Taranjeet Kaur

Budgeting a road trip: An Indian wedding

August 19, 2019

As I’m writing this I’m a few days away for the big trip 100 miles away to a family wedding – Indian style! In case you don’t already know, I’m Sikh and my husband is Sikh Punjabi and aside from two small weddings (one of them our own) this is my first ‘proper Indian wedding’.

I’m very hot on budgeting and tracking at the moment, I mention some of this in my podcast Episode 12 Let’s talk about money!

If you haven’t been to a wedding of this style before there are a few things to consider: the build-up starts the week before, a week of meeting, greeting, food eating. For the rest of the family going up early, there are two celebratory days, for each of those days they require a suit and the wedding day they have a suit for the ceremony and another for the reception afterward.

All together four suits and of course the hair, makeup, bling to go with it. I’m doing things simply, I wear a Dastar anyway, minimal makeup and thankfully my sister in law is a dressmaker and I got tons of suits from our wedding to use (another tradition marriage=suits, some you may never wear). I also have pretty dresses for our daughter given to us as gifts as she is less than a year old. That has made the whole process cheaper and easier, there’s also this unwritten law where I have to look nicer than my mother in law?

While I don’t have to pay out or organize some things, here are the things that I am budgeting for:

£120 Hotel already paid for – Aparthotels was a great find!

Planned spend:

£30 Supermarket snacks for journey/hotel
£40 Make up
£75 Petrol
£50 Service stations and extra money
£36 Parking at the hotel
£20 In fiver notes for Sagan (a gift to bride and groom)

Total: £251

That’s quite a lot! Considering it’s a wedding, not a holiday, let’s see how well we did:

Actual spend: £167

£12 Snacks for trip
£4 nail varnish
£30 petrol
£7 drinks at services
£15 hot food at services
£25 parking
£50 petrol
£16 missing flip flops
£20 flip flop replacement (me)

Total leftover: £84
Money made: £20

We were under budget and I got some too! Here’s a basic break down, I got our snacks for the pound shop before we left, I bought nail varnish because the Gell nails I got a few days earlier fell off. This hasn’t happened before and usually, I rave about them though it was a busy day in the salon and I feel they were rushed. Kindly we got a family discount on nails and my make up was paid for me too, that’s a blessing (and a saving of at least £40). My Sagaan money was also given to me by my MIL and the parking was cheaper than expected.

I even finished my 40 Days of meditation for prosperity on the Wedding day!

Even though I tracked this trip, the numbers are still fuzzy, it’s incredible how free-flowing you feel on a trip away- anywhere. Even the £50 on petrol I’m questioning did it really go solely to transport?!

As we left the hotel and were ready to go in the carpark a little down the road, husband T forgot his flip flops and because we were finally in the car with baby SK, I refused to go back, who leaves there flip flops under a sofa anyway? I gave him the money towards a new pair and when we came home my Havanas had broken after 2 years of use.

What did I do with the rest of the money? How did I make money too?

I saved it of course!

I saved a some into a Christmas fund to use for leisure and gifts at the end of the year and £40 into savings for us to go on days out.

I made money through being a part of an Indian wedding where I pretend to put eyeliner on the groom and best man. Yep really.

I did all this through using the card and App Monzo (this is not sponsored, only sharing my experience), it has notifications of spending, you can photograph receipts and add tags too. It’s helped me see what I’ve spent and gone over what the money went on.

I use it for food shopping mostly, that way money isn’t getting wasted or just mysteriously goes. There are saving pots on there and it’s easy to transfer to other accounts. I’m a month in and I’ll report back more findings soon!

Do you have any helpful money hacks you’d like to share to readers? Write them in the comments below!

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10 Ways to better manage your money

July 31, 2019

I recently did a new podcast, you can listen to True talks with Taran on iTunes and Audio Boom. It’s about money! Yes the thing we use, love to come across and don’t talk about deeply. Instead of writing the script out, you can listen to the show below or read the takeaways that you could turn and reflect on yourself and the resources I’m using right now.

Money isn’t a bad thing to talk about, the wellness industry is hot on abundance! Attracting that abundance! I’m currently 30/40 day into Meditation for prosperity 1 and it’s going well – I haven’t had a windfall of money though I am getting intentional and gaining awareness.

