"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago".

I Had a dream last night- Its somewhere in the future. India is the 2nd largest economy after China and its become a fully developed country.Clean, great roads, swanky buildings, internet has become the largest channel of communication, Tablets a bit larger than iphone4 have overtaken PC/laptops....and then comes the recession.....Unlike the current recession which started off as mortgage crisis and real-estate bubble crash, this recession is due to people taking huge loans to buy mobile phones, and other gadgets, and then they fail to pay back the banks. SBI and ICICI has become the Lehman brothers and Goldman Sachs of the current recession............................   To sum up a nightmare, are we spending too much on gadgets? Are we going the American way of buying large houses, super luxury cars etc, with borrowed money, money which is not yet owned?  I feel the recession teaches us few things which our fathers believed in and we took for granted.

1. Value of compounding. Small drops indeed make Great lakes, if not oceans.
2. Invest: I feel Saving without "investing" is just not good-enough. Buy gold or buy assets. Invest in things you understand, Like shares or real-estate.
3. Frugality: Value-for-money is indeed important. There is a huge difference between Need and Want.As my father says "buy only what you need and not what you want."
4.  Believe in Long term-Save for the future, or for the next generation: To quote Warren Buffet-"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago".
5. Budgeting: My dad always says to plan expenditures. Spend in the same manner, when you have surplus or when you are broke. Dont get carried away with extra money.
6. Credit of any kind is BAD. Be it Loan or Credit card, keep away as much as possible.Never buy grocery or things you use daily using Credit cards. Only Use them if you think you can pay the balance next month.