Research is part and parcel of my new job and as I was researching in the world wide web, I stumbled upon this article on the Wall Street Journal website where there was an article on the improvement of the US economy. In that, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said that in overall, the U.S. economy is improving but still fragile. He also said that the he was confident that we (America) will return to a sustainable fiscal path but it would be unwise to be “Panglossian” or naively optimistic about the whole financial state.
In another article I found that the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in his prepared testimony for Congress’ Joint Economic Committee had said that among the enormous costs of the downturn is the loss of some 5 million payroll jobs over the past 15 months. However experts predict that job losses and the unemployment rates will come to a sustainable level. Obama’s government is undergoing a tough, challenging phase and they are working on this, so let us give them some credit for their planned bail-outs.
So my question to Mr. Lockart is “Why not?”
Why not we stay Panglossian?
With a slow and steady resurgence in various sectors like manufacturing, real estate and every thing else, this the time when we can actually breathe a bit easy. America is a great country with the largest economy in the world and also by PPP. To top it all, we have the second highest income per hour worked in the world. Everything is close to perfect so why are we being so frugal?
The world is not coming to an end. This is the time of economic re-birth world wide. I am beginning feel that the recession is becoming more of a mind thing than of a money thing. Let’s cut the recession drama down a bit and try and stay a bit more optimistic. Panglossian, maybe. 
PS: The word Panglossian derives from Pangloss, the optimistic tutor in Voltaire’s Candide.
Back when I was 10th grader, my parents forced me to take up ballroom dancing classes. I never really fell in love with it in the first sight (read dance) but it grew on me. Then I put this to best use in my high school prom. I kept telling myself that I was there to dance for myself and in the end I was crowned as Ms. Whirlwind for dancing non stop that night. I didn’t even get to sit down for a single song. If I could turn back time, I would gladly be time struck on my prom night.
Dancing non stop has a couple of perks.
a) You burn calories b) glimmer.
I was glimmering with sweat that is and M.A.C was ready to sue me for stealing all the ’shine’ out of their ‘Bodyshine’. Lol. Well, this is not exactly, how a girl would want to be on her prom night.
Now, do you think all the boys asked me to dance? No, not really.
I went ahead and asked a lot of boys to dance. The fact is that most of the boys will never say ‘No’ when a girl asks them to dance. So, coming back to the scene, the other boys who saw me doing that, came and asked me to dance. Besides, I would like to think that I had the right attitude and I was and I am still a whole lot of fun. In a typical chick-flick kinda way, a jock asked me to dance. I told him “I’m very sweaty.” and he bent down and whispered “That’s why I picked you.”
So, this blog is all about making that first move. If you have been wanting to take that trip to Bahamas or drive that fancy Cadillac or buy that Malibu villa but never did because you still think that you can’t afford it. Get out of that thought process and start thinking that you can do it. It might take a while but you can do it. And start saving. Make sure that you work on a ’special savings’ holiday budget and save small amounts every month. And when you do, do it happily. Be happy to do so because in the end, it is you that is going to be soaking in the sea or driving that car or sipping vodka in your dream house. If saving is not making you happy, don’t do it. Don’t crib either. Period!
Its like what they say, if the mountain doesn’t go to Mahmoud, then Mahmoud has to go to the mountain.
Take a chance. Its one life. Thats all we get.
Take the lead, make the first move.
PS. What’s behind my new spurge of optimism? The Secret. I feel so much better these days and I’ve found a babysitter and a new job. Watch out for my upcoming posts that come with a new twist. 
I know that I’m not exactly the role model when it comes talking about abundance and creating wealth. I only know about being prudent and saving money. But, hey! you have Rhonda Byrne with her ‘Secret’ entourage of wise people and wealth amassment gurus to tell you how you can attract money among other things into your life. I am a skeptic and I don’t always buy the new age philosophies that is available in this great country. Over the years, I thought myself how to be a rationalist in thinking. But recently I am coming to think that there is something terribly wrong with us.
Last week, I heard my neighbor’s seven year old twins blissfully and rather ignorantly singing this:
“Recession bites, reality bites
Tighten your belts, Stop buying felts
Save every pence for all the hens.”
I wonder how they came up with this or what influenced them. But seriously,does it sound like a new-age nursery rhyme? Or does it sound more like what you hear and read about everyday. If this were to be a new nursery rhyme, then I would sue the school for breeding such negativity in all the young minds. I have a daughter and I don’t want her to begin to think that money is a hard thing to earn. Most importantly I don’t want her to lead a life of lack.
And a couple of days ago, I had taken my daughter, Faith, out for a little quickie shopping at Walmart and there I saw a mom like me constantly denying everything that her little girl was pointing to. It was then that I had an epiphany.And I was like, “Wait a minute, I do that too”.I have denied my baby even when I could afford what she wanted. We were saving everything for a rainy day (which hasn’t come so far) and had forgotten to live in the present. I don’t remember indulging in anything for more than an year now, which, in all honesty had left me craving for a lot of things. The funny thing is that I could afford a lot of things for which I crave.
The question in my mind was “Why do we do save, when saving is not making us happy?”
So, in the end what happened? We splurged a bit but felt really good. You can call it the upliftment of the spirit from the shackles of the damn recession, if you like.
This blog is not gonna be about how to save on this or that. Instead, this is an open ended one. How you take the thought forward, is entirely up to you.
PS. I am reading ‘The Secret’ and I think I have been cruelly wrong about the philosophies these kind. And as for those who have read ‘The Secret’, do you think that I should buy myself a lotto ticket?
Disaster proofing our homes is an integral part of personal finance planning. The images of the small Jewish boy who was orphansed when his parents were killed in the terror attacks in Mumbai in November last year, is still fresh in my mind. It was like watching a rerun of the 9/11 attacks sans the airplane.
Being a mother myself of a fifteen-month-old, I could well imagine my child in the same situation and cannot but be scared. These are uncertain times and if not a terror attack, an earthquake or a hurricane or even a road accident is sufficient to throw our peaceful lives out of gear and life may never be the same again.
What occured to me then was that I have to make few arrangements to ensure that, even if something happens to me, my child is not left helpless to fend all for himself. So the whole of last week my husband and I took some time off our work to disaster proof our home.
We first made a list of all our bank accounts, stock market investments and term deposits. We made 3 copies of the list, kept one at our house, one in our bank locker and one at my mother’s place, just in case. We then checked the personal details that had provided in our financial/bank accounts and we realised that some of the details like address and contact details that we had provided were old and the nominee detail was missing in few accounts. We completed those details as well, so that in case there is a need for that information in case of an emergency, the updated information is available.
Only few weeks back my hubby was cribbing about the annual insurance premium payment which he thinks is useless and was eating up most of his money. But this time I did not have to persuade him to pay the premium so that the policy does not lapse. He did it by himself.
Thankfully we have the habit of keeping a sum of 3-6 times our monthly income as an emergency fund, untouched. We decided to continue with that habit of ours. We had already shot pictures of our valuables like jewellery, appliances and cars for our home owners insurance policy. We have now made few copies of those CD’s and stored them in bank lockers and at my parent’s place. We already have a fire alarm in our place. We still thought it wise to buy a fire extinguisher and keep in a place that is easily accessible.
My mother thought we were being very pessimistic. My friends called it a knee-jerk reaction. But we never realise the importance of certain things unless they happen to us. And it is better to be safe than to be sorry.
