How to use a Credit card? Part-I (13/52)

Republic day sales are in full swing in the online sphere. Redmi Note 5 pro is a decent phone priced originally at Rs.17,999/- on both Amazon and Flipkart. As a part of the sale, both of them are selling it at Rs.12,999/-. Flipkart is giving an extra 10% discount on using SBI Credit cards - which means that it is available to me at Rs.11,699/-. They also have NO COST EMI option on SBI Credit cards, which means that I have to pay no interest as long I repay the cost of the device within 6 months.

Long story short, I bought the phone in 6 months NO COST EMI for Rs.11,699/-. I pay my first installment of Rs.1950/- on 7th March 2019. The phone will be delivered to me on 23rd January 2019.

I have to pay Rs.1300 less. And I will have used the phone for 43 days before I pay the first rupee for it. All because I used my Credit card. Now that I have your attention, let's proceed.

***

Let us get the first order of business out of the way. What qualifies me to have a say on the said subject? I have been using a credit card for over 8.5 years now. I don't remember who told me to get a credit card and use it the way I do, but I would praise that person to the high heavens. I've been equipped with a tool of multiple benefits, with the knowledge of how to use it without getting my fingers cut off. I thought I was being selfish in not sharing this information, and so here we are.

Oh!! One more thing. I'm a four year old banker now. So I guess it weighs in my favour to speak on this subject too.

***

There are some terms you have to know before we start though. I thought of giving a dictionary style explanation, but I believe an actual situation would be able to help you understand better.

Suppose that I have a credit card of Rs.50,000/- limit. It means that the total amount I can borrow is Rupees Fifty Thousand.

Suppose the card's billing date is 17th of every month. Any purchase I make will reflect on the bill made on the coming 17th.

The payment date is usually 20 days after the billing date, which in this case is 7th of the subsequent month.

Let's try some examples now, shall we??

Date - 17th January 2019

a. Rs.1,000/- spent to buy petrol.

b. Rs.12,000/- spent online to buy a phone. It is on NO COST EMI. I have to pay Rs.2,000/- for six months.

Date - 18th January 2019

c. Rs.1,000/- spent to buy petrol. (again!!)

Let us assume that "a", "b" and "c" are all the purchases I made in that period. Let us see how my credit card bills look like now. I get a bill for all pending purchases on 17th of every month. The bill is generated at midnight, so it includes all the purchases made on 17th too.

My bill generated on 17th January 2019 will include the transaction "a" and "b". Since "b" is an EMI option, I will be charged only Rs.2,000/- for it. This means that the bill amount is Rs.3,000/-. I would have to pay this amount on the coming 7th, that is, on 7th February 2019.

My bill generated on 17th February 2019 will include the transactions "b" and "c". Again, since "b" is an EMI option, only Rs.2,000/- will be charged. Again, my bill amount is Rs.3,000/-. And my payment date is 7th March 2019.

My bill generated on 17th March 2019 will include the transaction "b" only. Again, since "b" is an EMI option, only Rs.2,000/- will be charged. Again, my bill amount is Rs.2,000/-. And my payment date is 7th April 2019.

If have looked closely, you would see that I paid for the petrol purchased on 17th January 2019 on 7th February 2019, and for the petrol purchased on 18th January 2019 on 7th March 2019. That my friends is the power of the billing cycle.

A note on the credit limit though. The variation of credit limit is as follows:

On 16th January,

Rs.50,000/-.

On 17th January,

after "a" - Rs.49,000/-.

after "b" - Rs.37,000/-. (even though it is on EMI option, the entire amount is reduced from limit)


On 18th January,
after "c" - Rs.36,000/-.

On 7th February,
on making payment of Rs.3,000/- - Rs.39,000/-

On 7th March,
on making payment of Rs.3,000/- - Rs.42,000/-

On 7th April,
on making payment of Rs.3,000/- - Rs.44,000/-

***

In the hope that the above helped you understand the concept of credit limit, billing cycle and payment date, I will take a break for now. Please don't start applying for a credit card just yet. We have only gone through the positives of credit card. Going back to the tool analogy I used before, I have only told how to use a hammer to drive nails in the wall easily. I'm yet to tell you how not to hit your own fingers with it.

You need to look at the Annual Charges, processing fees involved, reward points scheme, and in what manner you can redeem those points before you do that. And I'll help you to understand those points of concern in the next part. The next part which I will post from my new phone. ;)

Generations (12/52)

YOLO - You Only Live Once - was a trend. By the lack of #yolo in social media updates, I guess it is safe for me to assume that the phase has passed. But just today, I was bombarded with not one, but two four letter acronyms.

FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out.

FOGO - Fear Of Going Out.

