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Year In Review - 2024 Monthly Expenses
Another year and another review of our monthly expenses. Time to check where we have spent the most in 2024 and see if we are with in the budget. I will also be going over our inflation numbers starting from my financial independence till date, which is a good 7 years. At the end of the post I will prepare a new budget of monthly expenses for the year 2025. Let’s get started.
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Pump House Construction Problems
After having decided on going with an eco friendly construction for our pump house, we talked to several contractors and narrowed down to two of them. Later we finalized on of them. The contractor checked out our farm and agreed to build a pump house but had some constraints. First, he complained that there is no water and any construction is not possible without ample water. Second, he wanted electricity to cut the bricks, tiles, rods etc. He asked us to figure out how to resolve those two issues first and then he can write up a contract.
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Year In Review 2024
A very happy new year to all my readers. Another year has passed and it is time for the usual year in review to bring out some highlights and low lights from our life in the past year. Time to reflect and assess how things went. The past year was good in some ways and not so good in other ways. I think it is pretty much how most years are anyway :). Don’t think a year can be all good or all bad.
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Be Mindful Of Health
While I advocate being frugal, saving as much as possible, investing in the right instruments and retiring early, there are alternate views which make equal sense. I was intrigued by one such article [internet archive]. The author wonders what is the point of saving millions if you cannot enjoy it when you are retired because you are too old or not in good health. Instead, they suggest enjoying and spending money as soon as possible on the right things of course, instead of diligently saving for a future which may or may not come. No one knows how long they will live.
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Eco Friendly Pump House
After having decided to build a not so small pump house, we wondered if we should stretch our budget a little bit and go for eco friendly construction material. We have always wondered how it would be to live in a house constructed with mud bricks. Many say that it not only is eco friendly for several reasons, but also helps moderate temperature inside the house, keeping it cool during summers and warm during winters. We have only heard of the advantages but never experienced. We visited a couple of farmers who built their houses with mud bricks, but a one or two day experience does not tell you much. So we decided to build an eco friendly pump house and experience it ourselves.
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Mechanical Keyboard Repair
A few days ago, my mechanical keyboard started to develop some weird issues. If you remember, this is my first mechanical keyboard which I bought in November, 2021. The purchase date has a significance because in almost exactly 3 years, in November 2024, the keyboard started to misbehave. I know it is a coincidence, but sometimes I wonder if it is part of the planned obsolescence theory. Manufacturers design the hardware in such a way that the products automatically fail after a certain period.
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Pump House
Since we finished the bore, the next order of business is to build a small pump house. Small enough to house the starter for the submersible pump that we will install once we get the electric connection. We wanted to be prepared with everything for the electric connection. Again we had to go through a lot of thought and planning. Should we build something really small like a 5 feet by 5 feet room, just enough to house the starter for the pump and some tools. Or should we build something bigger for future needs. After much discussions and thought, we decided to go with a slightly big room with bathroom so we can use it when we visit the farm instead of worrying about where to relieve ourselves.
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Music System Frequency Response
Although I am not an audiophile, I am a critical listener and I can tell when the sound quality is not up to the mark. While I like my current 5.1 music system setup, I still feel like it could do better. I spend about 70% of the time listening to music and about 30% of the time watching movies, or TV shows or live TV. So a major part of my listening is music. Generally I like a very flat response from my speakers. I don’t like overly bright sound in general. A slightly warm sound is acceptable, but prefer the frequency response to be flat so I can listen to music as the original author intended it. So I decided to check the frequency response of my speakers.
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Solar CCTV Installation
Our real estate agent and friend Mr. J suggested that we install a CCTV before doing anything else in the farm. Neither he nor we were know about possibility of theft in the area. But while talking to a few of our other farmer friends, some of them have had a bad experience with theft. So having a CCTV there seemed like a good idea if for nothing but to act as a deterrent. Since we are not going to live in the farm yet, anything we buy for the farm like pipes or pump etc, can be easy targets for theft. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, the farmers these days are neither innocent nor god fearing nor humble nor moral nor ethical or any of the other positive adjectives you normally associate with farmers.
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Rich Or Wealthy?
I consider myself wealthy but not rich. While it sounds like they are two sides of the same coin, there is a subtle difference. One is related to contentment while the other is related to possessions. If you are investing money to buy more stuff, you are trying to get rich. If you are investing to buy freedom, then you are trying to be wealthy. I can keep going, but the Stoic philosophy has as much to say about wealth. The name of the game is to buy freedom not things. Of course everyone needs money, but it is important to understand that happiness isn’t always found in material possessions.
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