I had been saving a teaspoon of cream that would remain in a 500 ml packet of Amul’s cow milk. I saved it for about a month and my mother was getting antsy that I would just waste it by letting it go rancid. But I had other ideas. I added a teaspoon of curd so that the small quantities of cream would at best become curds and not go rancid. After a month, I emptied the small container of milk cream into a bowl and added lots of water, churned it and got a small ball of homemade butter ! Heated the butter to convert it into Ghee, which was of course an even tinier quantity but still, it was homemade Ghee.
Mom was thrilled, I was thrilled … not because store bought butter and ghee made a big dent in our pockets but just thrilled that we could do it at home. Mom of course had always been making ghee at home as long as dad was alive. I guess she was thrilled that I didn’t waste all the cream.
For me the whole process brought home another important life lesson – small savings matter. This was a minuscule quantity of cream that would get saved everyday, but in a month it became big enough to become a small ball of butter. In the same way, small savings soon become big money that can be used for something more significant.
Do you really need to have two phones? Do you have to eat out every Friday ? Do you really need that 150th shoe ? Do you have to eat a large popcorn while watching a movie ? Do you have to get that 250th sari/dress/top/pant/hairclip? The list goes on… Warren Buffett has spoken the last word on savings –
So live well, but don’t keep buying things you don’t need and keep making the small savings …. buy a stock, buy a mutual fund, invest in a plot of land, buy a house, sponsor an underprivileged child’s education, buy food for an orphanage… there are many ways to spend the money. Do buy things you want and like, but not so many of them.
Small Savings Matter.