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Medical Expenses Inflation
I had no idea very simple medical treatment is so expensive in India! We rarely have to visit a doctor and as such I have no idea how much it costs to consult a doctor these days. I know medicines are becoming expensive but this was the first time I experienced unexpected medical charges. It all started when our daughter had a minor fracture in her elbow when she fell down while skating on the road. We did not see the accident, but apparently she was skating over some humps and perhaps due to over speeding lost her balance and landed on her left elbow. Her friends accompanied her home and we were facing a rather sad elbow condition. She was in noticeable pain but was not crying, so we did not initially think it was a fracture.
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The Most Important Thing In Life...
The title was not meant to be a click bait. I did not want the title to be too long, so had to truncate there. Aristotle supposedly said that the most important thing in life is figuring out how you spend your leisure time. I am not sure if those were the exact words, but he does write about difference between work and leisure. In today’s world, we spend too much time on work and have very little time in leisure. And any free time we have, we spend on entertainment. Leisure, unlike mere amusement, involves pleasure, happiness and living blessedly – Aristotle.
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Why I Cannot Add More Solar Panels
You might know that we currently have a sole 320W solar panel. Initially I just wanted to check if it was worth buying a solar panel. While there is a lot of talk about the many benefits of solar panels, I was not so sure. Will the panels really last a long time like they claim. Will the efficiency reduce quickly as the panel ages. Will the panels really produce the rated power because they are tested in ideal laboratory conditions of 1000 W/m2 irradiance, but in real life I was not sure if we get so much sunlight etc. Well, after owning the panel for over 2 years now, I can tell you that most of my doubts have been clarified. So I was wondering if I should add another panel.
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Where Are The Expenses?
When I write or talk about our expenses post retirement, many people want to know how I decide which expenses go into which category. Remember, I keep a record of all our expenses and categorize them. I bundle them into monthly and annual expenses. What some people have noticed is the absence of certain categories like spending on eating out or for buying clothes or shoes etc. So I thought I’d do a quick post on where those missing expenses go so there is no confusion. First lets check the categories I have for monthly expenses –
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Right To Education At Any Age
In the Indian constitution we have an article which specifies that children in the age group of six to fourteen years have the right to get free and compulsory education. It is a pretty good amendment to the constitution. But what I don’t like about it is the specific age that is mentioned. Why shouldn’t it be a fundamental right to have education at any age? Some kids or even adults may not be able to learn at a young age, and may prefer to learn at a later age. Of course no one is stopping them for learning, but it may not be free. However, with the advent of technology and internet, learning can be free at any age.
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Ignis Fuel Economy
It has been about 9 months since we purchased our new car and we are enjoying it. I was curious about the mileage figure published by ARAI for Ignis. So I decided to check out the real life mileage. Of course everything is an approximation, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Your mileage (pun intended) may vary, yada yada disclaimers apply here. Going back to the point, the ARAI number for Ignis is about 21 KMs per liter. The testing is done under laboratory conditions with different speeds under simulated road conditions. No air conditioner is used, there are no traffic signals etc. So you can think of it as ideal conditions. You should also keep in mind that they test various speeds simulating city and highway drives.
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Switched to NixOS
After using Manjaro Linux for a really long time, I finally decided it was time to switch to NixOS. Manjaro has been quite good until recently. Then there were some changes because of which my GPU hardware acceleration broke. I don’t remember all the details because it has been some time since I switched over to NixOS. All I remember is that video encoding is not able to use GPU acceleration and that was a big bummer. I tried EndeavourOS and liked it. Everything was working as expected. Yet I switched to NixOS. The reasons and more follow in this post. This is one of those posts with too many technical details, so if you prefer, feel free to skip this one.
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How Much Money Did My Solar Panels Save? - 2023 Edition
A long time ago I wrote a post on how much money my solar panel was saving me. In the post I promised to write another post in November 2022 with updates. Well, lots of things happened and I completely forgot about it until one reader reminded me requesting for an update. So here it goes. It has been more than 2 years since I installed a 320W solar panel and I have been diligently collecting data from my panel, our consumption and how much we are pulling from the grid. Very recently I finally finished my code to fetch the data, massage it and used some nice libraries to draw the graphs so I can analyze the data.
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Can Bard Answer Early Retirement Questions?
Ever since Chat-GPT was announced, I wanted to use it to ask personal finance questions just for kicks. But I was too lazy to sign up. Unfortunately by the time I decided to sign up, the page said it was full and asked me to wait. After a few weeks I heard about Chat-GPT integration with Bing and wanted to try it out. Unfortunately though it required me to sign up to a Microsoft account and wanted me to use Edge browser or something like that. I don’t remember all the reasons, but I am certainly not going to do any of that. I mean asking for email is one thing, but phone number even if it is for OTP is a no go for this kind of service. It is a lot more personal. Not that I don’t trust them with my data, it is mainly because I don’t want to increase the attack surface.
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Should You Sell Debt Or Equity For Retirement Expenses
After reading my post on “withdrawal plan in retirement”, one reader asked why I suggested that one should sell debt mutual funds to handle the retirement expenses. In that post I gave an example where an investor has only debt and equity mutual funds and in that scenario, it is preferable to sell debt mutual funds to handle everyday expenses and then do a rebalance once in a while to get the asset allocation to the ratio that you prefer. The reason for this recommendation is quite simple. It is to avoid selling mutual fund units of an asset class at their low point. Since equity mutual funds go up and down quite a bit in value, it is possible that in some years you might sell at a low point and dent your compounding effect. I will explain how with an example.
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