Liberate Minds Journal.

[George the original one]

So right now, we try to get home cooked food from tiffin-box wala..

I had to google tiffin box... what a service!

[LiberateMind]

Updates:

July 2016

Finance:
Expenditure:23389
Living expenses :16382 ( 70%)
Loan Interest:7007 (30%)

August 2016

Expenditure: 37712
Living expenses: 9969
Loan Interest : 7126
Anniversary travel plan : 20617

Savings Rate
Jan : 74.62%
Feb : 70.25%
Mar : 29.91 % ( Lowest savings rate of the year.. )
Apr: 68.26%
May : 54.91 %
June: 68.12 % ( Highest savings rate due to bonus month )
July: 74.09 % ( Got a windfall this month,so higher savings rate)
Aug : 55.61 % ( Travel expenses for wedding anniversary )

Avg. Savings rate of the year: 63.35%

Liabilities
To family: 242382
Internal Loan:65000
Land Loan: 635096 (@ 13%)

[LiberateMind]

Random thoughts:

- Planning a 8 day trip in September and its costing some money, as seen in expenditure. I will be having travel expenditure for this month as well, as few bookings and actual travel takes place.Its a gift to ourselves for the wedding anniversary. I am kind of getting touristy with this trip, as I am not sure about the availability of public transport and the frequency of it. Slow travel is nothing but a dream rite now. Not planning to do this type of travel for at least next 5 years. Future travel most likely would be much more economical and short distance trips.

- At the finance end,my main priority would be helping my husband to get the things under control. Even though he is more financially savvy than me, he has way more commitments to his salary. I would help him to restructure the commitments using my cash portion, so that he can breathe a little.

- Planning to gift my dad a smart phone, so most likely my next month savings rate would be very low.

On the goals front, july was pretty successful, august was ok kind of.

Sep Goals:

Finance :
○Spend within your salary.
Health
○ Eat @ home except during travel.
Simplify :
○ Organize digital data ( Home Computer).
Mindfulness :
○ Complete on and off concentration.
Career
○ Complete the learning material -https://www.codecademy.com/learn/web
○ Brainstorm ideas on how to
§ Solution presentation to customer per quarter.
§ Develop case study on the current project.

[LiberateMind]

Updates:

Finance:
Expenditure:47402
Living expenses :9600
Loan Interest: 7012
Anniversary Travel plan : 30430

Savings Rate
Jan : 74.62%
Feb : 70.25%
Mar : 29.91 % ( Lowest savings rate of the year.. )
Apr: 68.26%
May : 54.91 %
June: 68.12 % ( Highest savings rate due to bonus month )
July: 74.09 % ( Got a windfall this month,so higher savings rate)
Aug : 55.61 % ( Travel expenses for wedding anniversary )
Sep: 26.30% ( Travel expenses for wedding anniversary + Lowest savings rate of the year.. )

Avg. Savings rate of the year:59.67%

Liabilities :
To family: 234852
Internal Loan:60000
Land Loan: 624679 (@ 13%)
CC: 49000

No. of months saved Living expenses ( based on PP only) : 41

[LiberateMind]

Goals Update

I have done ok ok this month. Got drailed off due to not being conscious of my goals and got cold during last week of September. Well the cold continues..

Finance :
○ Spend Within salary - Done.
Health
○ Eat @ home except during travel.- Almost, Didnt measure, but number of times eating out is in single digit.
Simplify :
○ Organize digital data ( Home Computer). - Not started.
Mindfulness :
○ Complete on and off concentration.
Career
○ Complete the learning material -https://www.codecademy.com/learn/web - Not started
○ Brainstorm ideas on how to - Not started
§ Solution presentation to customer per quarter.
§ Develop case study on the current project.

So setting month to month goals without actually looking at them during the month is a recipe for failure. So changing the game plan now ( as I always do ). I will derive my goals based on the vision for myself (mainly its for character development). Setting the goals for the habit and character development and I expect my GTD system to take care of the TODO list. Still I would list the things which I expect to complete this month and the habit of the quarter.

Oct Goals

Habit : Do yoga four times a week ( 18 days).
Mindfulness : One task @ a time for one hour daily.
This task can be anything, it would be to practice on being present. Instead of hopping between tasks and going to past and future in the mind.

TODO:

- Finance: Expenditure below 20K.
- Career : Complete the assignments and assessments for the promotion cycle.
- Home: Organize digital data ( Home Computer).