Look at your relationship with money through the years, growing up, in your teens and twenties, to now. We can carry past money beliefs, sayings, habits, and patterns throughout over lives. Just because your mum did x and your dad x, doesn’t mean you have to follow in their pursuit. I mention how being middle class we had enough money though I didn’t reach for further education studies, I knew basic budgeting but nothing more, I was told credit cards are bad even though I’m pretty sure my Mum and Dad had them so in that sense they were talking from experience.
Don’t go from fine to financial abuse as I did. Your money is yours and lending can be overbearing, set a limit and stick to it. Make a FU account you can read about it here, the basic idea is that if your circumstance changes in any way, you’ve been responsible enough to have a plan and provide for yourself. I’m happily married and I have one.
Save for a specific thing and if you can change the name on your accounts to help you do so. My regular accounts have positive statements such as Thank you bills , Supports Me. My savings Holidays, Yoga Teaching and so on.
Follow the 10 percent rule to save and another 10 percent (or however much you can) to donate to charity. I take may take £50 from what I receive towards savings, then £10 goes to charity, £5 of it as direct debit and the other £5 a month saved till June and December to donate somewhere.
Lists! Lists! Just as you write a shopping list in the supermarket, have a shopping list for the month ahead, if it’s not on the list – don’t buy it.
Don’t spend it all the day after payday. This is poor thinking, you want to develop rich thinking. Budget in a set amount for leisure and use it throughout the month.
Tidy up! Having a set place for things means not going out to replace them, I’m now doing this with kids toys and headphones.
Care for and maintain your items so you don’t need to buy another expensive purchase or spend extra, I’m learning to do this with iPad stands, I refreshed my sheepskins in the wash and brushed them new.
Change your shopping habits! I’m getting better at actually buying what I set out to have in my wardrobe then single sale items and also try stuff on. Go for quality over quantity and what brings you joy. Project 33-3 is a great way to do this.
Set up a kids account if you have one, we have a regular account that I can add to and take away from till she’s 13 then it’s hers and savings to open at 18. If your’s are older set an allowance and counter in the spend, save, give. Kids are never too young to learn about money, they absorb habits so easily!

Resources I’m using:

Podcast: Bad with money with Gabby Dunn

Websites: moneysavingexpert.com, thefinancialdiet.com , wrachelwrites.com, coupleofsense.com

Videos: Minority Mindset, Financial Literacy – Melody Hobson at Ted

Books: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiosaki, Get Rich Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffiled Thomas, A year of less by Cait Flanders

My brothers feature on Episode 12 True Talks with Taran podcast!

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Switch off till Sunday experiment

June 2, 2019

I’m trialing something at the moment, a human or social experiment where I switch off from social media from Friday evening to Saturday evening, though usually, I extend it to Saturday night.

I did a podcast about it, interviewing my friend Channah about the Jewish practice of Sabbath.

I’m doing it for: a break away from something that’s so easy to flick to and browse, for the simple principle that it didn’t always exist so why should it always now, everything is temporary if Instagram dies (like Vine did) I don’t feel like I’ve wasted so much attention on it. Also, it’s a test on my will and to see what other things I can use that time for.

I think we all need time to switch off from things from time to time.
So far I’ve felt better than usual on Sundays and have more willingness to put energy into.

I didn’t have my own name for it then, you could call it Freedom Friday or Family investment time.

I like Switch off till Sunday.

Even today, (a Sunday) a reminder of it came up, as I was going back onto using my phone and social media – @hellobexa has a Sunday blog swap (on Twitter) I’m a fan of collecting new blogs and adding my own too! We, as a family went out to visit some relatives and Husband Ji forgot his phone. A common thing for some but not for him. He’s on his phone a LOT. Sometimes it’s Instagram, or looking up next buys but most commonly you’ll find him reading Paat (Sikh scripture, prayers) on a Gutka app.

I’m all for accessible Gurbani in life but all the time – no. No, because he won’t look up. No, because we can’t hold a conversation (or his driving guidance goes out the window). No, because he sometimes looks unsociable. No, because as a turbaned Sikh, I believe in order to be there for all, he needs to be present to all too.

