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Is Investing Early Really That Important
Many financial planners and advisors including yours truly will have you believe that it is important to start investing early if you want to have a comfortable retirement corpus. In fact this is the first step I propose in my five step plan to early retirement. After all it makes sense right? You have a long runway if you start early and it will allow compounding to show its effects. Compounding needs time. But is it really all there is to it? The genesis of this thought was an article that I recently read on the internet. While there is a kernel of truth, it is not all its made out to be. Let me try and explain using the information from the article.
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Review Of A Reader's Retirement Portfolio
Every once in a while I receive emails from some of my readers asking for advice on financial planning or unschooling or other things. I have posted a couple (A Reader’s Dilemma, Should I Retire Early?) of emails along with my replies in this blog. Today I wanted to post one more such conversation I had with another reader. As usual, I took permission from the person. Most of the conversation is published as is and I tried to make minimal edits. Hope you might learn something from it or perhaps have better advice. Feel free to comment at the end of this post if you want to post your advice. Lets get started.
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Power Bill Is Zero, Thanks To Solar Panel
If you remember, I recently posted that I cannot add any more solar panels given my current setup. You might also recall that I have a lone 320 W solar panel. Surely that cannot generate enough power to reduce my electricity bill to zero. Yet, my latest electricity bill is exactly zero. Thats what happens when you mix politics with lifestyle. Some of you might understand what I am talking about. For others, here is the clue – Gruha Jyothi scheme. Unless you like reading about politics, or belong to Karnataka, one of the southern states of India, you might not know what I am talking about. Let me explain.
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This Blog Is 5 Years Old
I cannot believe that this blog is already 5 years old! When I first started, I did not know if I will have much to write. I just wanted to write about financial planning for early retirement because a bunch of friends and colleagues asked me for it. I thought I would be done in about 15 to 20 articles and stop writing. But here I am still continuing the tradition all thanks to my readers. As I kept writing, different people asked for different topics like home schooling, health, fitness, my hobby projects, sustainable living and so on. I started writing about varying topic and the blog evolved to what it is now. But every beginning has an end and so I am not really sure how long I will continue. There is absolutely no dearth of topics, but time is something that is hard to find.
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Cost Of Owning Something
Whenever I plan to buy something expensive, I go through this exercise of figuring out the cost of owning something. Remember that for most material things in life, the cost of owning it is not just the sticker price. There is more to owning it. After running through the exercise objectively if I still feel the need to buy something, I sleep over it. Gives a bit more clarity on the subjective aspects. Some things are an absolute necessity and I am not talking about those ones. Moreover, what is a necessity for me may be a discretionary spend for someone else. Finally, there is no point doing this exercise if the cost of the thing you want is cheap and doesn’t affect sustainability too much. Again, for some sustainability may be important, for others it is not.
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Accessing My Home Network From Anywhere
There are two kinds of apps that I build when I am working on my personal projects. They are either apps that are confined to my home network or ones that run on the web. Examples of apps that run on the web are my investment planning app or investment recommendation app. I can access them from anywhere. Examples of apps that only run in my home network include home automation, drip irrigation, solar power management, etc. These are apps that are running on android devices, linux PC or ESP8266 boards and are connected to my wifi. You cannot access them from outside the home network.
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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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