What your ISF

Saving a penny is earning a penny- Sudha Murthy,

It is always learning to hear Sudha Murthy. During one of the interviews, she mentioned her mother was having only seven sarees. After her death, it took only half an hour to collect her stuff.

She herself is also of opinion that one should not buy more stuff may it be anything. She does not enjoy shopping and believes in having less and is still content. The opposite is Mr. Murty who thinks buying things is very important for the circulation of money. It gives speed to the market.

This thought provoked me to think about how we shop against our needs. The supermarket and mall culture has ruined our lives. The supermarkets were designed to have all the needs under one roof. But as always we forget the idea behind the concept and run around something else.

Earlier it used to be just a grocery store you go to the store ask for things the person hands over it to you and you pay him. Now the picture has changed. You visit the store its grand store and you see everything around much more than you need and expect. You forget the things on your list and the wonderful marketing skills do their job.

Earlier needs were less and there were separate outlets for different things like the grocery store, stationery, Garments, Kitchen needs, electronics, etc. We used to visit them need-based. Today if you go for buying grocery you end up visiting all the floors of the supermarket and buy everything that fascinates you, rather than looking at the shopping list that you have. I wonder if everybody makes a shopping list when they are going to market. Visiting supermarket costs more than two to three thousand in once visit.

You see offers and tend to save money on something you do not need. Buy 1 get 1 wow! what an offer let me buy it. I will save money.

Wait for a minute and think do you need it? I have often seen people grabbing everything they get in an offered time.

I have always heard my father saying he had a few clothes to wear at his young age. His wardrobe included all these things of daily use against mine. I have special almari for clothes only. He mentioned they use to shop once in a year and he and my uncle would buy cloth of five meters to stitch a shirt to both of them, Similarly they stiched their pants too. And that's the reason I see most of them in identical dresses at their young age in the family album.

Even when I was small in primary school my mummy use to stitch me and my elder sister dresses out of her sarees. Even the 'Kalpana saree'  was saree stitched for kids out of a single saree. I have those identical dree pics with me. I still adore those dresses, they hold a special place in my cupboard, unlike the dresses I have bought after them.

Now we don't want anyone to wear a similar pattern like us, so the same dresses are out of the question.

I have seen the generation's shopping from the grocery stores to the supermarkets. The value of money changing with needs.

The moral of the story is I have finally made up my mind to stop shopping for a while. Due to lockdown, I did not buy any new dress for four months and that feeling is going good with me. I want to resist shopping for the next few months.

I STAND FOR NO SHOPPING OF DRESSES OR SAREES for the next two more months. I will stretch it till December.

I stand for is a concept you can use in your life anywhere, where you wish to stop yourself, control or encourage. Like ISF not having Nonveg food for the next one month was ISF we took a month ago and its a great feeling being fulfilled. That's a good way of treating your health too may be by ISF for fried food, ISF for reading books, ISF for a daily workout.

It is like having small defined goals. School Children can have an ISF of studying more than an hour every day. Making a new friend every week, learning a new word every day

When Lockdown started we had taken an ISF not visiting Grocery stores for a month, till we actually finished the grocery that we have stored and we were successful finishing up the food stored to much extent.

Its a feeling of accomplishment and gives an encouraging and positive impact. Try it whats your ISF?