I told him maybe Guru Ji wanted this for him to experience being completely present for a day. A gift from the Universe. And he even surprised himself, to maybe leave his phone alone on Sundays.

So far the experiment goes like this:

On Fridays I:

Try (though harder with a baby) to finish any ongoing tasks or tasks that haven’t been fulfilled all week that require a lot of work or attention.
Tidy and clean up my room late afternoon/evening – hoover, wipe surfaces, clean diffusers, empty the bins, I do the laundry and bed sheets every other week.
Then I cook some food and if there’s enough left over use it for Saturday.
I can spend Friday night – Saturday night doing things that bring me joy, relaxation, fun or simply focused family time.

So far I:
Have gone for a run with husband Ji on Fridays!
Read a few magazine articles outside in the sun.
Visited family, chatted and cooked with them.
Explored future ideas such as teaching yoga this September and restudying at some point.

Then on Sundays, I am open to going back on Instagram and Twitter, though I’m not actually in a rush to. I do something I want to (such as writing, podcasting.) I sometimes refer to it as Taran time and Daddy and daughter day.

I end the weekend drawing a rough schedule out for the week approaching and feel like I am beginning again. I plan or contact people I need to and overall I feel ahead of myself.

Though I’ve also learned so far it’s easy to get into overwhelm when a huge proportion of things you want to do, you do at the end of the week.

This happened earlier, I put on suncream and meditated for 23 minutes in the garden. It helped, I felt the overwhelm fade enough to write out just three tasks to do today. This blog post is one of them.

I aim to spread tasks out for the week, simple steps and seizing moments of time.

My friend Chanah who switches off for the Jewish practice of Sabbath says these key pointers:

DO
Set yourself enough time to do everything before you plan to unwind or before sunset. Make the room clean and peaceful where you can.
You could start it off with a candle lighting ceremony or just simply saying – Ok all done!
Have enough food to avoid going food shopping or make a batch to eat.
Treat yourself! Shower, read, talk to people, do a face mask, meditate for longer than usual – whatever makes you feel good and create a sense of happiness or meaning!
Make time for yourself, your friends, Sangat.
Spend extra time on spiritual activities – learn about a bani, listen to Katha and so on.
Do Seva or good deeds.

DON’T
Get stressed about cleaning, do what you can do and it’ll be worth it when it’s done.
Don’t be strict on yourself, your mental and physical health as well as your families come first. Don’t fall into – shoulds, what if’s, indecision and comparison.
Don’t do things you consider a chore or that generally make you go Meh!
Don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t work out how you want or expected.

We go over more on the podcast and to find out more follow @secretly.ch.ana on Instagram!

So far I’ve found a little withdrawal in not using my phone so much those two days, it manifests into frustration and I end up falling into blaming husband ji. It needs some work but I’m going to continue my experiment as long as I can.

Have you done or are doing a similar challenge? What activities would you add? Let me know in the comments below!

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How I got here timeline

April 5, 2019

I’ve changed up my About Me page to something a lot shorter and current. I can’t let go of this well-put page as it has so much back story and it’s still relevant in some way. How I got here, how I got through a bunch of ‘stuff’ that life threw my way.

Throughout my life so far three things have been constant positive resources – yoga, art and writing.

I have done various forms from Hatha to Bikram to Kundalini, yoga and meditation are such powerful tools, to be experienced and used on and off the mat in real life.

I really enjoy soulfully painting with my fingers, intuitive brush work and mixed media journaling. I’m all for creativity and art making as a process, experience, a tool for self discovery and healing.

I have explored spoken word poetry as a spring board for free speech in the past, I enjoy writing poems on my typewriter and use free style morning pages to take out the trash! I write about my experiences, practises and sharing resources of what living a spiritual and creative full life is all about!

At 18 I got my first art supplies and turned boredom to curiosity and started playing in a journal. In my early twenties I discovered Kundalini Yoga and it transformed my life! On to my mid twenties where I learnt about Sikhi and started practicing in my life.

Read on to find out more about my background in Yoga, Art and Sikhi:

Let’s talk yoga:

At 13….

