Early Retirement Extreme Forums

End of Year 2021 review: It's been a year now since my last post on this forum. While I have not actively posted messages and captured updates on my goals in last one year, a lot has happened since then. I have been putting off posting this message for last 2-3 months, and now finally able to put m...

m741 - I think suggestion from DutchGirl about doing hard reset (i.e. forcing a particular sleep/wakeup schedule for few days) seems very good to me. Putting some discipline around no screen time within 2 hrs of bedtime and no late night dinner should also help. Many people now a days talk about usi...

Have you noticed any effects of your vipassana practice on your daily life or is it too early to tell? I do feel the benefit of Vipasana practice in terms of lower stress level and better sleep quality. It takes a while to get better at the practice itself, so I think it is too early for me to say ...

January 2021 review: ERE numbers: Savings rate - 47% (Savings rate came down due to reduced rental income from vacant units. One time medical expenses went up as well.) Safe Withdrawal Rate - 2% Passive income (Passive Income/Gross Income) - 9% FI Ratio (Passive Income/Expense) - 31% Books read/rea...

2021 Goal: Following are high level goal that are meant to guide me with decision making through out the year. They are not meant to act as SMART goal and not limited to this year. Some of them are activity goal that would continue for many years with some modification. Big 5 1. Read 24 books (2 pe...

2020 Update: Another year has gone by with new set of challenges as well as opportunities put in front of us. I learnt a lot during the year and feel that I have become stronger mentally, financially, physically through this experience. I have been very fortunate to be a part of this ERE community ...

What types of real estate you are investing in? Any suggestions? @LiberateMind I am no longer investing in real estate. I have rented out my earlier apartment that I have lived in before. That's about it. I feel that they are very capital intensive and return on investment is not much due to high r...

Nice to see someone from India Planning FI. One of the struggles I face in our country is getting a passive income which is linked with inflation. Do you have any insights / suggestions based on your research? It's good to hear from you @LiberateMind. The effect of Inflation is very concerning inde...

When you say "milk product" was it raw milk, pasteurized milk, cheese, or fermented milk like yogurt? These are very different and you may be able to tolerate fermented milk products just fine! During the two days, I used Yogurt, raw milk as part of milk shake, and Cottage cheese. I under...

Did you notice a difference in how you feel after having happified your gut according to this protocol? Would you recommend it? @ertyu Here is my experience with suspect food during reintroduction phase. Suspect food for me were "Egg", "Milk products", and "Wheat". I r...

Did you notice a difference in how you feel after having happified your gut according to this protocol? Would you recommend it? I am in middle of Reintroduction Phase right now. I will report the result of that in 2 weeks time. The reason I did this protocol is to check my sensitivity to food. I do...

October 2020 review: ERE numbers: Savings rate - 83% (This went up due to proceeds from my company ESOP that added to monthly income. For the year, I am on track for 60% savings target.) Safe Withdrawal Rate - 2% (My expenses were low this month, as there were no payment due for kids education fee....

September 2020 review: ERE numbers: Savings rate - 61% Safe Withdrawal Rate - 2% Passive income - 8% Books read/reading: Completed reading “Stock Market Cashflow” by Andy Tanner. This book beautifully covers the 4 pillars of investing. While I have learnt about fundamental and technical analysis th...

August 2020 review: ERE numbers: Savings rate - 41% Safe Withdrawal Rate - 4% Passive income - 8% Books read/reading: Completed reading "Thinking Fast and Slow" book. There was so much of insight loaded in the book that it is going to take time and couple of rereads to assimilate it. Curr...

July 2020 review: ERE numbers: Savings rate - 80% ( This number is high as I received large proceeds from the sale of my company stocks. Savings rate for the year is averaging at 56% right now. Target is 60% for the year. ) Safe Withdrawal Rate - 3% Passive income - 5% Summary of actions taken/key ...

June 2020 review: ERE numbers: Savings rate - 28% ( This number is low as I used large part of income towards closing one of the home loan. ) Safe Withdrawal Rate - 16% ( Went high due to large loan payoff amount considered under expenses. These numbers get thrown off significantly due to one time ...

May 2020 review: ERE numbers: Savings rate - 92% ( This compensates for the negative savings in month of March. Increase in income came from sale of my employee stock option .) Safe Withdrawal Rate - 2% Passive income - 3% Actions taken/Learning summary from May: There has been steep recovery in pr...

Thanks Jacob for your input. I checked IAU fact sheet https://www.ishares.com/us/literature/fact-sheet/iau-ishares-gold-trust-fund-fact-sheet-en-us.pdf , and see that $20 billion of asset is backed by 391 tonnes of physical gold, which closely matches Net Asset Value. I will go through their prospec...

Pardon my ignorance in this matter jacob. That statement should have been more like "I don't know how much real gold IAU ETF is backed with". I will look up more on this. My concern comes from difference in paper vs reality. For ex: while US government had made commitment to back US dollar...

Thanks for the recommendation, it was a great read for me. I am glad that you liked it. I came across this as recommendation from someone in these forums only. I find owning gold through an ETF to be somewhat of a contradiction. This mainly because I think of it as the ultimate edge against black s...