Youth experiments with No Frills Life

Imagine a life without the following:

No eating out, no shopping for clothes or gadgets, no movies. You won't use your car or hire a cab. You walk to any place you want to go to. And to top it all, you do all your house work from cooking cleaning to anything you can imagine.

Sounds like a nightmare? For 28-year-old Gaurav Mishra, it’s just an average day. He is not poor; in fact, he’s an assistant general manager with one of India’s leading automobile companies in Mumbai.

But for an entire year, Mishra, originally from Patna, has set off on an experiment to go “off consumption” — which, by his definition, means that he won’t buy anything unless it’s a necessity.

His experiment, he says, is an attempt to find a way to lead a simpler life. “People getting tired of consumerism will be a big trend. And as a marketer, it’s a trend that I want to study,” says the MBA from IIM-Bangalore.

He’s also tapping into the the ‘swapping economy’ after being forced to look for alternative accommodation instead of a five-star hotel. “I signed up for ‘couch-surfing’, in which people offer their couches to strangers for free,” he explains.

It’s early yet in the year long experiment. “I’m worried about how I’ll continue to relate to my friends if I can’t go out. Right now, they’re still willing to come over, or cook for me when I visit them.”

And of course, there’s the problem of maintaining a love life: how does a 28-year-old take a girl out on a low-maintenance date? “I’ve gone to Juhu beach once, cooked dinner twice. But I may soon run out of options,” Mishra confesses.

I hope the girl understands and does not go for an all frills experiment with someone else dude.
Good luck.