Is IKEA worth it?

I live in Bangalore and we visited IKEA NAGASANDRA. We reached there via metro which was the fastest. We took the metro from JP Nagar (3kms from our place) and reached within 40 mins.

We went there because few of his friends suggested the food there is amazing and we wanted to try that out. We went on the wrong day. SUNDAY. It was soo damn crowded. People were practically hugging each other to find place on the metro😂.  

IKEA had 2 floors. Ground and first. It was our first time so we dint know much and went to first floor.

They gave us a small notebook and a pencil and asked us to make a list of what we like. That is when we realised in first floor they set up spaces for inspiration will all IKEA products and we have to make a note of the product name or id. In the ground floor(Looked kinda like a warehouse) we can go and pick the same item up and bill it.

I must be honest here. The spaces were so beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. I dont want to spoil the surprise of other spaces for u so uploading pictures of only the bedroom. We did a small picture shoot here.

I dint feel like buying anything because the price point was kind concerning me. Specially the room decor stuff was soo costly. One strand of plastic floor was priced at around Rs: 499-999. U can try zooming the pic to see the price. The white table my husband put is hand on was around Rs: 9K.

We just strolled the second floor and reached the food area.

It was soo damn crowded and overflowing with people so we couldn't buy anything to eat😓. But we found this hot and cold drink counter. You can get a tumbler for 60rs and refill it with hot drink how much ever time you want. They had the same for cold drink as well. It was awesome. We got a hot cup and cold cup and tried out all the drinks there. Blueberry, raspberry, green apple etc...

They had nice cakes and cookies as well. We tasted the cookies and it was awesome.

After spending an hour here we headed to the ground floor. The price points of towels, chairs etc were reasonable. I ended up buying a coffee mug, towel and spot cleaning pan and brush set. I needed only these items and we headed back.

My mom asked for dry flowers but it was soo pricy so I dint buy them there. Instead found a cheap shop on my way back on JP Nagar. Look at these beautiful artificial flowers. The green climber was around 60 each and the bunch of tulip was 200 I guess.

After this experience I dint go back to IKEA and thought it wasn't worth travelling that much distance. That is when I came across few YouTube channels where they said there are lot of essentials for cheap in IKEA with good quality which we can find on the IKEA app. They delivery it to ur doorstep. Shipping was abt 99rs. So I decided to install app and was surprised to see these items for cheap.

The storage containers were 19rs and I got 2 of them to store my items. Then the hanging holders for 40rs that I used to hang spoons in my kitchen. Fabric Storage boxes are a bit pricy but then the quality is great and when I tried to find similar ones on amazon it was costlier than this. I got the items I was looking for and dint buy anything unnecessary. The good thing about the fabric storage boxes is that we can fold them and store them away when we don't need them and can also pack them easily if ur travelling.

IKEA kind inspired me to give my living space a bit makeover to make everything look aesthetic. I understood the key to a beautiful space lies in mild coordinated colours that are soft on the eye and give us this pleasant feeling. My go to colour is beige, brown, sandal and wooden colour.

My furniture in the house was of different shades to I go this stickers on Flipkart and converted everything to the same colour and add curtains of the same beige shade. 

I reused most of the items that I already own. I got only the curtains in this beige shade and put stickers on the tv table(Its actually a 27 inch monitor) to make it look clean. In case Im looking for my next bed spread planning to buy something mild. I can't get a white one as it becomes easily dirty. I'll look for brown and sandal shades.

So that's the end. I know my blog was long. Thanks for sticking till the end. And my conclusion is buy the stuff that you are looking for and if you can afford it from IKEA. My honest opinion is a strict no for the room decor but the furniture and all is good. You can get inspiration in designing your space and DIY something like I did to make your space look rich and aesthetic. 💖

Do we define a materials worth or it defines our worth?

 

I have been thinking about this ever since this happened to me. I have talked about quality and reputed brands in my previous blogs but I came across a situation where I was attracted towards luxury brands especially handbags. Initially I thought that was a waste of money and who will pay that hefty amount for a piece of handbag. But when my brother in law asked what I wanted from US as he was buying stuff for us I quickly started searching for luxury handbags because the ones that cost 10k here are only 3k in US. I was searching for a while and my husband asked me a question. “Why do you need one more bag when you have other bags? Are you going to use it? You're working from home and where will you carry the expensive bag? The other bags you bought are still lying in the closet. Besides this is all that money worth it?” 
This had me thinking. I have already been trying to reduce my closet and bag collection and posted few items on poshmark. Besides this even if I buy the bag Im not travelling to office so will rarely use it. And based on the price of that bag I guess I can invest that in a better place considering my current salary.

