Chumi Lakshmi

I chanced upon a welsh YouTuber’s videos recently, where she’s living on £1 a day for meals. Not because she couldn’t afford more, she’s a YouTubers with almost 1 million subscribers, surely, she can afford more than £1 a day. She says she’s been doing this challenge to be more appreciative of what she has and to see first-hand how life is for many ppl who are less privileged.   Now, I get why she’s doing this, and I’ve not got anything against her for that. But what threw me off guard was how she managed it.  Let’s do the math here first. £1 a day for 7 days. What would do if you only had £1 a day for the whole week to feed yourself? Option 1: You buy a combination of groceries for £7 and cook several meals for the week. Option 2: Go to the grocery store every day and look for reduced item food or cheap canned food and survive with it.  My common sense says buy food for £7 and cook several meals for the week. Saves time so you don’t have to think of what t...

Out of the blues, I decided I needed to pick up a new hobby. A small voice within me said my juggling clubs would come crashing down if I added one more to the current mix. However, my mind said, “You need to pick up something new”.  When I was younger, the standard hobbies were reading, swimming, photography, travelling etc.  Been there, done that. In fact, reading, swimming and travelling is now a necessity, while photography has become a profession.  Since I had been unsuccessful in figuring out an interesting new hobby for the last 2 weeks without consulting google, I randomly brought this topic up to my colleagues. They eagerly gave me some of their ideas; extreme sports, knitting, crocheting, painting, cooking, baking, blogging, you could cook/bake and blog about it.  I had my reservations for each one of it. I’m not into extreme sports, and I’m not fond of knitting. Crocheting is very similar. Painting is a thought, but the potential mess d...

I’m feeling very fidgety and spend-y.    This would be a good time to check in with some updates on my no buy year. It’s now 6 months into my no buy year, I can’t really decide if it is going well or not. I’ll tell you why and you can decide. Also, I’ve now realized that there are people checking on me and I am accountable to them.   Let me just put this out there first; my main reason for not buying anything this year is not finance, it’s my mental state of mind that I wanted/needed to conquer. Last year I spent quite a number of times binge shopping, just because I wanted to divert my mind, because I felt like it and mainly because I felt I didn’t have enough clothes. I just got fed up of always wanting more when I already had enough clothes, but didn’t want to repeat clothes on holidays, for occasions etc. I’ve got a huge wardrobe in my house, which is full to the brim and another huge wardrobe in my mother’s house, that I usually clear out 3-4 times...

This  is not   a  new  year’s resolution, but   it has  come at a time where   my  recent hysterical shopping behaviour has led   me  to put   myself  in a non-existing naughty corner;   no shopping for this whole year .   Period. I tried to do this about 6 months ago, only because I went crazy shopping during my holiday trips in the middle of the year.  I went cold turkey back then, and it didn’t help at all. In fact, it back fired on me and made me shop even more in the next few months. I got into the habit of seeking some retail therapy when I needed to release some stress or displayed an unhealthy amount of sympathy for myself. I called it treating myself; that is never a good reason to do it. The realisation struck, and i devised another plan. I decided that I was going to shop all I wanted up till boxing day, and that will be my last for a year. If I’m we...

2018 has been a memorable year, several achievements, breakthroughs, etc. like all previous years. Memorable for many reasons; good and bad equally. But being a child of God, I always choose to believe that the good outweighs the bad and trust that God has something good out of everything. All things work for good to those who love God (Romans 8:28), doesn’t it? I’m usually the kind who trust God blindly, simply because I don’t know what else to do otherwise. I believe God does things in His time, that God is in control of everything, because I have given him that authority in my life. I choose to let God have His way in my life rather than asking Him to provide me with everything I want.  There were times throughout this year that I felt God spoke to me so often, so easily, but there were times where I hadn’t heard from him at all when I desperately needed to. I could have been too consumed with my own reasoning that I didn’t really listen tok Him, but I blamed God for b...

