The hard lesson from Coronavirus afflicted world is that we must be frugal, spend judiciously, stop wastage. If we do not come out of this crisis wiser, we will pay a heavy price, warns Mohit. An exclusive for Different Truths.

As I sit down to write this, let me assure the readers I am not trying to engage in shaming. I am no less a part of the brigade of things that I will mention later in this article.

It took a microbe, several times smaller than the width of human hair to bring us down to our knees. It had no religion, no skin colour, it did not speak any of our languages and yet it taught us more than all of humanity has ever done.

It took less than a financial quarter for countries all over the world to realise that its time to reduce our defence budgets and substitute that cut with health and education budgets. It took a microbe, several times smaller than the width of human hair to bring us down to our knees. It had no religion, no skin colour, it did not speak any of our languages and yet it taught us more than all of humanity has ever done.

We, as people of the 21st century, have a tendency to relate any and every state of emergency with our financial health and there is nothing wrong with that. We need money to buy food, to pay for medical bills and for that matter anything that we want to do today. The saying,‘the best things in life are free’ only apply to the half a dozen people living on the international space station, no one else.

Things that were not too long ago thought to never cost us anything, like clean air and water, have now become victims of haphazard development all around.

…a heavy dosage of free time has made me realise the amount of financial stupidities we commit on a daily basis, when infact we should be saving for times like these. I don’t know how people from ancient India and China had always advocated savings and a simple life.

All these happenings and a heavy dosage of free time has made me realise the amount of financial stupidities we commit on a daily basis, when infact we should be saving for times like these. I don’t know how people from ancient India and China had always advocated savings and a simple life. What could people living in forests hundreds of years ago have seen that modern humanity with all its intelligence couldnt?

Today, is just the 15th day of lockdown in India. I am mentioning this because as a country, I dont think we were prepared for this. It took the Prime Minister of the fifth largest economy of the world, just 7 days to come on the stage and ask its citizens for donations. Seven days is all we had in our banks. And don’t get me wrong or think of me as a leftist anti-national. I am a staunch BJP supporter and always have been. Its just that I can’t eat nationalism for dinner anymore, nor can I pay my employees in denominations of nationalism.

I wouldn’t get into the cliched (but true) comments about how earth is giving us back what we have been giving it for so long. I am here only to talk about finance, our household’s finance.

Be it our weddings or our houses, be it our cars or be it our lifestyle products, we have become so irrationally careless about our spending that only Coronavirus could have had the artillery to teach us a lesson.

As I try to note down the things that we spend our hardearned money on frivolously, I can’t help but ask for extra answer sheets. Be it our weddings or our houses, be it our cars or be it our lifestyle products, we have become so irrationally careless about our spending that only Coronavirus could have had the artillery to teach us a lesson.

I know for a fact that I have cutlery in my house that I’ve never seen the face of. Its been kept for the day some imaginary special guest comes. In these tough times, I can’t think of anybody except the Prime Minister himself to be deserving of that cutlery. But its a lockdown, and even he won’t be able to get his hands on them. I have five beds in our house, and 25 bedsheets to cover them. I have so many pillows that I can’t help but ask myself, do I have as many heads as Raavan? My bedside tables are begging to breathe but the loathe of things kept on them, 99% of which I’d probably not touch in this life.

If my almirah was a human, its crimes would sit right up there with the terrorists. It has more clothes than what my entire district could wear. Not that I need all of them. See, I dont fit in 75% of them anymore but I dont want to part with them

My almirah can’t help but hide its face in shame as I go about with my articles. If my almirah was a human, its crimes would sit right up there with the terrorists. It has more clothes than what my entire district could wear. Not that I need all of them. See, I dont fit in 75% of them anymore but I dont want to part with them because I am an optimist. I usually wear the same four shirts and the same two trousers, but I dont want to have four pairs of clothing kept inside the big almirah I got made. It would look bad to the people who would never be inside my room. I have enough number of spectacles to match half my wardrobe and belts that could, if tied together,  wrap around the globe, twice.

Our weddings cost us a lifetime of savings. People start saving for their child’s wedding right when he/she is born. That’s how much they cost us. They cost us a lifetime of misery. We pay lakhs for decorations, lakhs for feeding the 500 people we almost hate but won’t admit and don’t even get me started on the clothing and jewellery. We buy clothes worth thousands (and lakhs in some cases) to wear on a single night. All that to impress the people we don’t like anyway. Some people might argue here that it is our big day and we would remember this day forever. And what could memories be worth without a Sabhyasachi lehenge/sherwani, right?

If you take a stroll around your house, I bet you can find items worth a couple of lakhs in total that you know you did not need in the first place, that’s how stupid we have become with our money.

If you take a stroll around your house, I bet you can find items worth a couple of lakhs in total that you know you did not need in the first place, that’s how stupid we have become with our money.

Internet or rather social media has played a huge role in our spending patterns. Luxury segments have never grown at the pace they have since the advent of instagram and YouTube. Unboxing videos have made us crave the luxuries that we can’t afford but won’t accept. People have for too long been living on credit cards, trying to match the people they see online. Trying to fake our lifestyle has become the new normal. We all want iphones and we all want the BMWs even when we can’t afford them.

When, in the next 6-8 months we have the vaccine for COVID-19, more than 15-20% of the world’s GDP would have vanished. And these are probably the lower estimates. Entire segments of businesses would become redundant.

When, in the next 6-8 months we have the vaccine for COVID-19, more than 15-20% of the world’s GDP would have vanished. And these are probably the lower estimates. Entire segments of businesses would become redundant. Luxury lifestyle products, clothing, tourism, automobiles, would be the first response victims of this phenomenon. Most of them have already started feeling the pain.

Thousands of online sellers will perish as they sell items that are not required for primary survival. There would be dead stocks worth trillions of dollars all around the world. Nobody is going to buy the scratch world map or fidget spinners when we lack the buying capacity for a toilet paper. Nobody is going to buy unnecessary furniture when we can hardly pay for groceries. Entire business segments and its owners will be wiped out clean. The fighters will pivot their businesses and come out alive, but most will not.

Nobody is going to buy the scratch world map or fidget spinners when we lack the buying capacity for a toilet paper. Nobody is going to buy unnecessary furniture when we can hardly pay for groceries. Entire business segments and its owners will be wiped out clean.

And when this happens, the next victims will be the rest of the businesses. This will reciprocate into lesser jobs and even lesser remunerations. The only good thing that will come out of this tragedy would be the lesser attrition rates in businesses.

It is time we relearn how to earn, and restructure how to spend. Our children don’t need extra toys, we dont need the newest smartphone and we certainly don’t need the extra handbags. What we need is an extra skill set, which is totally different from our primary earning. What we need is an emergency fund to the tune of a couple of lakhs stashed in our savings account of a reputable bank that is not touched no matter what.

We will definitely come of this COVID-19 fiasco and will probably forget how the world had changed for the time it had affected us.

We need better health and education in our lives, not bigger marriages and cars.

We will definitely come of this COVID-19 fiasco and will probably forget how the world had changed for the time it had affected us. May be we will go back to being slaves of our credit cards again.

But if we don’t learn to mend our spending patterns, we will definitely not come out alive for the next emergency, which might not be as far away as previously thought. Global warming, are you listening?

Photos from the Internet