I started Hatha Yoga, I found a book one day in a second hand store titled just YOGA and practised the poses from pictures then I went onto follow along with a DVD every morning. My routine went like this: yoga, paper round, writing, school. Looking back I think yoga helped me immensely in school, as there were a few areas I really struggled:

Emotional balance
Self organisation
Balance and co ordination
Ability to focus
Nervousness/anxiety
Self consciousness/weight issues
Low self confidence

Although I was young and would find many ways to overcome personal challenges, yoga allowed me time and space to breathe, stretch and be more still.

At 20….

I took up yoga practice daily, this time Bikram (hot) Yoga. I was working at a job that brought me a great deal of frustration and sadness, each evening I would come home after cycling 4 miles, to do yoga for 90 minutes. Yoga helped:

Restore faith and trust in myself
To look at the bigger picture
To give me a boost of energy as I was very fatigued
To give a more positive attitude to the future and use it off the mat too

At 25….

I practised Bikram Yoga till my heating system broke and I could no longer practice it. I wasn’t sure what to try next so I stopped looking and one day before having an afternoon nap I read a preface in a book on Kundalini yoga and felt inspired and no longer tired. I mentioned it to my boyfriend at the time who encouraged me to do some videos on Youtube which I did and haven’t felt tired to nap since!

Around this time I was learning to drive and really struggled with my nerves and committing everything to memory, before my lessons I would do a Kundalini Yoga set and the instructor would notice a huge shift to driving calmly and encouraged me that whatever I was now doing to continue it!

I went along to White Tantric Yoga before my driving test and passed first time. Since then, Kundalini has brought so many positive changes into my life and I do it daily.

Here are a few:

I respond rather than react
I breathe fluidly and deeply, before I would hold my breath in times of anxiety causing panic attacks
I no longer get worried and fret about small issues
I feel a sense of support and guidance
I’m more present and have energy
I can communicate more easily with all kinds of people
I take better care of my skin and body
I switched to more nourishing foods
I live my truth from the whole of me – Sat (truth) Nam (identity)
I make life changes with less decision fatigue and more courage

At 26…

I went to a the Great British Kundalini festival and met wonderful people, one of them mentioned I should go to a talk by Basics of Sikhi called ‘Who is Guru Nanak?’ And though there was another great workshop at the same time and was tempted to go, I thought of all the times I’d sing a Kirtan song with ‘Guru’ in it and trusted the word of my new friend. That is how I came to learn about Sikhi. A faith, religion and way of life: remembrance to God, Waheguru, the one creator as an infinite source around us and the source of everything, truthful living, equality of mankind. Singing praises in holy company, meditation, honest living and serving mankind are just some of the messages of Sikhi.

Since then I have chosen the Sikhi path and continue to learn through videos, podcasts, books and going to Gurdwaras. (I join in with Christian celebrations and still have my own ways of being, my values have changed and realisations..)

At 27….
I did Kundalini Level 1 teacher training with Sahej Academy! For my own personal development, interest in yoga and meditation and to teach others.

Yoga and meditation are incredible tools that you can begin using right away.

Let’s talk Art and writing:

Writing has been a free tool that I have used since I started doing yoga at 13 years old, I used to journalevery morning between a paper round and school. I enjoy it, I write about myself easily and information that may be useful to people in some way. There is a beauty to writing, to being honest and not knowing who may stumble upon what you produce and the impact you have on their day, their life.

At 18 I started painting, I am mostly self taught through books, videos and blog posts. I have around 20 large paintings that are stored away and no photos of them, I feel like part of me is lost to the reader! I have attended some drawing classes and dropped out of a drawing course having learnt a lot of incredible things and really surprised myself to my abilities. Bottom line though: I am a painter, I paint and learn whatever I want, on my own terms. I paint in a range of styles: folk, outsider, abstract, expressionism with acrylics and mixed media. You can view my works in my portfolio.
I’d like people to feel their own aliveness and to look deeper into their truth in my paintings.

I used to have a big creative space, I loved it, I practically lived in it. However a change of circumstance minimised my creative space to about the size of a large box. I don’t paint BIG anymore, I don’t splatter my art brush like I used to, this prompted a website to combine yoga and small art in 2017. I am reminded that everything is temporary and to look at the silver linings. Creativity and Art are not luxuries!