Disclaimer: You may or may not relate to any of this. I’m just talking to my younger self, and you are welcome to eve’s drop if you like.  Instagram for example, is all about being happy, showing off luxurious things, travel pictures, holidays and gifts, pretty cafes and the list can go on and on and on. It’s all about prettiness. But life isn’t always pretty is it? No one wakes up pretty, no one can travel to his or her heart’s content without working hard. It’s just not served on a silver platter.  And then I recently came across quite a few people explaining that there was a major fight that broke out just before and after the happy family picture on Instagram grid was taken. Another one showed on her Instagram stories that she took hundreds of pictures that were 1 mm different from each other before she chose the best one. Another said he did it for the Gram. Yet another said she put on make up and did her hair before uploading her #IWokeUpLikeThis picture on ...

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with social media. Sometimes I cannot have enough of it, and other times I’m so sick of it that I never want to see it ever again. Who would have thought such lifeless piece of technology would provoke strong wavering emotions over an inanimate part of technology that has taken over everyone’s life. Of the numerous platforms, I’ve been sucked into Facebook and Instagram, while I think Whatsapp should be included in that list, and I can’t stand it anymore. I one thing that I loved doing while I was growing up was read. It didn’t really start early in life for me. Let’s just say I was a late bloomer, but when it happened, it happened! I LOVED reading! If I got hold of a good book, you can be assured that I would be awake the whole night reading it, and stay awake the entire day in school the next day as well. It was a vicious cycle, and mind you I was about 15 or 16 at this time I think.   But I never evolved with techonology in reading...

Remember the day when I was talking about wanting to buy a new watch that cost about £200 about 2 weeks ago? I’ll admit, I had/have absolutely no valid reason that I can justify and it’s definitely not out of necessity.  Fast-forward to present time; I’ve found something five times more expensive that I’m obsessing about. Again, absolutely no valid reasons whatsoever, not out of necessity, and definitely not because I’ve got £1000 ready to spend on this. When Laxman offered to change my phone for me months ago (I’ve been due for an upgrade for donkey’s years now by the way), I declined, I said I didn’t need a new one, this works fine, it’s all the same thing, the new phone is far too expensive, so I’m not changing my phone, and all that jazz. A few weeks later he knocked my phone out of my hands and it fell, sustaining some scratches on it. I still insisted I didn’t need a new phone. A few weeks ago I started noticing really nice pictures on Instagram that were sho...

I really don't have a funny story today, or some genuine ancestral insight that I want to pass on.  My mind is scattered all over the place at the moment after watching Black Panther that I really needed to pen it down in order to gather my thoughts and bring my mind back to order.  I'm telling you again, this might not be interesting for you, the following is only the random thoughts that go on in my head from day to day, much more today than a regular day. I'm actually allowing you to come into my head and listen to me think, talk to myself, motivate myself, and encourage myself. There's usually a lot that goes on in my mind. And this is a small snippet of it.  Continue reading with caution. You've been warned.  So, I can safely say I am now a Marvel fan now, and I loved Black Panther! There might or might not be any spoilers. I cannot comprehend how the whole team has been so creative, that I don’t want to be careful about what I speak.  ...

I've been contemplating this for a few days now. I first thought about it a few months ago when I saw a video on YouTube, but wasn't bold enough to do it then. I always brushed it off as unnecessary. But this morning I got the courage out of nowhere. So, the challenge is mainly to wear the same clothes for a week, for whatever reasons it may be; haven’t done laundry, broke, woke up late, priorities, saving etc. Here are my two reasons; 1. Personal experiment I’ve got more than I need, but it’s just never enough. I hope to try and eliminate the desire for more wants. I want to re-teach myself to value money, to be appreciative of what I have. No matter how much shopping I do, no matter how much I extend my wardrobes, I still find myself saying I don’t have enough clothes. Am I that greedy when it comes to clothes and shopping? A £20 watch would do the same job as a £200 watch, but I want only the £200 watch. Truth be told, I honestly don’t have any needs, ...