This is all about a small experiment that I carried out recently to check how many days pass from in my life without seeing a currency note physically. Money, I agree is important in life and it's not everybody who gets real good at making tons of it. As for me, I have somehow always hated the currency form of money.It has always symbolized hatred & greed whenever I look at it, the inspiring pic of Mahatma on Indian notes not withstanding. Hence I decided to try out this experiment in the US to see how many days go without a meeting with the 'note'. I had also decided that I would make no voluntary effort from my side to avoid 'the note'.
And the answer is 33 ! Yep, I sailed through 33 days in the US without getting to have a look at a currency note ! And believe me , the stint could have been far longer had not it been for my friend who decided to return some borrowed money in cash avoiding the usual cheque route.
That also shows the penetration of plastic money in the US. There are very very few places which insist on cash these days & most of the encounters needing cash would have been actually aided by a broken card swipe machine. Another aspect which I came about is that I feel a lot less stressed/concerned about money when I transact the electronic route. It's strange but true. When you don't see the actually currency going from your hand, the inherent sadness/stress associated with parting with our money seems to get reduced.
Added to this is another aspect of an higher valued currency. You get a meal for 5 $ , a good amount of daily utility stuff is priced between 2-5 $ . Though the absolute value of the good remains the same,again I feel the stress associated with spending is getting reduced due to the value of the currency.
There are two things to be noted in this observation. The actual feeling might also reflect the character of the person. I might actually be stingy to think about the inherent sadness associated with spending money. On the other hand, for someone else, spending 5 lakhs and acquring a car might be far more empowering than buying a car for 10,000 $ . Absolute value being the same in both cases. The second aspect is that this rule might apply only to people who criss-cross international boundaries and transact off and on in different currencies.
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4 comments:
Interesting experiment Ranjit. Your observations somewhat explain why people rack up credit card debt. I doubt people rack up so much debt if they had to actually touch and feel the money being spent.
Hey,this is an interesting post.Being in the US we lose teh habit of paying cash and getting back the change...so when in India I amd perplexed by all the calculation involved.
Thanks Sukumar. I agree with you, ppl won't have so much debt if they had to spend using currency notes. More so in India where we spend a higher 'numeric value' of money for buying goods than in say US/UK.
Thanks for visiting Sara.
Yep, on a recent visit to NY, I too was a bit confused as cash is still very much used & accepted there. And more so since I am not used much to dimes & quarters.
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