Creativity and self development saw me through depression and a job change, to happier times.

“I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.”
― Frida Kahlo

My creative space expanded to a larger room and in 2018 I took a break from teaching yoga and began writing stories in a project I want to publish in the near future. This is the year I got married and I’m finally finding my feet again and drawing, writing, painting! Finding your way to happiness again in life is key. I feel blessed for the opportunity to share once again!

Here’s to failing, getting up, failing, getting up!

And a brief bit on Sikhi:

I found out about Sikhi one Summer and from there I learnt from Basics of Sikhi, Nanak Naam, GurbaniMC and attending my local Gurdwara, for a much more in-depth description read My journey into Sikhi, the long version.

Practicing Sikhi through Simran, Banis, Sangat and Seva has become the most important of my life that it’s impossible to mention in such a short paragraph! If your unfamiliar with these terms that’s ok, I want to use this blog as chance to educate people about Sikhi while also holding a space for creative living that absolutely anyone is welcome to visit and gather ideas and inspiration from to live a full happy life!

‘Make truth your self discipline and make good deeds the lines you draw; make chanting the name your cleansing bath’. – Siri Guru Granth Sahib

To find out what I’m up to now go to my new About page!

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Creating a moment of joy in minutes

April 1, 2019

There’s one thing I’ve noticed with all the time off I’ve had, it’s really only one moment in my day that I really feel joy from.

It’s not any specific moment either, like when someone will sit down and watch a TV soap for half an hour every day and that’s their quiet time. Or any show on Netflix either (though Working Moms is great!) It could be though if I made that my thing.

That moment of contentment can come in the form of making a cup of tea and drinking it outside, playing in my journal or as of lately, lighting a candle and doing morning pages. Or drawing first thing and turning on an aromatherapy diffuser in the evening.

Sure I may have enough time for a lot of joyful moments right now, so I’m savoring them. A 30-minute pregnancy yoga set from Bumps in motion by Patricia A. Anaya, an Epsom salt bath at 10am, watching two movies on a weekend. Those are things I love to do!

You don’t need a ton of time off to enjoy yourself.

Sure if you work in a mind-numbing boss draining job, you make want to take a few days off to unplug before you set up a day of me time. I know what it’s like to try and steal time in-between to do something you enjoy rather than being paid to do.

It’s those fleeting moments that count.

As a starter set up 10-15 minutes for yourself a day, where you can just be in your being. Set a timer. Watch it grow, your mood change and values are recognized inside and out.

What feel-good moments that bring contentment do you have you would like to share?

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After Life, being thankful in life

March 25, 2019

I have just deleted Netflix. Wait, I still have husband’s account to fall back on! I’m doing it to save that little extra money each month and I noticed that I was series and movie watching too often, it was becoming an unhealthy fall back habit.

Before I did that I watched Ricky Gervais’s After Life.

For those who don’t know Ricky Gervais’s characters and comedy, when you mention his name to people they tend to pull a face and say they don’t really like his stuff or agree that he’s funny.

After Life is about Gervais’s character Tony dealing with depression after his wife had died. He’s on a bitter hating spree and through videos, his wife left and experiences had he comes out the other side smiling.

The first set of episodes are pretty grim and of course, there’s the swearing. Though each one has a thoughtful angle and that’s what kept me watching.

The last two episodes had me in tears. Complete tears.

What is brought up has relevance to dementia, death and the people you love so it can hit hard.

There were some great actors (and new too) that I recognise from stand up comedy and Shaun of the Dead, it gave a certain nostalgia.

The end comes full circle back to happiness and changing yourself.

The other theme was on being thankful for the people in your life, really thankful. As in even the people that annoy you so much your head might explode, be thankful.

I have such people in my life and one of them called straight after watching the shows final episodes. I wanted to soak in the brilliance of the story and messages in it but I called them back shortly anyway. We spoke and as usual, I listened, they talked, I listened, they talked. I spoke authentically, even though our views don’t match up, this can sometimes cause tension.

Though now, I am thankful I have such a person.

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