[LiberateMind]

Random Thoughts:

On the finance front, this had been a spendy year with vacations, sisters marriage and home setup. Without these , my spending would be half of what it is. From next year on wards, these spending would reduce considerably, resulting in increased networth. Right now I am measuring the PP based on liquid net worth only. So at times it seems to be fluctuating, as I have to put some money on maintaining my real estate. So I have bit of agricultural land + empty plot for home + approx 4 years of expenses with loan. So am happy with how far I have came. Putting money into real estate might be a no brainer for FI. But after thinking over what kind of life I need, a home with a garden is always in the picture. It would very expensive to settle in my current area of residence, as it would cost 3 times the cost of home near my native. Main difference between Resident area and native is the employment/business opportunities. So I have not yet decided where i want to settle down. But once decided, will buy a home or a land in that place and will try to convert the remaining pieces to income producing assets ( meaning building rentals). That's again quiet a long way to go and its in far , far future. Main goal for the coming months would be reducing the liabilities , after maxing the tax saving investments.

Personal front, we are planning to start a family this year hopefully. During that time, I might take some break from work and might try out new ventures during the break time . I dont know whether it would be possible with a kid. But a break is long due and I am feeling too monotonous tone of my life. We are geographically fixed, as my DH dont want to move anywhere else. He is bit resistant to change, but I thrive on change and the challenges it brings forth. I might fail, but still whats there in life without those experiences.

Career front, Current project which I am working on is flexible and accommodating. But I have stopped active learning sometime back, just have to jump through the hoops to remain employable. The technologies and the skills which I have to learn is not much really. But I am very reluctant to invest my time in there. Mostly because, I know it would be out dated within next year or so ( might be my break time) and there is almost cut throat competition. The pay is high , the opportunities are less and you have to work overtime to be in good graces of the people who matter. So trying to chug along without putting too much effort. This again affects me mentally, since I am not even trying and it reduces my confidence. I really have to get a grip here , dont want be slacking at work.

[LiberateMind]

I had to google tiffin box... what a service!

Happy you think that . We have many options for a same thing, say you can get breakfast from Rs.50 to Rs.500, depending on the options,location and restaurant. Same goes for material purchases as well. If you are clear headed on what you want and the quality (should be able to evaluate that as well) which you would like to settle for ( mind you,the cheapest option might get broken before you get home). If you are native, you might know the good shops or shops where you will get the same thing for less price.

Networking also matters here. For eg, if you know people in the manufacturing industry , you can pay 1/3rd of the retail price, at times 1/5th for purchasing directly from the manufacturer instead of the retail store.

[LiberateMind]

Oct 2016 Update

Finance:
Expenditure:17758
Living expenses :11083
Loan Interest: 6675

Savings Rate
Jan : 74.62%
Feb : 70.25%
Mar : 29.91 % ( Lowest savings rate of the year.. )
Apr: 68.26%
May : 54.91 %
June: 68.12 % ( Highest savings rate due to bonus month )
July: 74.09 % ( Got a windfall this month,so higher savings rate)
Aug : 55.61 % ( Travel expenses for wedding anniversary )
Sep: 26.30% ( Travel expenses for wedding anniversary + Lowest savings rate of the year.. )
Oct: 72.41%

Avg. Savings rate of the year:60.83%

Liabilities :
To family: 170208
Internal Loan:55000
Land Loan: 613925 (@ 13%)
CC: 3150

No. of months saved Living expenses ( based on PP only) : 45

[LiberateMind]

Goals Update

Oct Goals
Habit : Do yoga four times a week ( 18 days). failed - Done for eight days only
Mindfulness : One task @ a time for one hour daily.Success!! Learned quiet a few things using this. Completed https://www.codecademy.com/learn/web goal which I set on Sep. Starting the day with one hour learning.
This task can be anything, it would be to practice on being present. Instead of hopping between tasks and going to past and future in the mind.

TODO:

- Finance: Expenditure below 20K.YES. DONE
- Career : Complete the assignments and assessments for the promotion cycle.On hold. Due to organizational mapping issues.Should be doing this one on November
- Home: Organize digital data ( Home Computer).Done.

Nov Goals

Habits
- Yoga ( 4 days / week) ~18 days
- Mindfulness. One task @ a time.
- Eat @ home. ( 3 days / week) ~ 15 days

TODO:
- Career: Complete intro of jQuery, browser debuggers and overview of restful API.
- Finance:
○ Keep expenditure below 20K.
○ Devise / Revise investing principles.
- Simplify: Reduce 5 articles from your possession.

One thing I have found is, I set goals to the maximum and failed. Now a days trying to set the barebone level of achievement I want to see in every month and leaving everything else on the fly. My mind is pushing me to commit to one goal/project when I am already showing good progress in others. This I am trying to avoid and maintain focus. May be thats my mental block, mentally committing to too many things , when doing a single thing. Then again the single thing fails due to multiple commitments. Second thing I discovered about myself is taking regular breaks and avoiding net surfing keeps me concentrated. This way I am able to concentrate more, than doing something at a strech. These break concepts doesnt apply when I am in the flow. Its just when working on things when I have to work my mind or trying to do some deliberate practice. So lets see how far these two takes me.