Now this takes be back to my initial question. Who am I buying this for? Is it because I want to feel rich? I'll add one more small story. My best friend from school got a Michael kors bag (Which was expensive as hell for the price she paid in India). She took it to her clg mates wedding and on her way back she picked me up and I recognised her bags brand and told her she must be having lots of money to splurge on this one. She was happy when she heard it and said how her clg friends dint recognise the brand and how it was a waste that she took it to that wedding.

I realised I knew that brand because I watched few celebrities owning it on YouTube and few YouTubers go gaga about their first luxury purchase. Others dint know abt it and cared the least.

So based on my analysis my conclusion is if your extremely rich you define the worth of mid range brands like Caprese, Baggit, Puma etc.. Because the celebrities like Alia Bhatt, Shraddha Kapoor, Anushka Sharma become ambassadors of these brands and promote them hence defining their worth. But when it comes to luxury brands I guess the companies define the worth and even celebrities pay the price to sustain their image in their ultra rich social circle.

When common people like us own mid range products we feel we are rich and when we own this luxury brands we feel we are ultra rich but then for people like Elon musk/Mark Zuckerberg whatever they wear it doesn't matter. They define the worth for everything they own.

So what should we do?
Buy items only when you think it's worth the money you spend on it and not to maintain certain standard in the society. My mom got a jute bag from a local market few years back and it's still in good condition and durable. She also has a Caprese bag that I got here which is also in good condition and she loves it. I searched a lot about laptops and ended up getting a MacBook which I absolutely think is worth every penny. You get to decide for yourself. If you think something is worth the money and you are looking for it then maybe you must buy it. Don't buy something just for people to praise you.

Will I buy a luxury bag? Not really sure. Maybe when I feel like buying it or when its worth becomes less than 1% of the money I make maybe ill think about it :P.

PASSION AND PERFECTION

A Paradise for chocolate lovers 😋🍪🍫📍Smoor signature lounge, Lavelle road, Bengaluru.Located close to the Cubbon Park, it is the ideal spot to indulge in the world of chocolates. An excellent ...https://youtube.com/shorts/epCawLbq4P4?feature=share

 I’ll narrate the story of making of this reel as follows.

Yesterday me and my husband went out to have lunch and on our way back found this beautiful Christmas themed cafe. We quickly stopped our vehicle to check it out. I sat down to have my ice cream while my husband was shooting videos of the cafe. We reached home and he spent quite a bit of time editing those videos for our Insta/YouTube page which he created yesterday. I asked him not to waste time but he said no matter what you do you need to put in effort while doing it.

It hit me at that time. For the longest period of time I wasn’t putting enough effort into certain things and couldn't see the results as well.

In the last few months I was obsessed with skin care and spent quite a bit of time watching videos on YouTube and reading about it on google and found exactly what ingredients go into what product and which ingredients help the skin and which ones are a marketing gimmick. After this I became more mindful of what skin care I bought and I put on my skin. Now I know exactly what will work for dandruff, pimple etc..

I also made sure to educate my sister about skincare. I also talked about it with my friends.

Cool things Accenture India Provides its employees.

People who are lazy to read the tons of common mails(like me :P) while working in MNCs like Accenture must have missed these important things.

1. Benefit points - These are the health benefit points credited to employees 6 months once. We can make use of this to buy health insurances and gym memberships. A small hack I used was to get the app subscriptions of certain apps like wellness corner which can be used to get medical appointments or skin care and medicines from the tata 1 mg store inside it.
2. Reward points - We can use these points to purchase amazon shopping vouchers or if your specific on what to buy there are tons of other voucher options like lifestyle, max, hide design, bookmyshow etc..
3. Onedrive storage - We get upto to 2tb worth the storage.
4. Reading subscriptions - If your an avid reader you will love this. We get access to gold subsciption of magzter and other reading apps like onedrive library libby.
5. Chat Bot - We have chat bot to answer our queries on MSTeams to spare our hassle to find someone to get it clarified.
   
   Its been less than a year here at accenture and ill update my post when I find more. Thanks for reading ;) Well if you guys work in different organization be sure to read ur mails to make sure you dont miss out on some benefit your organization is providing you.

When did you realise you needed a partner?

I dint realise I needed a partner until I had one. I had an arranged marriage at the age of 23 which I feel was pretty early. I wanted to explore and have fun on my own but 8 months after joining my first job covid lockdown happened and everything changed because of work from home.

My cousin who was 25 at that time was getting married and my parents said it took 2 yrs to get the right match for my cousin and will take the same time for me. I dint really care at that time but a month later I got a request from my husbands matrimony profile.
I rejected it :P because I dint want to marry anyone as I was doing the same with other requests. But eventually there are these local matchmakers in our community who had my husbands biodata and gave it to my parents and they visited him and liked him a lot.

