Recipe To Repay A Loan
I had been eating outside or in office from past few months. Everything was going well but I started to feel few issues.
When food is free (like office dinner), I tend to eat more and then can’t sleep well at night. Eating daily outside, I started to burp a lot. The burps had foul smell. This didn’t feel right. So I decided to take control of what I eat.
So, I made a rule to eat only what I cooked.
It takes me 30-45 minutes to cook a meal. Usually dal-chawal, sabji-roti, kadhi-pulav, … I do have curd, salad or papad at times. Sometimes even banana or apple before eating as an appetizer.
It was going well. To keep it going well I had to incentivise it. Whenever I cooked food I used to save Rs. 100 in a jar. Generally Rs 100 in morning and Rs 100 in evening. And just like that in 15-20 days I had collected Rs 3000. The money was accumulating quickly so I had to think about utilizing it. Just sitting in jar the money would not grow so I started thinking ways to utilize it.
I had been planning to make monthly installments to my PPF account since Feb. The maturity amount is to be utilized in repaying a home loan. But I hadn’t been able to make any contribution for 5 months. So I matched the saved amount and made contribution to PPF. Just like that I have been able to add Rs 18k to PPF account in 2 months.
Thus, just a simple change solved multiple issues for me:
I now don’t get burps or any indigestion issues when I eat food cooked by me. I use a lot of oil still things seem under control. I am in charge of what goes inside my belly. Also since I have to cook food I now eat only how much is needed. At times I do eat outside for a change but I make contribution to jar only when I cook.
The contribution from cooking has solved my PPF problem. To reach desired maturity amount from PPF I had to make Rs. 1L yearly contribution but I wasn’t being able to make any monthly contribution. This would have put pressure on my budget around Jan-March time. This has been taken care of now.
Since I have to reach office on time even after cooking, I need to have some morning schedule. I have to start cooking latest by 8:30am so I have to be prepared before that. Cooking does not require your attention all the time. There are gaps of 15 min where rice is cooking or dough is resting. I bathe or do puja during this time thus increasing my speed. Sometimes it feels tiresome to cook in evening but the fear of going hungry to bed motivates me. I generally cook pulav or eat fruit at such time.
So far so good. There is a history of me leaving things after a while. So, I have tried to fill that gap with monetary incentive this time. Let’s see how far it goes this time.
