Posts tagged with "minimalism"
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A Farm By Any Other Name
I love the quote by Steve Jobs “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. You have to believe that the dots will connect and that will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path and that will make all the difference.”. We had absolutely no idea that somehow, our decision to unschool our kid, quitting the rat race, minimizing our lifestyle and retiring early will lead us to our dream of owning a farm. There are so many dots that eventually connected. But at the time when we were making those decisions which lead us off the well worn path, we had no idea that they will connect. After all the many twists and turns, we eventually found a farm that we loved and knew that it has our name written on it.
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Wisdom From Farm Owners
After having decided not to buy a managed farm and also not to buy farm as a group, we finally settled on what we want. Next we thought it would be a good idea to talk to a few owners of farms to get an idea of what we are going to deal with once we own a farm. We know a couple of folks who are unschoolers and also own a farm. We asked them if we could visit their farm and gain some wisdom. Both families graciously agreed and we visited their farms on two separate occasions and spent a lot of time understanding their philosophy, why they were doing farming, what they learned and what difficulties they faced and how they overcame them. We learned a ton, but in this post I summarize some of our learnings.
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A Case Against Minimalism
I have a problem. No, I don’t have a drinking problem. Mine is different actually. I want to be a minimalist and a DIY (do it yourself) guy. Generally that shouldn’t be a problem right? But for me it is. You see, if I want to build things myself I need a bunch of tools. Tools means stuff and more stuff goes against minimalism. Why do I bring this up? Well recently I concluded the series with some of the tools that I own. But I want ever more tools. In that sense I am not a true minimalist then? I have seen people who don’t even own a car and travel by walking, scooter, and public transport. However, they own a lot of tools, which gives me some consolation.
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Why I Prefer Not Having A Backup Plan
Life is full of surprises. Many things are not really in our control, yet we live life like we have control. Take driving for example. We do our best to practice defensive driving to avoid accidents. Yet we have absolutely no control over the others and how in spite of being most defensive, we could end up in an accident. There is no backup plan here. If an accident happens, we have to deal with it as it comes. Most times a plan B helps, but in some cases, there is no plan B. Strangely, I have taken some decisions in life intentionally without a backup plan. These are no small decisions. They are some of the most difficult and riskiest ones.
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Tools I Use To Repair Stuff
A few posts ago, I started writing about the tools I use to repair various things at home based on a request from a reader of my blog. Here is a continuation of that series. I already covered what tools I use to repair and build electronics. In this post I want to cover the tools I used to repair some mechanical items such as cycle or washing machine etc. I won’t go into too much detail explaining every tool that I have. I just want to show you what I have to do some basic repairs. I still feel like I don’t have enough tools, so this is not a comprehensive set that you need. These are somethings that worked for me and perhaps will work for you too.
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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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Repairs and Upkeep
Over the years I have been doing some repairs and upkeep of various things at home. Most of the things are simple and you probably already know them. But I thought I will just list some of the things I learned. My first piece of advice is that if something breaks, try to repair instead of replacing it. Most likely you are capable of repairing. You just don’t know it yet :). The internet is full of helpful people giving excellent advice on how to repair. What is the worst thing that can happen if you don’t know how to repair? You will break it further and then you can replace it, which is what you were planning to do anyway. You might have wasted a couple of Sunday afternoons trying to repair, but the knowledge you gain and the fun you have putting things together is amazing.
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Vehicle Insurance Craziness
There are many reasons one could think of when choosing a good car, and one of them could be insurance. Being a minimalist, I see car as a thing that takes me from point A to point B safely and protecting me from the elements (I was not like this before becoming a minimalist though). So whether it is raining or too hot, windy or dark, my vehicle should let me go from one place to another, assuming I have sufficient driving skills. For others a car could be a status symbol or it could be a shiny new toy with lots of bells and whistles. Have you heard about the refrigerator and foldable table in your car, or the wipers for your headlights? Well, some features do improve safety, but others are just gimmicks.
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The Decline Of Keeper Culture
With the advent of technology, things are becoming more complicated and less repairable. I don’t remember where I read this, but in the early days when cars were first invented, everyone who owned a car knew how the car worked very well. It is not unexpected to have the car halt every so often and the owner is expected to be able to diagnose and repair it on the road. That means they would have to understand the workings of a car very well. Whether that was true or my memory serves me right or not is debatable. But what is not debatable is my personal experience.
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What Was My Savings Rate
A lot of times while talking to people about my early retirement, I get to the point of someone wanting to know what percent of my income I was saving. Unfortunately I never tracked that metric. So I wanted to find that out myself which is what this post is all about. The information may not be very accurate but it should be a ballpark figure and has sufficient details in it. The reason for inaccuracy is primarily because I don’t want to track down all my investments and income to the minutest detail. That would take too much time. In fact I don’t even remember my salary information and used my ITR (income tax returns) as a guideline. Then I had to go through my CAMS statement to figure out my investments every year. Hope this helps answer the question about my savings rate.
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