I fail to understand how my generation missed out on the acronym thing - I guess we were more concerned with omitting vowels from our words and erasing prepositions from our sentences. It was always the need of the hour to convey a higher amount of information at a lesser cost to available resources. That is the reason why our generation shortened "Where are you?" to "whr r u". And I'm pretty sure that the present generation have compressed it further to an acronym by now.

I showed the below picture to someone in the current generation and asked them to identify it. 

With no answers forthcoming, I introduced the Floppy Drive and told that it could hold all of 1.44Mb. The follow up question was unexpected, "What could it hold? Even a picture is of larger size."

It is for this reason that I believe my generation to be the bridge between the old and the new. We are old enough to know what a floppy disk is and how hard it was to use a dial up modem for internet, while at the same time, we are young enough to understand the concept of cloud computing. I first worked on a computer with a 256MB RAM, a 2GB Harddisk and a dial-up internet connection. Now, I own a phone with 8GB RAM, 128GB memory and with two 4G connections.

We know exactly how bad it was to appreciate how good it is now.

***

With all this talk about the Statue of Unity, I happened to find myself in an article, where Sardar Vallabhai Patel was talking about his good friend, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as follows:

"...It was, therefore, in the fitness of things that in the twilight preceding the dawn of independence he should have been our leading light, and that when India was faced with crises after crises, following the achievement of our freedom, he should have been the upholder of our faith and the leader of our legions. No one knows better than myself how much he has laboured for his country in the last two years of our difficult existence. I’ve seen him age quickly during that period, on account of the worries of the high office that he holds and the tremendous responsibilities that he wields.

…As one older in years, it has been my privilege to tender advice to him on the manifold problems with which we have been faced in both administrative and organizational fields. I have always found him willing to seek and ready to take it. Contrary to the impression created by some interested persons and eagerly accepted in credulous circles, we have worked together as lifelong friends and colleagues, adjusting ourselves each other’s advice as only those who have confidence in each other can."

I wish we had amongst our current crop of politicians, someone capable of having an erudite discourse like above. And I'm pretty sure that the acronym loving present generation is never going to be so descriptive about their buddy - they would probably say something like "He is YOLO."

***

Someone replied to me with IFKR. Hence, the thread for this post.

Thank you (11/52)

Snip snap, snip snap, It's ringing clear,

Combing out, cutting through my month long harvest.

***

Every damn time. Every damn time that I get my hair cut, these two lines getting on in my head. The two lines above are the offspring of a misguided sense of rhyming and a purpose to achieve poetic excellence, inside the mind of a 12 year old me. With a tune of its own when it is sung in my head, I'm pretty sure that this is as close as it gets to the Smelly Cat song by Phoebe from Friends. Because I do remember my friends reading the lines and making a not-so-offended face. Some even complimented.

Speaking of compliments, Narender who was my hair stylist for the day, decided to shower me with some. "Sir, you have such good thick hair. Not so oily as the other people who come here." And if that wasn't enough, "But your face is oily, which gives you a tan. If you use a oil clear face wash, you will become fairer."

Now, let me be frank with you. I don't know how to handle compliments. Even at the most genuine of compliments, I respond with a weak smile, and a quick word to change the course of the subject. It probably has everything to do with my tendency to analyze everything from a critically pessimistic angle. If you still don't believe me, let me tell you that the first thought that went through my head when Ammu said "I love you" to me was "now what is she planning on gaining from this lie?"

I can accept compliments and the like, as long as they are backed up with verifiable facts and figures. For example, I am okay with the following compliments.

•  "Hari, you are really tall." - I am after all 6 foot plus.
• "You are skinny" - I am below my ideal body weight.
• "You act like a child." - Said right after I spent 10 minutes holding a phone high up in the air, so that a short person can't reach it.
• "You are good at football in FIFA." - I do have my fair share of victories off the pitch
• "You excel in Excel." - well, eight years of spreadsheets surely helped.

But at the same time, the following compliments make me queasy,

• "You are looking fairer/darker than the last time I met you." - from every relative I visit once in a blue moon.
• "You have gained weight since the last time I met you." - see above.
• "You look good in this dress." - This makes me question their sense of fashion. Because the first dress that I brought for myself had two tears through the middle with a red background. And I wore it because I thought it would be cool to look like you have been slashed across your chest by Wolverine

Coming back to Narender, I looked up and said "Thanks" with the sort of confidence I usually reply with when someone compliments my height - thanks to the fact that Ammu has been persistent enough in her endeavor to make me accept some of my better aspects. And I am able to say thanks a bit more openly, freely now.

***

You should say thanks too. To that person who cut you in the queue this past week, so that you coffee was delayed. To that car which stopped at the yellow signal, which meant that you had to wait for the signal to turn green. To that person who attended the interview with you, and got that job ahead of you, which is why you are at your present job. To that baby in the lift with you, who captured your attention for a full three seconds, so that you took the wrong turn on getting off the lift.

