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12:04 AM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
November 26, 2013
Have you noticed how the more you make the less you save. Many years ago we were making a reasonable living, worried about the last six days of each month, stretching the last ‘hunner’ and saying things like ‘we’ll buy it after salary day”. Often, we’d even forgo a movie because things were just a little bit tight.
Now, we make several times that and around the 25th of the month we find ourselves saying, ‘Not this month, maybe next month, let’s just keep it down for this week.”
The more things change, old son, the more they stay the same. Do you have the same problem? Does your last 15 year graph show great progress, great earning power and absolutely nothing different in the end result.
Economists have great theories regarding financial stagnation. Profound stuff, all about budgeting and cost of living indices and how money is cheaper and doesn’t go that far, yes, yes, yes, we know all that. What people like me want to know is that if I am making so much more than I used to how come we go into battle conditions defensive every last week of the month. Sometimes even earlier.
And don’t tell me we don’t plan. That’s all we do. Plan, plot , calculate , add, subtract, juggle the figures and watch the debit and credit columns stay as far apart as bookends .
I have my own theory. Some of us are not born to have money. It does not matter what we earn because at the end of the month we will be skinch, cypher, zero, nil, get the drift, we are the sort for whom the bank manager does not get up and offer tea and coffee.
For us, the deputy bank manager flinches and pretends he has a file to study.
What can we do about it?
At first glance, pretty much nothing because it is written that our expenses will increase the moment we have a little money in the pocket.
I believe it is a cosmic conspiracy and Fate’s little helpers wait with feverish anticipation for us to get a little savings. Then, they go into a huddle and say, okay let’s go get him. That about ends that warm feeling there is a little cash reserve in the bank.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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