Shirtonomics

Yours truly is back after another foreign trip. Writing on this blog is a way for me to let go, at least with words and it has been a trying first few months this year with travel and dealing with everything that comes with travel. 

This time it is an economics lesson, but right here in the US of A. Yes, you can find incredibly good deals here too!

Over the last few months the kids have been taking ice skating classes. The classes are only 30 minutes, but with the driving to and from the rink, putting on and taking off skates routines, it takes an hour and a half almost for the "skating process". 

There is an upside to this routine when I do the pick up and drop off. There is a JC Penny and food court right next to the rink. If it is not the hot chocolate from the food court that occupies me for 20 minutes of break time, it is the clearance rack at the JC Penny entrance!

Usually the things on the rack are XXL and above sizes. True, I could buy those XXXXL flannel shirts, cut the collars off and use them as bath robes, but there are a few Smalls and Mediums that find their way to that rack. 

It takes me ten minutes tops to go through that when I am there. One curious thing is that some items that I see take a price nose dive every alternate week but never leave the rack. Last month, I finally spotted this shirt and could not belive the price. 

Ok, I know you caught that. 50% off on $34 should be $ 16.99, not 14.99.. someone at JC Penny needs to pay some attention. 

Took it to the counter and the lady said "It is actually $3.13 with taxes!" as though the shirt price had crossed the sound barrier. Told her "I will take it!" and she says "don't know what is up with that shirt. seems very good to be on clearance"

Came home, wore it to the local park to meet some friends after a long time. Realized while putting it on, that it missed a button! That was the only flaw in the shirt. Funny thing is that there were two spare buttons stitched on the inside.  

(think that is the first family portrait for the 2015 year!)

Got compliments from friends saying "this shirt looks good on you!" So, came home, stitched that button back!

The shirt has already been through the washer twice and everything is still intact.

Guess, it has now been restored to its $34 glory days.

The funny thing is that most of these stores have resident alteration tailors. The thougt that was going through my mind was, why couldn't they fix these little things and make a profit? Is it because that labor cost of a 3 minute button restitching is so prohibitive? 

Really don't get that. Last week the little one had to interview me for a school project on immigration. One of the questions was "what day to day differences between your former country and USA did you like after coming here?" and without much thought I replied "no water cuts, no power cuts, clean roads, garbage collection, in short good utilities and a better quality of life!"

Somehow stating that came with a practiced ease that made me shudder. Those who are in the "quality" business know that quality is as much about eliminating waste as it is about creating value. If you look at things from that stand point, we here in the USA are probably on the top when it comes to creating waste, be it packaging, poor recycling habits, our inability to promote shared transportation, and the list goes on. We have a lot of resources but we treat them with little respect. 

We drop the price of a shirt from $34 to $3 because of one missing button, because we set our bar for quality pretty high!

The irony of that, is not lost on me. 

ps. There are many unfinished posts that will hopefully see the publish button today! 

Perspective...

The ExpertDabbler, shared an article over the weekend. He has consistently shared interesting and thought provoking stuff.. (so that credit goes to PK).

After reading through the article, realized a few things which made me go WTF?

There are people who live among us, who realize what it means to live frugally only when they are in dire straits.

As a household with both adults working (and another adult who comes and helps us out at least 6 months a year with the kids, thereby enabling us to work harder 6 months a year) we currently do a lot of the things that are featured in the article and have been for as long as we can remember.

a. we always use the public library for books, CD's, DVD's etc. True that we have a blockbuster mail order account where we pay under 8 bucks a month to watch newer movies, but by far the biggest movie expense for us is watching Desi movies in the local theater with friends or family. Reliance has pretty much bought all local theaters and they have established a price monopoly for Indian movies screened locally. (If only someone could break that or they realize their ticket prices are high.. or Blockbuster/Netflix/Youtube start online streaming of new releases for lower prices?.. anyways back to topic)

b. we always pack our lunch. Me 98% of the time and San 95% of the time. We eat outside as a family once every week at Bhavikas for <12 bucks for all 5 of us! Sometimes we go outside (maybe once a month) and splurge 40$ at Saravana Bhavan or the likes of it.. but that is usually a once a month affair these days.

c. Used to Bike where possible (or at least tried to) till the accident. Now it is going to be a slow start again. We don't have fancy SUV's. We buy cars that we know will last us at least 10+ years and still have decent fuel efficiency. Not exactly your Prius buyer but then again, we just decide to get as fuel efficient as the wallet would permit.

d. We still use coupons where possible and always do our homework before buying things.. sometimes we wait for years to buy things. Almost all our clothes shopping is done on India trips (granted everyone cannot do that, but we offset the cost of the flight tickets by shopping for a year/two worth of clothes).

e. we always take our kids to the local parks to play. At the most it is paying 6$ in parking for the entire day to visit any of the California state parks for a full day of fun, be it a beach, a hike with waterfalls, or just a plain picnic on a bench with home cooked food under some really tall old trees.

The thing that really hit me was:

1. We are not on the street. We have a huge debt on the house, but we made an investment and barring some natural disaster, the return will be there or least it will be a break even situation, but we don't act in a way that suggests richness.

