, a better computer, and whatever else that you want. But all this is OK as long as you are *reasonable* - mind you, the word is highly subjective and individual perceptions will most definitely differ from each other. What I mean by reasonable is this:

It’s a graph of rate of earning/spending ($ per day or $ per month, etc.) vs. time (months, or years, etc.). With reference to the graph above, as long as your rate of spending is less than your rate of earning, your lifestyle inflation is totally normal.

Problems arise when your lifestyle inflation exceeds your income inflation - you start spending at a rate more than the rate at which you are earning. This shown below:

Like I mentioned in the opening paragraph, my observation is that the maximum danger from out-of-control inflation arises when you go through some significant events in life and decide to reward yourself for your accomplishments (or celebrate a milestone, etc.). To understand this, first let us assume some “normal lifestyle inflation” - something that’s within reasonable limits:

Now, let’s show some significant events (”moments of excitement”) on the time line, and see what happens to your rate of spending:

Most people tend to spend at an increased rate during events like marriage, buying a house, a car, etc. This is perfectly understandable. However, what happens is, long after the event is over, people don’t tend to come back to their “normal” state. Why? Honestly, I don’t really know; probably they get used to the higher rate of spending and there is some sort of a financial inertia that doesn’t allow them to come back to their normal rate of spending. It is around such events that you should be really careful - this is the time lifestyle inflation will first start nibbling at your pockets.

What you ideally want is this:

You can spend at a higher rate during the significant events, but after that you need to put in considerable efforts to bring your lifestyle back to normal spending levels. I understand it’s always easier said than done - but that is what needs to be done - and it would take a lot of self-control and determination to achieve that.

The Big Rocks of Life!

Sometimes, it’s easy to focus too much on money and forget why money is important. To me, the most important reason to have money is so that my family and I can survive — e.g., to pay for food, shelter, clothes, medicine, health care, etc. — the basic living needs. Once these basic needs are satisfied, money is important so that I can improve the quality of life for my family. Lastly, money is important because I want to be able to secure our financial future — e.g., our retirement, our children’s education, etc.
Unfortunately, too many people mistaken money itself as something important.
I would like to share a story that I really like with you. There are many variations of this story floating around, and I got this one from Piffe the Puffin:
The Big Rocks of Life!
One day a wise teacher was speaking to a group of his students. He pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.
When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?”
Everyone in the class said, “Yes.”
“Really?” he asked. “Let’s see.” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar, causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. Looking carefully from face to face, he smiled benevolently and asked again, “Is the jar full?”
His class was catching on quickly. “Probably not,” one of them answered.
“Very good!” he replied. He then reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. When he was finished he once again asked, “Is this jar full?”
“No!” the class shouted.
“Excellent!” he replied. Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and poured it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Once again looking intently into the eyes of each student, he asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”
One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things into it!”
“Aha, that’s very good!” the teacher replied, “But let us look a bit deeper. This illustration also teaches us a higher truth: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you will never get them in at all!“
So what are your big rocks in life? Is it money, your career, or prestige? — perhaps, those are just gravel or sand that you’ve mistaken for big rocks. Personally, my big rocks are my family and friends; particularly the happiness, security, and financial future of my family. This philosophy is why I don’t spend money on frivolous stuff like big screen plasma TV, luxury car, and Rolex watch.
I hope it clears much of the relation ppl use to have with money and would focus on its use ........ not on its worth !!

Do You Know Ur Value....???

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a Rupee 500note.In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this Rupee 500 note?"Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this note to one ofyou but first let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the note up. He thenasked, "Who still wants it?"Still the hands were up in the air."Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the groundand started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, nowall crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?"Still the hands went into the air."My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson.No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did notdecrease in value. It was still worth Rupee 500/-. Many times in our lives,we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we makeand the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we areworthless.But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never loseyour value.You are special. Don't ever forget it! Never let yesterday'sdisappointments overshadow tomorrow's dreams."VALUE HAS A VALUE ONLY IF ITS VALUE IS VALUED"""Never Believe wt the lines of ur hand predict abt ur future,caz peoplewho d'nt hve hands also hv a future... Believe in urself""

The reason behind the blog name:

I started writing in class 10 , some ask if i was inspired to write
and i agreed to the fact that yes i did ..... but then it was two early
to be on the dicission . For most ppl , inspiration is natural , every one
seeks pleasure in some thing , living or non living , to get the courage or
idea of moving ahead in life.for me it was the intuition of solving problems.At
that time i realized that every thing in the univerise has its existance for
some reason .....Good or Bad ..... they make sense if not today then some day.
Failure have there own charm which most ppl dont realize or understand and mostly
dont want too.Every failure points mistakes and when undone would lead to victory,
if not consider the fact that the current situation is better then the previous
........ we name it as ChANgE REMEMBER the glass is always half full its on u
how u perceive the things <<>> But time made me realize that Other factors plays
there part( fortune , knowledge , intelligence) but for me TIME made every other
factor runners up ,so i think this is the RIGHT TIME for me to put my intutions
and thought the dress of words