Marriage was an alien concept to me and I was always scared abt it. But when the wedding dates were fixed I talked to him and found out he is also a person who feels the same as I do. 
1) He heard me out.
2) Asked me if Im willing to go ahead with the wedding.
3) Asked my dreams and aspirations

All these things made me realise maybe I just go ahead and marry him. Sometimes we get this gut feeling about certain things and they turn out to be exactly the way we think. Marrying my partner was one such quick decision and it was the best decision of my life.

When we are in school or college we always have a gang of friends to spend time with but as we go older I think having a partner is good. We might think it adds complications in life but trust yourself that when you meet the right person life becomes more fun and meaningful.
You have someone whom you can eat with, travel, watch series, discuss about your worries, your insecurities, advice you when you go wrong, supports you, etc..

I know friends and family can do this but having a partner- that one person for you as a whole is great

Clothing lessons I learnt💃

Growing up my parents used to buy clothing only 3-4 times a year mainly during festive seasons or sometimes when they needed any piece of clothing. They dint have television nor internet so they as consumers had the freedom to decide and mindfully buy the stuff they need only when they need it unlike our generation. Here we turn our tv on or any social media platform it bombards us with lot of products which dint exist in the previous era and we are tricked into believe that these are essentials. There is some sale or offer going on every other day on the online shopping platforms. We have piled up our closets with skin care, hair care products, slippers, clothes, bags, home essentials etc.. Im also guilty of piling my closet up. So here are the clothing lessons I learnt: 

1. Don't buy a new skin care or hair care product unless the previous one is over.

2. Invest in quality over quantity. Im not that kind of person who looks into brands while I purchase stuff. If something feels good I buy it and I am happy to pay less. But these days I have realised that investing in proper brands is actually beneficial. Instead of buying uncomfortable rough cheap jean we can pay more to buy a branded jean that can last us long and in the mean time is comfortable. Now I prefer to have one branded jean over 10 rough low quality ones.

3. Investing in brands saves time. This true because we don't have to run to places and hunt for pieces instead go to the branded store and we can tell our size and just get the item and be back in no time. You don't have to try multiple garments to find out what fits you. Because once you buy a specific size from a brand you know it and can buy it next time without any hassle of trying it.

4. Invest in basic pieces which can be styled in versatile way. If you think brands are expensive try buying only the basic pieces from brands. Example: Jeans, leggings, inner wear, plain t-shirts etc.. We can mix and match these with other pieces to create outfits. We girls must invest in white and black leggings because we pair that with most of our Kurtis.

5. Invest in neutrals rather than bright colours. I made a mistake of buying a red handbag and it doesn't match very well with all my outfits. Rather than this black or white bags or beige coloured bags go with all outfits and give a rich and sophisticated look. Same thing with slippers. Investing in black, white and sandal coloured footwear can match with most of our outfits.

Here's my take. I have restrained myself from buying clothes multiple times a year and rather use all that money to invest in one good branded piece of clothing.

Life Lessons I learnt from my Partner💕

Well the past year was a bliss and had its owns happy and sad moments but the lessons I learnt was massive. Im happy to share the following life lessons that everyone should know about either they are married or not.

1. Be yourself, the world will adjust - This is a very strong quote that frames his perspective towards life. I admire him because he is that person who doesn't care about what the world thinks rather gives importance to his mental sanity.

2. No Problem is Big Problem - He is a firm believer of this. His famous dialogue is, "Is this a problem?" To be honest this annoys me like hell. But when I think about the problem after whining about it for hours I genuinely feel this isn't as big as I thought it would be.

Some problem might be big but when we approach towards the solution of it rather than focussing towards the problem life gets bit easier.

3. Don't Overthink - Just my overthinking problem😂

4. Don't obsess over the things that has happened and focus on what's next - I really have a hard time doing it and trying hard now as well to focus on the next.

5. Mind your own business and don't advice anyone - This is an important lesson because I often end up telling people what to do but in reality they know it. The world can exist without my opinion is a strong lesson I learnt.

6. Work hard, Party hard - That's the famous quote of the IIM Bangalore guys which sounds cool. 

7. Do what you love - He is a big time believer of this.

8. Dream big - I used to dream big when I was in final days of school and clg first year but sometime at the end of clg when few things dint workout the way I wanted I started believing I can do only a certain set of things and stopped dreaming big and thinking of doing big. But after I met him and seeing him achieve things right in front of my eyes made me believe again. No matter how many attempts or how long it takes you will get there eventually. So don't stop trying.

9. Don't care about others opinions - I don't know how he does this because it is really hard for me to adjust when someone advises as it offends me instantly and stays in my head hampering my mental peace.

10. Don't scream at people or get angry - Im kind of a short tempered person who gets offends easily and Im quite good at hiding it because I show it only to my close ones. Im trying to control it now.

11. Make your own life decisions - Don't let anyone say what you must do in life. 

I make him sound like a saint but that's not true 100%. Sometimes he annoys me but that's how he is and I love him.