There are many people who will agree that watching TV is a waste of TIME. There are some people who will say that the people who watch TV have all the time in the world and can waste their time. Maybe TV is a time pass for people who don’t know how to use their time!!

How about considering TV watching as a waste of MONEY?

How about considering the opportunity cost of watching TV? Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the best alternative forgone. It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices.

So instead of watching TV, you can have a choice between 1. exercising, 2. meditating, 3. creative writing, 4. making friends, 5. spending time with family/friends, 6. trekking, 7. blogging, etc. I am not even talking about “work” here!

And if there’s a value to the benefit, that value is the amount that you lost by watching TV.

For example, if I watch TV instead of blogging and the value of 1 hour of blogging translates into a 100 new visitor and every visitor adds to the value of my blog by Rs 100 (just an example), I wasted Rs 10000 by watching TV for one hour.

You might have a point or two about the assumptions. What’s that?

But my point is about the big picture. It’s about putting a figure on the cost of watching TV. For me it maybe Rs 10K. It could be different for you.

So here’s an exercise for you. What’s the cost of watching TV for an hour for you? Mind sharing with us?

PS: I’m not saying not to watch TV at all. Once in a while, it’s nice to watch TV and stay connected to what the rest of the world is doing!!

PPS: It could be an interesting exercise for you. Better than watching TV?!

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A few days back my aunt complained that her Bankers were harassing her and are not releasing the money kept in my late Uncle’s bank account. She has been running to the bank for the last 18 months for claiming the money.

I was incensed and asked her to visit the Bank with me in tow. I assured her that the work will be done and if the Bank Managers do not help, we can escalate this to higher levels.

We met the dealing executive and he said that he had cleared the file and his Managers had put some query on the file. We asked to meet the Manager with the file and we were in the Managers cabin in a few minutes.

While my aunt continued to rant over the harassment, the Manager pointed some discrepancies in the submitted papers. To my mind, they were genuine discrepancies and I asked the Manager how to solve those discrepancies expeditiously.

Though the papers should have been submitted afresh with signatures from outstation people, the Manager agreed for the corrections in front of him and getting it attested by a third party for his comfort.

We got the attestations in half an hour and the money was released within 48 hours.

There were two learnings from the episode.

1.  The Bank account and FDs did not have any nominees registered. So after the sudden and sad demise of my Uncle, it took a long process to claim that money. It takes a few minutes to register a nomination and a few years to chase that money. What’s your choice?

2.  The Bank needs proper papers to release the money. I guess if the papers were submitted properly and with some followup, the time duration of 18 months could be reduced to 1-2 months.

It’s easy to blame the Banks and Insurers for lack of service. But as customers, we also need to take some responsibility and be sure that there’s no fault at our end.

What do you say?

This is a guest post by Shally Khedkar, a professionally qualified woman who learnt how to handle the personal finances of her household on her own. She was invited by NDTV for their talk show on personal finance especially for women and was requested to share her experiences. Over to Shally!

Update: Shally on NDTV

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I am happy to share my views on personal finance as a housewife, a woman and a person who has taken it upon herself to engage in Finance related conversations. Here it goes:

Most of us ,( and I would include men as well as women here ) have not been taught about finance/money management during our growing years. As a woman the disadvantage for many of us is that we come to believe that if We are not good in math/accounting, managing money/Finances is not our cup of tea!

So we leave money management decisions to the other ” WISE ” people in the family and limit our money management skills to paying the grocery bills and the school fees.

I have been one such person, professionally qualified but with very limited exposure to finances and the world of money management.

Over the years I have realised that I need to go beyond the basic bill management and have taken it upon myself to learn about money as it impacts me and my family. So, I need to be AWARE of the Health policies, the bank rates , the insurance policies and financial flows as much as my spouse.

The problems I have encountered in my journey are :

1. Where do I ask my most basic doubts about Money Management from Indian perspective? ( I have slowly come to rely on articles/blogs which demystify the same for me, but I still get lost )

2. What are the basic, practical and user friendly money management/financial planning skills and where do I learn the same so that I am not inundated with financial jargons and words which confuse and scare me?

3. Where are the organisations/ institutions which can hand-hold me through my journey so that I can take my baby steps in this direction and not be cheated ( I have burnt my fingers in the past when I was given inappropriate advice on Insurance policies or Mutual Funds by Agents or financial planners)?

I feel there is an urgent need to make the women independant , aware and responsible about managing finances.

It will, I believe, also keep them creatively and fruitfully engaged.

Thanks, Shally

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Update: Check the video below:

Congratulations India! Thank You, Dhoni and his team for giving us this wondeful gift.

While we celebrate the eleven players who fought hard, had a tremendous self belief and grit to overcome all hurdles, there was one guy who was not in the playing eleven but lifted on the shoulders of some of the playing 11 during the victory lap. Yes, you know Gary Kirsten.

Let’s go back to 2003 when the Indian team had emerged to be strong contenders but ran into a rampaging Australians in the finals. Just after that Greg Chappell was roped in and promised the moon to India. He was totally “process” driven and wanted the players to follow his process without questions.

But his “process” failed and ended up dividing the team into camps and hurting the confidence of the players.

Gary Kirsten was a quiet, unassuming guy who also believed in “process” driven approach. But the key difference between the process of Chappell and Kirsten was that in Chappell’s case, the process was a binding template. While Kirsten’s process believed in the player to be able to decide the best way for him.

To my mind, the key difference was:

Chappell: This is how I want you to play.

Kirsten: Understand how you want to play.

Amit Gupta has some insights in Mumbai Mirror (Gary On, Coach) that’s worth reading. A few excerpts:

He did not try to coach them but instead helped them understand their game better. Unlike Chappell, Kirsten did not make Sehwag practise with the golf ball. And the results are there to be seen.

His working style was simple: He did not think for the players but let the players come up with their own ideas about their game and guided them in their implementation. Before the start of every series, he would give the players a survey about what he expected from them and, at the end of it, he would give them his assessment.

He praised and riled them in private. Realising the importance of preparing everyone to face tough situations, he spent hours honing the batting skills of bowlers such as Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha and Harbhajan Singh. He rates Harbhajan’s two Test tons as one of the most satisfying moments in his tenure.

Thank You, Gary Kirsten.

Now, do you dream of getting a personal finance coach like that?

Pranab Mukherji, Finance Minister in his inaugural address during India’s first RupeeCamp declared the month of April as the financial fitness month. He also instructed all Regulators to stop all financial education initiatives as he described them as a national waste of time and energy.

Mr Mukherji will also submit a draft policy on financial fitness soon and he gave away some key features of the policy during the inauguration. They are:

• All employees have to submit a certificate of attendance for RupeeCamp in order to get any employee benefits apart from their basic salary.
• Those who do not attend RupeeCamp will have to attend a week long course conducted by eminent personalities like Rakhi Sawant, Barkha Dutt, SreeSanth, Himesh Reshamiya.
• All financial education initiatives by regulators will be stopped and replaced by games to be developed in association with Walt Disney Inc.

He could not give more details as he did not have the permission of the high command.

Anyway, looks exciting, no!

Update: Looks like the call from the Ministry of Finance was a hoax call and was successful in making me a Fool!! Happy Fools Day!