The world doesn’t work the way we think it does. There is always another side to the story!
I come from a typical middle-class family. The same class of population who take the brunt of all the happenings in terms of all the finance and economic decisions of the entire country around us. An increase in the price of wheat? Poor gets it at subsidized price (or free) from the government. For rich, it doesn’t matter. An increase in fuel price? Poor doesn’t consume much and again for the rich, it doesn’t matter. It’s we, the middle class, who pay the maximum tax (in terms of percentage of the income) as well as consume expensive basic necessities.
My father was touted to be one of the best “to be” advocates in the city. He always hung out with smart and fun-loving friends. They worked hard and partied harder. They would meet every weekend at “The Cellar”, the bar and restaurant near the District Court. Once a month they would get their families along and together, we all had great times with each other. Those were the days when my father owned a car - Fiat Padmavati and the branded clothes.
Fast forward to 15 years later, most of my fathers friends are all well to do financially. And we seemed to have missed the train and went backwards financially. Today, we have multiple loans to pay, not enough money for security purposes or emergencies, nor do we have anyone to help bail us out. I remember a few years ago, no banks were ready to offer me a loan for my education. We went from door to door of all the banks for loan and we were even ready to mortgage our house. My father reached out to everyone in my family to be a guarantor for the loan as one bank had agreed to give loan if a tax paying relation would be a guarantor. But everyone is on their own right when it comes to loans. Everyone just dodged our calls. No one was willing to help us out. In fact, they all questioned my decision to pursue my higher studies.
How did we get to this?
No, we did not lose all our money in stocks. We did not even spend a lot on unnecessary things. Our day-to-day expenses was never beyond our limits? Yet we got into deep financial troubles. All it took for us to get here was bad money management and one unfortunate event (my sister got diagnosed with kidney failure).
We are unfortunate to live in the world where the rich can get easy loans at will while the ones who actually need it will have to struggle and mortgage their property for security to get much lower amount of loan. We live in the world where the likes of a Diamond merchant or a liquor tycoon can get loans to the tune of 10,000 Cr riding on the back of “Goodwill” and we have to struggle to get a 10 Lakh loan with collateral.
At Pigme, we will talk about how we can work to get out of the trap any typical middle-class individual would find themself in. Will talk about how the world actually works and use this knowledge to our advantage to build a financial discipline and eventually accumulate wealth. A lot of financial decisions are made based on the knowledge our parents imparted. Those may not be the right decision in todays world. At Pigme, we will understand the concept and logic behind every financial instrument and then decide what is good for us individually.
Look out for the Dark Secrets of Banks.
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