Financial Freedom

[ertyu]

Have you noticed any effects of your vipassana practice on your daily life or is it too early to tell?

[avanishk]

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 something for sure and experience the full benefit.

[avanishk]

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 my thoughts together and summarise 2021 update here.

Following are the main ERE numbers I started tracking about 2 years ago. These numbers are for complete year 2021.

• Savings rate (Saving/Income-after-tax) - 75% (This has been a huge improvement as compared to year 2020 when I achieve savings rate of 58%). This was aided by reduced travel due to Covid lockdown and reduction in work-commute expenses.

• Safe Withdrawal Rate - 3%

• Passive income (Passive Income/Gross Income) - 5% (Passive income suffered due to vacant rental units caused by Covid situation).

• FI Ratio (Passive Income/Expense) - 27% (This went down a bit due to the reason mentioned above)

Emotional life:

• Year 2021 has been a very difficult year for me and for the whole family.

• We lost many of our loved ones due to Covid. 2nd wave of Covid infection turned out to be disastrous for many families in India.

• My brother in laws passed away in his late fifties due to Covid induced lung infection. This has been devastating for my sister and her two kids and we are still recovering from the shock.

Family/Relationships:

• Time spent with kids and other family members went up as we were confined to our homes due to Covid lockdown.

• More family meals together and more experiments with different cuisines instead of eating out. We love Thai and Mexican food and made Thai green curry, Burritos couple of times during the year.

Books reading:

• Read 16 books during the year covering different topics like Health, Finance, Minimalism, Spirituality.

Health:

• Overall have been able to maintain good health during the year. Was exposed to Covid infection during 2nd wave and recovered from it.

• Health measurement at the end of the year (Wt- 59kg, Body Fat- 20.2%, Skeletal Muscle- 33%). Target goal for the year (Body Fat- 15%, Skeletal Muscle-36%).

Finance:

• At the start of 2021, I had intended to start doing more active form of investing buying individual company stocks. After spending 4-5 months of time doing that, I have opted to go back to passive form of investing for now through mutual fund route. I realised that the amount of time active investing consumed is quite a bit without much return to so for it. I had rather use that time on other goals I have at this time.

• I have increased my investment in indian equity Market through Index fund and few other Equity diversified mutual funds. I intend to keep following this approach for education and our requirement goals.

Work:

• Work from home continues to go well. Majority of the company has been working remotely through out the year and the company has done quite well based on its recent financial result.

Spiritual:

• My Vipasana meditation practice is proceeding well. I have been able to stick to a more regular mediation practice this year as compared to last year. I went for another 10 day retreat during the year and that helped refine and recommit to the practice.