Tag: empowering

Matching Money

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Kaveri is already an ace negotiator

I’ve now agreed to match whatever she saves this (financial) year, with the equivalent each year up until she reaches 21.

We’ve started counting her savings and placed them in a box at my home

That’s now over 5,000Rs from the two years I’ve known her, from selling bracelets at the kids market and generally extorting from the foreigners. 🤔🤭🙂

It’ll be put into a protected account so no one else can get their grubby hands on it.

One of the many many lessons I learned from Manjula is how she experienced people, particularly men but not exclusively, and also family members (and first husband) who would take her money, gold and send her out to the moneylenders to borrow more.

We will have protections in place, help educate Kaveri and hopefully the strong woman I know she will become will help safeguard her as an adult.

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Plus she’s astute at reminding me of my ‘pearls of wisdom’ when I forget to follow my own advice. So we’ll also keep an eye on each other.

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So Kaveri… the savings are for you to choose how to use BUT it’s a waste to spend on parties. Leave that until you’re rich.

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Here’s how we arrived here —- from Facebook

Maid in India 5 plus one

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img_0170we’ve had requests to provide a bit more of an explanation.

So this was over seven years ago, maybe a few months after she’d started at ‘Moksha Manor’. good old enlightenment street!  She came every day for two hours, had to make lunch and a range of other jobs for the princely sum of 1000 Rupees per month. In theory with one days holiday each week.

Starting from the top left and working clockwise in a sort of spiral. Some jobs were daily, weekly or monthly…

floor sweeping, sink cleaning,  pooja, dusting pictures, cooking, cleaning work surfaces, tables, f (special one this, looking after her skin. she was having a reaction to something, it worked out to be the sun, after a few false trails), watering flowers, cleaning toilets (yes cleaning toilets, more on that one later), being friendly to the dog, teaching me Kannada (big failure there, on my part, obviously) feeding the dog when I’m not there and bathing her, washing clothes, daily time keeping, cleaning the grills (anti crime and Monkeys) at the windows, floor cleaning, dusting and washing shelving in ‘hall’, cleaning bathroom.  Clearly this was also supposed to be fun! and there were a few other more complicated concepts such as trust 😉 believe it or not and it did take the involvement of a few friends but we even managed to discuss egalitarianism (using different words, obviously) so what had she let herself in for?