2. After reading this article I started thinking "Wow, people have to lose their jobs to have our lifestyle ?!" So, what do they live like when they have jobs? How can some folks live a lifestyle that their paychecks do not support, for months, for years ? How is that even possible? How many people should have been doing that for how long for reality to come crashing down the way it has for all of us?

What would our family lose in terms of lifestyle if our jobs go?

We will be the same folks.. in a smaller place!

The library will still be there

The parks routine will not change

Biking will become a happy norm

Thayir(yogurt) or rasam(gravy) saadam (rice) in the lunch box will be replaced with more of the same except, there will be no lunch box..

It will be difficult to adjust to living with shared walls..We have the experience from four years ago. Then we moved to this house and during construction all five of us lived in one room for 5 months. Somehow the apartment experience was like a preview and preparation for the one room experience and we made it through.

The big surprise during both the apartment living and the single room living amid construction efforts was the way the kids reacted to all of this. As a child we(me, brother, sister and parents) lived through asbestos sheet roofed rooms in a house with a window facing the Cemetary for years. The bathroom was outside the house. So adjusting to something less is not a shock for me.

Jr. and the little did not have any issues with living in smaller spaces. In fact Jr. was the happiest when we were in that apartment because she found so many kids in that place to play with in the evening after coming back from school. There is a certain happiness to living in an apartment complex if you can adjust and calibrate your noise levels with the environment and kids being kids will adapt.

Little wonder then that thayir saadam lunchers and Chinese buddies(who bring their own fried rice in their Tiffin boxes) will have to share the fact that there is nothing wrong with using public facilities, spending responsibly, watching your bills and balancing your books and trying to teach your kids a thing or two from your life's experiences...

Who knew growing up in a poor/ lower middle class family for most of your early childhood could come in very handy later in life?

It is all karma, neh?

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Explaining the economy

How does one explain the economy to a four year old?

We grew up in a poor household and as kids our understanding of the economy was simply:

"There are people with a lot more money than us we have to interact with every day. We are not rich. But it is okay. All our relatives and friends love us and we have no dearth of fun"

Over time we kind of learned (we weren't necessarily taught openly) to understand what our parents could provide for us as a default, what was pushing them to their limit, what was an extravagance for the household, etc. and would not bother to ask them for things that they might want to give us but cannot. The few times we did, we did with a lot of regret knowing the pain it would cause them.

The setting for the little one, is a lot different from the setting for me. Even Jr. understands things to an extent because we were going through a tough time when she was four, when the little one was just born and were moving from place to place and living in one room for almost 6 months.

The little one always "needs" things and "wants" things. She always compares with her sister or friends and is very temperamental, but she is also a very smart kid.

Earlier today, I gave her the usual speech about work, money, job, jobless people, expense, buying, spending, responsibility, etc. etc.

She listened to it patiently as though she cared and still wanted to get new shoes because her shoes are too tight, which is typical of four year olds because they change shoe sizes every 6 months! (and she IS going to get a new shoe).

Told her that she should listen to me and get the shoes Daddy picks for her.

She promptly ran away from me, looked at her mom and goes

"don't ask appa to buy me a shoe for 10 dollars okay.. just ask him to buy me a shoe that is one dollar!"

We both burst out laughing.

If only it was that simple!

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Recycling

With an injured foot and no doctor appointment in sight, was working from home this morning.

The kids who do not have school the whole of this week were overjoyed that I was in the house, but saddened by the fact that daddy was locked inside a room and was in phone meetings for the entire morning.

At noon, Jr. and the little one were already fed and ready to go for their naptime.

LO : Daddy please stay at home. Don't go to office. If you are home I will huggie you more!
Me : Thanks da kuttyma, but I have to go to office. Only then I will get money.
Jr.: What if we give you money?
LO : Yeah. We will give you money. Then you can stay at home.
Me : Where do you guys have money?
Jr.: We have been saving the money and coins that mommy and grandma gave us!

They were so sweet. They gave up all the money they had in two ziploc bags, all 2 dollars and 43 cents of it!

Didn't have the heart to tell them "No, I don't want your money" or "it takes a lot more money for me to stay home with you guys".. and while all this was going through my mind Jr. chips in with

"Appa, if we keep giving you the money you give to us, then you don't have to go to work!"

Now, that sentence sent me reeling. According to Madras paati, aka my mom, some astrologer did predict that Jr. will become an accountant when she grows up. Chances are she is going to become one, and she will play an important part in the 2034 recession, which will be the biggest recession in recorded history!

With this concept of giving the same money back and forth multiple times, so many daddy's are already home permanently. So decided to go into a lecture on economics, job, money, time, daddy, kids, love etc. etc. and the kids gave me one glassy eyed look and ran away to grandma saying

"Paati, please come nap with us!"

Daddy escaped!

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Senthilian economics

You have all heard of terms like Keynesian economics and the likes, but what in Goundamani's name is Senthilian economics?

Well, it is a sign of the times!
This video (with subtitles!), explains how the United States got the world in this mess!

Senthil shows one banana and accounts for two. The people who "created" wealth in the United States (the same ones who are getting the millions in bonuses for creating said wealth) used one dollar and accounted for it 30 times!

Chances are they learnt the trick from watching this video..

Some smoke, lot of mirrors, one buck reflected thirty times across multiple mirrors..

The bonuses for the guys who sell one dollar with all those mirrors is the real dollar!

We live in funny times.

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