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Property Tax Inflation
It has been slightly over 10 years since we moved to the home we currently reside in. So I thought we should have enough information to calculate the property tax inflation. Why not write a short post about it? In the past I have written a few articles covering inflation of various material goods we posses. This is one more of them. Remember that calculating inflation of individual items like this does not make much sense unless the expense is a major part of your annual expense. For example, if the inflation of the price of a pen is 20% but the price of the pen is Rs. 20, it does not matter how big or small the inflation is, it will not affect your total inflation (for a long time) because Rs. 20 is such a small amount compared to your annual expense. I am calculating inflation just as a fun exercise.
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Gaming Mouse And Mechanical Keyboard
After having purchased a budget gaming laptop I was tempted to buy a gaming mouse. I know that it was one of the stupidest ideas because I am not even that good at gaming. I am someone you would call as a casual gamer, and that too I only play RTS (real time strategy) games anymore. At least, in the past, I used to play FPS (first person shooter) games which require precise mouse movements. So really there is no need for a gaming mouse for me. This desire for material goods is precisely what I advice everyone to avoid but here I am doing the same mistake. It is one more of those “do what I say, not what I do” sort of things.
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I Give The Worst Advice
What many people don’t know is that I perhaps give the worst advice. The reason is not that I don’t want to give good advice or intentionally give bad advice. It is just that I don’t know what is a good advice for you. At best I can give advice based on my experience if I have already experienced it, for example early retirement. Or I can tell you what I would do if I were in their situation. Now, unless the person asking for advice is exactly like me, thinks like me and is in the same path in life as me, my advice probably won’t do them much good. This has always been my biggest worry anytime some asks for advice. And advice people ask.
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Solar Panel Output Under Various Conditions
In a previous post I talked about how my sensors tell a story regarding our power usage. There are still many more stories that the sensors can tell us about how we use electricity and how much solar power is being generated. Have you ever wondered how the solar power output looks like during the course of a day? Let me give you a hint – it almost looks like a half-rectified sine wave. It was a really interesting discovery. How about the output of solar panel when the day is cloudy? I have answers to all these questions and more in this post.But first let me walk you through the whole setup that I have at home.
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Should You Be Worried About Inflation
For the past few months we have been hearing about the increasing inflation in the US. Is it possible that the same could happen in India and should we be worried? First lets try to understand the severity of inflation in the US. The inflation number in the US used to hover around 2% for the longest time. But it has shot up to as high as 7.9% in February 2022. That is almost 4 times as high as the average! That does hurt. It is a number not seen in 40 years! In India, the inflation is still not that high, so we don’t have to worry as much as our friends over on the other side of the world. Still, it is always useful to do a thought experiment and see if it is a topic of concern.
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Does Insurance Increase Risk?
Just a few days ago I wrote a post on risk and consequences in a philosophical tone. But then I came across this TED talk and realized there is a physiological aspect to it as well. Well, the talk was really about the “counterintuitive psychology of insurance”, but it seems like insurance and risk are sort of interrelated. When I say risk, I will use the Wikipedia’s definition so we are all on the same page because risk has different definitions when used in different contexts and may even mean different things to different people.
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DIY Projects
In an earlier post I talked about how we try to do repairs where possible and upkeep things to extend the life of some products. As an extension of that post, we also wondered how we could possibly cut costs by doing some things ourselves instead of buying stuff. This again while it seems like a frugal activity (which it is) also reduces the environmental impact. I know I am talking a lot about environment without even having a degree in it. Well, my life partner has a Masters degree in it (literally).
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Downside Risks And Consequences
For every decision we make, there is a possibility of some upside and downside risk. Take for example the decision to eat that yummy cake. Well, the downside risk is clogged arteries and heart attack perhaps. Or may be there is an increased chance of becoming diabetic. These are all long term risks right? So who cares. What about the upside? Well you get to enjoy the food and put your mind in a blissful state and you are in good mood perhaps for the rest of day at best. The upside is really short term. Now the question is whether I should have the cake or not. How do we go about it? One way is to consider the short term and long term consequences. But is so hard to visualize something that will happen far into the future. Why can’t I enjoy now? May be I won’t live that long to see the ill effects of my actions. That is one aspect of risk.
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What Is With The Index Fund NFOs?
Have you seen the number of NFOs being launched my mutual fund houses in the recent past? What happened? I am not really sure why, but in the last few days my inbox has been receiving all kinds of emails about a new fund offer (NFO) all of which were are for index funds or ETFs. Seems like passive investment is the vogue these days. How did it come into fashion all of a sudden? May be the fund houses think that active funds will not perform well and want to launch some passive funds. Perhaps they wanted to help investors make money. I am just kidding of course.
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Our Children's Future Will Be Different From Ours
As parents, we always want the best for our kids. Almost every parent thinks this way irrespective of their background. But how far into the future can we see and make a good enough prediction for our children? After all, our predictions will be based on our experiences which is basically something that happened in the past. How much does the past experience help in predicting the future outcomes? Every generation has a disconnect with the next generation in terms of how they see the world and how they perceive the future. That is very strange given that we all share the same world. How is it possible for the next generation to see the world differently from us?
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