[LiberateMind]

November 2016

Expenditure: 30129
Hospital expenses:13497
Living expenses: 9854
Loan Interest : 6778

Savings Rate
Jan : 74.62%
Feb : 70.25%
Mar : 29.91 % ( Lowest savings rate of the year.. )
Apr: 68.26%
May : 54.91 %
June: 68.12 % ( Highest savings rate due to bonus month )
July: 74.09 % ( Got a windfall this month,so higher savings rate)
Aug : 55.61 % ( Travel expenses for wedding anniversary )
Sep: 26.30% ( Travel expenses for wedding anniversary + Lowest savings rate of the year.. )
Oct: 72.41%
Nov: 64.96%

Avg. Savings rate of the year: 61.27%

Liabilities
To family: 169799
Internal Loan:45000
Land Loan: 603274 (@ 13%)

No. of months saved based on PP only: 48

[fiby41]

Hi, how has demonetization affect you personally, if at all?

[LiberateMind]

@ fiby41,

We have to stand in queues on a total of 3 hours till now. So I wouldn't mind it, at least someone trying to bring some accountability.

November update:

On November, my dad was ill. So I went to hometown and spent sometime with my parents, by taking them to the hospitals. That kind of staggered me a bit, as I always thought them healthy enough to live a long life. It made me realize that they are not getting any younger and I would like to spend more time with them.So my priorities in life would be changing, as I will move to a bigger apartment so that my parents can come and stay for a while whenever they can.

Immediately after that I got an interview call, from a manufacturing company for a software position. I negotiated very badly and got a work from home position with 30% rise ( usual pay for my experience lies in 50-80% from what I earn now). The move is motivated by two factors, One to provide family & secondly to explore the unchartted waters atleast for me. I always wanted to work on my terms that is being a freelancer or to start my own business. I dont know how to start on either. Right now, I am in a position that I need my paycheck to pay off my liablities atleast. So I will not rock the boat till the liabilites are over. But will start on side business or some avenue to decrease my dependency on job. So any suggestion would be helpful

During the hospitalization period demonetization is announced. We are lucky as we know how to use the cards, there are people struggling a bit. But as it is always, they adapted and found many ways with connections and altruism to get things done.And there were few stories of few people getting caught with crores of new currency, that demoralized a bit. Took a deep breath and left it at that.No point in worrying over the things you cannot control.

I didn't achieve much in terms of goals in November.

[LiberateMind]

Goals update
November
Habits
- Yoga ( 4 days / week) ~18 days - 3 days done.
- Mindfulness. One task @ a time. - 8 days done
- Eat @ home. ( 3 days / week) ~ 15 days - Not done.

TODO:
- Career: Complete intro of jQuery, browser debuggers and overview of restful API. - Done
- Finance:
○ Keep expenditure below 20K. - Not done.
○ Devise / Revise investing principles. - Not done.
- Simplify: Reduce 5 articles from your possession. - Not done.

For the month of december, I have joined yoga class ( this will increase spending) to structure and cement that habit.I have also applied for health insurance to my parents and my in-laws.That will show up in my future numbers.I am eating as much as I can at home. On the positive note, I have completed the book Automatic wealth. More than wealth, I was looking for ways to increase my income, that gave me some pointers to work upon. As I want to retire comfortably and be able to provide for my parents & children.

[LiberateMind]

My 100th post

Long time since I posted here. I have slipped tracking for a bit in may, other than that presenting this years info.

Financials

Jan - 48.49%
Feb – (-219.31% ) (Gifted family for car purchase dipping into the investments.)
Mar - 40.72% ( Got monitor , keyboard for home office).
Apr - 70.74%
May - 70.31%
Average Savings Rate for the year – 3.11% ( Wow, putting it this way its looks very bad).

Liabilities

To family:180172
Land Loan:381011 (@13%)

I will improve my savings rate in coming months of the year. Would like to reach 45% by the end of the year. Stretch goal – 50%.For April and may , the expenses is similar to that of Jan, but higher savings rate due to increased income. My expenses hover around 25-30K.Typically, it would be along the following lines , Living expenses – 15K,Personal + Mom allowance – 5K,Loan interest – 5K.I will try to reduce the total expenses below 25k , stretch goal 20K. I prepaid 150K in loans during February using the leave encashment and gratuity pay from the previous employer.

