This page is stale. I haven’t updated it since late 2020. Some information shared here might be obsolete now.


Welcome to my blog! My real name is Chandan, and I run this blog. But I go by my pen name re-ynd (pronounced as rewind, don't ask why the name, long story). Once in a while my wife also writes an article or two and goes by the pen name of mrs. re-ynd. In the past I have been a software engineer at Google for 11 years. Before that I completed my MS in Computer Engineering and B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. I retired early at the age of 37 to spend more time with family and my dearest daughter. We are part of the F.I.R.E (financial independence retire early) culture and neither me nor my wife work for a living. I don't intend to make money out of this blog. It is there only for informational purpose.


My daughter and me


Why this blog?

I am lucky to have worked in a well paying job which helped me retire early. But if I knew what I know now, I would have retired by 30. So for most people, even if they are not lucky to have a well paying job, early retirement is certainly possible if you know how to go about it. In the hope of helping others with my experience, I started this blog soon after I retired in June 2018. May be you will learn what I wish I knew much earlier in my life.



Meet-ups

Sometimes it helps to have a one on one conversation instead of reading a blog or watching a video. So in 2020 I started a new tradition of having meet-ups once in a while with my readers. Everyone gets a chance to ask me questions directly and I get to learn from other's experiences. Unfortunately, after the first meet-up, COVID happened and I switched to virtual meet-ups. If you are interested to join a meet-up, sign up for an up-coming meeting.


Folks from our first meet-up


Why are there ads?

No one likes ads I know. I did not have any ads when I started the blog. But as the costs were going up I decided to show some ads. It is unfortunate, but even free has a cost. I am not sponsored by any one, nor do I post any affiliate links (amazon links for example) or sell any products on this blog or elsewhere. So to offset the costs of running the blog I started running ads. My expenses are still more than the ad revenue. And if that ever changes I will certainly reduce the number of ads or donate the excess income. I am not going to profit from it.


Income, expenses and cashflow

If you'd like to know about my income sources, please read the post on The Truth About My Passive Income. To know my monthly expenses, annual expenses, investment returns and my net worth, check out the latest year in review series. To understand my cash flow in retirement, check out the post on it


Monthly expenses


Stats

As of end of 2020, there are about 100 subscribers and 500 unique monthly visitors. Nothing much to write about there. Pre-tax ad revenue is around Rs. 70/month with expenses of running the blog around Rs. 100/month. Expenses are still more than revenue.


Books I read

I don't read as many books as I used to in the past. Now I am more of a podcast or youtube person. But here are some books I read in the past in case you want to know what kind of books I like to read. These are not recommendations or endorsements. I liked some books more than others. While I don't remember the contents of some books at all since it has been some time, I do re-read some books to refresh my memory. Not all books are about investing.


  • Richest man in Babylon
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad
  • Millionaire next door
  • Overcoming gravity
  • Mastering the Market Cycle
  • The Outsiders
  • Quantitative Value
  • Little book that builds wealth
  • Little book that still beats the market
  • The physician’s guide to investing


  • One up on wall street
  • Learn to Earn
  • Little book of behavioral investing
  • Margin of Safety Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor
  • Opportunity Investing How To Profit When Stocks Advance, Stocks Decline, Inflation Runs Rampant, Prices Fall, Oil Prices Hit the Roof, ... and Every Time in Between
  • The Super Stock Investor Profiting from Wall Street
  • The entrepreneurial investor the art science and business of value investing
  • The little book of value investing
  • Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention
  • Power Of Habit


  • Quantitative Value A Practitioner's Guide to Automating Intelligent Investment and Eliminating Behavioral Errors
  • Jim Cramer's Real Money Sane Investing in an Insane World
  • The ultimate dividend playbook income insight and independence for today's investor
  • Stock Investing for Dummies
  • Seeking wisdom from darwin to munger
  • Mindset
  • Fooled by Randomness
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • How Children Succeed
  • Manias, Panics, and Crashes
  • Retire Rich Retire Young
  • Cash Flow Quadrant
  • The Art of Thinking Clearly


Epilogue

Writing a blog is not my hobby or passion. Some posts take a lot of time, research and effort to finish. It is not something I jump out of the bed to write. I am not a content writer and I don't intend to make money out of the blog. So I don't know how long I will continue writing :). The blog exists only because I thought I should share some of my experiences with others in the hope that it will help others. But more importantly I started the blog as a way to deflect questions from people and redirect them to my blog for answers. Strangely it does not work. People still ask the same questions over and over and if I ask them to read the blog (I even give them the direct link to the post), they still want to hear from me. Then I started meet-ups to have face to face conversations. Hope I am of help to at least some folk.