Walking Diary

By Hsu Shen On

Two is better than one

December 2017 · 3 minute read

There are few things I have learned along the way which are worth sharing. Here are few which are club together with a general theme being multiple options are always better than having only one.

Bank account

There was a financial article I read sometimes back, basically, it suggested to create accounts for a specific purpose and use it for that purpose only. The idea being that money saved for a particular purpose is not mixed with others, this way it easier to focus and you do not end up over spending. It gave an example of a holiday trip abroad, for some people this might mean a saving for few years. I would not create too many accounts but I like the idea. In general, a person should have at least two.  I have an account for saving and an account for spending. I would put a particular amount from the saving one at some time to the other when it crosses a limit but this way I have more control over my expenditure. Let me explain it like this I have one big bucket of water and one small bucket of water, if I have to take water I almost always take it from the smaller bucket. Knowing it is a smaller bucket you will generally tend to take lesser water. Once you have set your virtual limit, you will be more aware when you spend. Additionally, when you calculate at the year end how it went, the financial statement is easier to read.

 

Browser

If you want to buy stuff online, like on Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal. You will notice that whenever you visit other sites like Facebook etc, there is a small section which reminds you of that stuff or similar stuff. This is because whenever you go to Amazon etc and look for a stuff to buy, it ‘remembers’ it in the browser, then feeds it as an ad when you visit other sites. At least for me, this is very annoying. One simple hack I found of dealing with it is, if I need to buy things I use another browser to do it, not my regular one. Like I regularly use Firefox, it’s my default but If I need to buy anything online, I will use IE or Chrome.

 

Email

Current email clients are pretty good at segregating emails to a category and prioritizing important emails. But this does not work perfectly, and If you are someone who gets a lot of emails, you will soon have a mess. What I do is create separate accounts for the separate purpose. So I have one mail id I use only for my family and close friend. Another for banks and other such related stuff. Yet another for public purposes. I have even one which is basically for junk, sometimes you require to give the email to try stuff. That is probably one too many but you get the idea.

« Demonetization My problem with Aadhaar »