-
Real World Application of 4% Rule
I have not even completed 4 years into retirement, yet I wanted to check how the 4% rule is working for me. Please keep in mind that this is such a short time in retirement that we can’t make any conclusions about whether 4% rule really works in this day and age at all in India. We will only know its usefulness in a much longer duration like a decade or so. This exercise is to understand how a 4% rule will work with and without the 20% buffer I usually talk about. Lets get started.
...continue reading -
Be Smart Or Not Be Stupid?
It is amazing how many people focus on being smart than avoiding stupidity. One could be the smartest person in town, but if they keeping making silly mistakes, eventually the mistakes pile up enough to waste a smart decision. This is even more true in investing. I am one of those people trying to be smart instead of avoiding mistakes. This reminds me of an article I read a long time ago about the findings of a scientist and statistician Simon Ramo.
...continue reading -
Why I Switched From Wordpress To Jekyll
The past few days have been quite busy, so I have not been regular with my posts. One of the reasons was because of the migration of my blog from WordPress to Jekyll. This post is going to be a bit technical, so for those who are not interested in software should probably skip this one. I have been using WordPress to publish my blog. My WordPress has been running on a Google Compute Engine instance since I started the blog. But I have been wanting to move away from WordPress for a long time. So I decided to go with static web pages. Unfortunately the process was not quite easy because WordPress offers so many things out of the box. Doing all that work manually was some work, but it was well worth it.
...continue reading -
The Time I Could Not Resist Teaching My Kid
Normally I don’t teach anything to my daughter unless she specifically asks me about something. This is inline with our belief that kids learn best when they are curious themselves, rather than explaining something that we want them to learn. All part of the whole unschooling journey that we are going through. However, from time to time I make some exceptions. One such exception happened recently where I had to teach something to my kid without her asking me because I could not stop myself :). Guilty as charged! But let me explain.
...continue reading -
Getting The Most Out Of Solar Panels
It’s been a while since I updated you on my solar panel project. I thought I should continue where I left off. So after collecting all the data from my solar panels, batteries, grid and load, I observed something interesting. While the SMU was disconnecting the grid so that the load can run on batteries and solar energy, we are not fully utilizing the solar energy. During a perfectly clear day, the solar panel is generating more power than we can use during the day. The excess energy is just getting wasted. Can we do something about it?
...continue reading -
Giving Up Satellite TV
As part of minimalism, we try to reduce stuff from our life every now and then. Like Bruce Lee said, “hack away the unessential”. You may recall some of our minimalism activities from the past like selling our car or the minimalist wardrobe. This time around we wanted to experiment with cutting out satellite TV from our life.
...continue reading -
Improving Returns On Investment
A few days ago I wrote a post on how to start on a simple investment plan. The reason I wrote that post is to help you get started because it is easier to start on a simple plan. The more complex a plan, the more we procrastinate. But what if you have already started on your investment journey and want to improve the returns? Continuing from where we left off with the simple investment plan, here are some things you can do to improve returns.
...continue reading -
Follow-up to Virtual Meetup #6
Thank you to everyone who joined virtual meetup #6. As usual, we had some lively discussions. This post is a follow-up to that meeting to answer any questions that I could not answer at the time. So here goes –
...continue reading -
Asset Allocation After Retirement
What asset allocation should you go for after retirement? That is not a common question I hear from readers of my blog because most of them are still in the accumulation phase and don’t have to worry too much about retirement yet. But it is something that I struggle with myself from time to time since I am already retired. If you are close to retirement or are already retired, maybe this post will help. In case you don’t already know what an asset allocation means, please read my post on it.
...continue reading -
A Simple Investment Plan
It has been 10 years since I first started investing. When I look back at how I invested back in the day, it looks so simple. No complicated planning or exotic products. I always believe in starting with something simple. Whether it be investments, work, hobbies, nutrition, exercise, you name it. There are several advantages of this approach.
...continue reading