[LiberateMind]

June Goals

Finance
- Expenditure 25k.

Non Finance
- Eat dinner before 7 or skip it.
- Journal daily.
- Yoga (20 days this month)

Finance:

If I am saving at the current rate without big expenditures or travel or other big life decisions then I can reach the FI target on Dec-2018 (ie., FI on where I am with 50%-60% expenditure).So thats giving me some hope. My expenditure literally tripled during my journey on FI. Initially, I was counting pennies and didnt spend anything beyond barebones. Now a days, I spend on experiences,yoga,gifting to family now and then without much guilt or thought unless it goes beyond a threshold.Just plugging away without a concrete plan on future. I have some ideas lurking on my mind, will take decisions once I reached FI and got an income generation plan only.Before that just net worth tracking.

Non-Finance:

I took a break on Yoga classes for two months and joined again.Thats the only form physical activity I have in my life. So that has to change.I am journaling on and off this year and it has been very beneficial, mainly on improving my mindfulness.I am taking no shame no blame approach (YOLO approach) on my habits.Work is going good, as I am working from home. I have full control of my life due to this, sometimes this feels like a dead-end job like I will be out-dated after two years.Right now in a stage where I doesnt care about anything much.

[fiby41]

Nice work paying off the internal loan!

[LiberateMind]

Nice work paying off the internal loan!

Hi fiby41, its company loan so have to close it for the settlements..

[LiberateMind]

July Updates:

Finance:
June
Expenditure:26207
Living expenses :20K
Loan Interest:4207
Moms allowance:2K

Savings Rate: 68.38%

July
Expenditure:24930
Living expenses :15K
Loan Interest:3930
Moms allowance:6K

Savings Rate: 72.10%

Avg. Savings rate of the year: 25.82%

Liabilities :
To family: (-130K+187839)
Land Loan: 354290
CC: 61100

FI Progress:
No. of months saved on expenses ( based on PP only) : 31

[LiberateMind]

Finances:

Even though it appears bit backwards on the metrics, the networth is slowly improving. Such hit in networth is mainly due to gifts.I have to figure in the way to include family gifts as well.Its not expected from me, but still it gives me pleasure to give them few things now and then.DH & I have opened a joint account to maintain our family finances. Typically I send 15K or 20K basesd on the expenses of the month.This is more than enough for us to cover the living expenses and do some tax saving investments.Still I am counting the entire money as expenses only.I am not too worried about my expenses now, as typically my living expenses comes around 30% of my income or below. I am happy with that. I am saving without purpose that leads to lots of impulse big money spending. So I would like to formulate goals for my finances .. big,hairy,audacious goals.. My aim was to pay the liabilites, but that doesnt seem so motivating now a days. I have a plan to pay off the land loan coming june -2018 and the investements for that are already in place. So here it is the big one, buy an 2BHK apartment in my locality and pay off your portion of loans by the end of 2020. Its certainly a big one, entirely not sure whether its an achievable one. But there it is to have something to aim to.

Career

I am working from home now days, its five months since I went to office . So majority of the negative impact of the career is down now. I am appreciating the position I am in more and more now. The work is kind of routine without big learning or growth.This job should do for now till I reach FI or start a business. But why doesnt that satisfy me?? I am always happy if I am moving up, even if its a just an idea not the actual thing. I have to spend more time to think and visualize what kind of career path I want to have. Looks like I will be at this for next 5 years at least, so better enjoy it instead of feeling in decline. My current field has given me so much for my hard work and it certainly feels very worse when I am not putting any energy or thought into it.

[LiberateMind]

Moments

- My grandma who was very ill for the past month passed away in June. It still feels surreal.I will always love her and remember her for her hard work. In the final days, it was very painful for her to survive physically. Even though I know this is how the nature works, I would still have liked her to see and play with my children. I have spend most of the month in june and july in lots of rituals related to death. We indians have lots of rituals for every thing. In a way its soothing to do something for her even after I was gone.

- Another family function is coming up in August, so have to spend some money and effort on that. It would be another big family get together of my cousins , my sister and whole lot of other people. I am going to enjoy it and certainly will try to be fully present. In my current situation, I dont get to spend lot of time with people so I would defintely appreciate this.

Goals
I lack the drive or motivation to do anything about goals. I know what kind of person I want to be, but certainly has not a clear path or drive to achieve that. I have to look into my mind and see why this is so. It helps to have detachment but this kind of directionlessness would lead me nowhere. May be I am setting goals not to achieve but to aim to? Like the financial one above, when come to think of it practically it would be impossible to achieve in my current situation, but still setting it up. Am I setting my self for failure? Have to ponder upon these things before setting up any further goal other than the financial one.