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Laptop Upgrades And Lap Gadgets Review
Over the years I have been upgrading my laptop to keep it humming along. Normally the upgrades are mainly to help keep pace with the rising demands of my development tools. However, the latest upgrade to the laptop has been to extend the life of the laptop until I can buy another one. You see, I tend to upgrade my laptop every 5 years or so. I purchased my current laptop in late 2016. So it is almost time to replace it.
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Comparison With Another FIRE Couple
You know how I like to compare myself with other FIRE (Financially Independent, Retired Early) individuals. So here is one more of them. I do the comparison because there are very few of them and I just started my journey. So comparing with others helps me understand how they think, behave and spend. That way I can check if I am inline with them or whether I am an outlier. Either of those situations is alright with me, but it is just a fun exercise.
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Our Real Power Bill Inflation
In the last post I showed you that the electricity inflation over the last 9 was around 7% in Bangalore. Of course the inflation depends on how many units you use. If you are in the lower or higher slab than me then perhaps the inflation may be different for you.
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Power Bill Inflation
I don't normally talk about my inflation numbers in this blog, because I don't have a lot of data. I am the kind of guy who needs data to talk about things. To make sense of inflation we need at least 7 years worth of data. Ten years data will be more useful though. Thankfully I have some of my electricity bills since 2012. So there is long enough history to see the inflation in electricity bills in Bangalore.
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The Role Of Luck
Luck has a huge role to play in one's success or failure. We should not forget the role of luck in our lives. I am what I am is primarily because of how lucky I have been in many aspects of life. There are people who are more hardworking than I am and yet don't have the results they deserve.
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Living Without Any Insurance!
Yes. That is true. I don't have any kind of insurance for my family, that includes my parents. That is a huge risk that no one in the right mind should take. I would never suggest anyone do it. I would not do it either if this panned out a little differently. Let me explain.
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Follow-up to Virtual Meetup #5
Thanks to everyone who joined the virtual meetup. We had a lot of good discussions which extended beyond the scheduled one hour. I was not sure if I answered all the questions clearly. So here is a post that clarifies things a little bit in case I was not clear earlier. Here are some questions that were asked and my responses.
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Trimming Expenses
In my last post I mentioned that I was confident of my approach to early retirement. In addition I wrote about a couple who have been retired for 30 years by just following the 4% rule. One of the learning from that post is that there could be a huge drop in market that may hit my investments badly. In that case my investments may not keep up with my expenses. For example if there is a prolonged market slump. And I need a plan. The plan starts with cutting down my expenses temporarily so that my investments can catch up.
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Thirty Years Into Retirement
It's been barely three years into my early retirement. So, no I am not talking about myself here. I recently came across this article about a couple who retired 30 years ago. And they were 38 then. What great clarity they must have had of their future to retire in 1991!
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Optimal Conditions For Self Directed Education
I spend a lot of time on Youtube trying to learn something or the other. And from time to time I arrive at some interesting videos shared by others. Most recently I watched the talk on Self Directed Education by Peter Gray. I suggest anyone interested in unschooling go watch it.
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