All these people made sure that you were late to arrive at where you are now. And wherever you are now is exactly where you are supposed to be at this moment in time. It could be intoxicatingly happy, mindnumbingly mundane, or exasperatingly sad - but whatever you have - health, wealth, happiness, time, family, friends, career, love, a clean conscience - it is because you went through the path you have.

So once again, please do thank those whom you thought acted against you.

Petrol, time and a question (10/52)

If the recent chats feel like an assortment of random strips of thoughts, please feel reassured that it's very much intentional. I'm unable to put my mind on any one subject long enough to gather a clear train of thought. I'm unable to add anything worthwhile to these public discussions, and hence I refrain from screaming into these online echo chambers. The topics of #metoo, Sabarimala and more will be discussed, but in due course.

Let's start for today, shall we?

***

Let's assume that there's this unique item in the world called One Of A Kind, OOAK in short. Let's also assume that a lot of economic jargon affects the price of OOAK, but it's controlled by the owner, Mr Z. What's more, let us assume that Mr Z has posted an Ad that he himself stars in, at the exit of every store selling OOAK. 

If Mr Z was expecting a positive feeling towards him, unfortunately, the placement of this Ad had an effect just the opposite of what was intended.

Now, let's assume that the price of OOAK has reached levels never seen before. And we all are finding it hard to accept the same. Every time we remove myself from the store after paying a high price, we are now reminded of just who is responsible.

In other news, there are rumors that Ads with our respected Prime Minister have been made mandatory at all petrol pumps.

***

Having to chose only two out of Time, Money and Friends is an age old adage. And recently, I'm feeling more in agreement with the same.

During the years between 2006-2010, when I was in college, I had a lot of time and a lot of friends, but a very limited amount of money. Yet, we made most of what we had.

Between 2012-2016, the early stage of my career, I had money and time, but lesser number of friends. Yet, we made most of what we had.

Since 2016, I have had money and friends, but time is now of the essence. For any sort of get together to take place, the sun, the moon, the stars and the whims of our bosses to grant us leave have to align perfectly.

But like before, we are to make the most of what we have.

***

Now for helping me sort out my thoughts on the Sabarimala topic, I hope someone can help me with this doubt I am having. It is said that entry of women to Sabarimala was restricted because Swami Ayyappan wants to remain celibate. If that is the case, how are women allowed in all the other temples where they have the Ayyapa Idol. I know temples where the main deity is Ayyapan and where no such restrictions exists. Aren't all the rules supposed to be applied the same everywhere??

Nokia, Sony and Open Mics (9/52)

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If you haven't linked the picture with the code yet, it translates to

"Da.. Sir came. Come fast"

Nokia 1100 and its peers were instrumental in fabricating the pioneers in under the table texting. But only people of a certain age will remember them. And yes, I'm old enough to be in that category.

 

Coming from that age, and looking over the current crop of people, I find them to have it easy. They have a whole keyboard to type and a HUGE screen to read from; they can swipe over the letters to make words; they can write the words on screen for the system to type out. The options are many. And this leads us to the lazy ones who have it easy - those who would rather record their voice and press send.

The intention of the chat was not to point fingers, but I'm talking to YOU - you know who you are, and you better not be sending me voice clips again.

***

In other news, I finally brought a PlayStation4 - after half a decade of "Should I or Shouldn't I?". The pointer was pushed onto the BUY side as a result of the sale going on at Amazon, where I got around 10k reduction in the price. Now, as per the history of my luck, they would launch the new version of PlayStation next month. At least that is what has happened with all of my phone purchases till date.

And yes, the rumours are true. I'm using the PlayStation to stream videos on Amazon Prime. But only when I'm taking a food break from playing FIFA - which is a marvel for me. I made the jump from FIFA 13 to FIFA 18 and got to witness what all has changed in one go. And it is a weird feeling to have a legitimate game in your house.

***

Before we wind up for the day, I would like to inform you of something. We had ventured inside a vegetarian restaurant the last Sunday (not this Sunday), and were treated to an unexpected "Open Mic". Unexpected only for us, as they had planned this out. We went into have coffee and vada, and were treated to a good hour of StandUp - which somehow put the idea in my head that I should do it.

I have been told that my online personality is a much better person than me in real life - mostly because you can't get my online self to shut up. If I'm able to channel the same to the real life, I will have something to work with. And instead of having to come up with bits, I'm planning to use my personal brand of self depreciation and life experiences to tickle the funny bone. I even have my opening bit sorted out.

***

"Do you know which kind of babies are weird? The ones who just won't smile at you. You can make all the stupid faces in the world, and they would just keep starring at you unimpressed. I have a nephew like that. And I'm sure what he would go on to become, when he grows up. He will be the one coming to Open Mics like this, to keep starring at the comedian like all of you."

Hopefully, cue laughter. Let me know.