• Money Is Infinite. But Time Is Limited

    I used to have a comfy and very well paying job until I decided to retire early in 2018. I can't imagine why anyone would give up such a good job and ridiculously good benefits that I used to enjoy at work. But at some point in life, it is conceivable that one could slip into philosophy. That happened to me. Money has never been a primary motivation for me, but it did enjoy some importance in my life. After my philosophical journey, money seems so insignificant and unimportant. Don't get me wrong. You need a handsome amount of savings to even consider early retirement. But having made enough, even more money did not make sense at all.

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  • The Minimalist Wardrobe

    If you have read the post on my expenses, you would have noticed "wardrobe" expenses conspicuously missing. I quietly shoved them into the miscellaneous expenses. Still, a few people noticed and asked me -- "what about your clothing, shoes etc expenses". Well, I am not much of a shopper and after the brush with minimalism, the desire to buy more clothes has vanished into oblivion.

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  • SEBI Modifies Multi-cap Fund Classification

    What happens when a regulator tries to over regulate? This happens.

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  • How And Who Should Pay Advance Tax

    I just payed my second installment of advanced tax, so I thought I will write down the procedure. It will be like a reference for me in the future and might help some one as well. It is actually a pretty simple process that does not really warrant a post, but here we go anyway.

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  • How To Make Bio-Enzymes – Part II

    This post continues from where I left off on Bio Enzymes. If you have not read that post, please start there. Once you have prepared the bio-enzyme, you can bottle them for different uses. I am including a video (see end of the post) showing the same.

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  • Real Estate Investment vs Equity Investment

    While you know my aversion to real estate investment in India, I don't discourage anyone from investing in it. If you don't mind the corruption related to property deals, you might make more than simply investing in equity and debt mutual funds. But before you decide which way to go, make some informed decisions. In this post I will try to simplify some calculations which can help you guide in the right direction. I will also mention some risks involved in each of those asset classes.

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  • Risks Of Wrong Financial Planning

    It is now more than 2 years since I officially retired. But unofficially I have retired in Jan 2018. I had accumulated the required retirement corpus by Dec 2017 and I could retire at the beginning of 2018. But for reasons best described in one of my earliest posts, I decided to delay my retirement date by 6 months. The way I decided when I was ready to quit was based on the 4% rule. Since it's been only 2.5 years, I can't say for sure if the 4% rule is working or not. We will have to wait and see at least 10 years really. But ideally you will have to wait until I am dead to see if the corpus really lasted that long.

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  • Building A Periscope With Cardboard

    I think I can build a career making cardboard toys. Every time my daughter has an "idea" for a toy, I have get ready to build something out of cardboard. After the doll house, disk drop game and rolling ball machine, the latest idea from my daughter was to build a periscope. She probably saw some youtube video of some one building it.

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  • How To Plan Your Financial Independence

    Several people have routinely asked me whether I planned for this or that before deciding to retire early. Well I planned the way that works for me under my circumstances. There is no one size fits all and no one comprehensive definite solution. None the less, since so many people have this question about how to go about planning for financial independence, I thought I should write a post about it.

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  • How NOT To Invest in Stocks

    Since I started this blog, a few people have been asking me if I will give stock tips. Others asked if I had invested in stocks and that is how I made enough money to retire. So I thought I should clarify a few things to my readers through this post. First, I don't give stock tips because I don't know how stock markets work and more importantly I don't know how to value a company. I have always wanted to learn how to value a businesses, but never got around to doing it. Next, I had invested only once in one stock and that is all my experience in stock investment.

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