Can we live more sustainably please?

Sustainable living had always seemed to me as a remote idea, something which can be read in articles and books but is difficult to adopt in our daily lives. It's quite surprising then, that over the past few years we (as a family) have found ourselves adopting more sustainable habits in our daily lives. We have found this way to be more healthy, hygienic, and less expensive. There is also a sense of doing something on our part to make the world a better place. After all, we take so much from nature when we live, breathe, eat, work, travel; the least we can do is to reduce wastage of natural resources!

I must admit that at many times, these sustainable habits are directly against our consumption mindset. Why use that old mobile phone for few more months, when a new one will hardly cost a few thousand rupees with an exchange offer? They also take some effort to develop like any other habit. Why remember to take a cloth bag for shopping every time when carry bags are so easily available? Many times, the initial investment could be higher but they pay off in the long run e.g. a steel water bottle will cost more but is much cheaper to refill and carry in the long run.

Most of the habits I am listing below are already practiced by our parents, friends, and people around us. What definitely helps is to be less judgmental about these habits and learn the good bits from them!

• Extend the useful life of things by using them for a longer timespan, taking better care of things, and repairing them if it makes sense. When trying to buy a replacement, I check the last time I bought it and how long I have used it. This usually gives me time to think about re-purchasing, preventing impulse buying.
• When buying a replacement, exchange the old product or sell it on Olx. If it doesn't make sense to sell it, donate it if it's in a usable condition.
• Regularly donate old clothes, shoes, and other such items rather than stocking them. Use torn clothes for dusting & wiping.
• Use technology to reduce wastage:
• Apps like BigBasket Daily allow us to buy vegetables and fruits daily without needing to store things. This means less wastage and more fresh food.
• With apps like BigBasket, Amazon Fresh, etc. it's possible to order groceries when needed without stocking them. This generally reduces wastage.
• Smart bulbs reduce electricity wastage(and they are becoming cheaper by the day). Switching off lights & fans when not in use works too!
• Carry a steel/glass bottle on trips and refill it rather than buying packaged drinking water.  Similarly, carry it to the office and refill it rather than using paper cups. If you are paranoid about water hygiene, there are water bottles that also purify water.
• We chose a water-saving RO purifier that reduces water wastage.
• Collect the wastewater from the RO purifier and use it for cleaning purposes and watering plants.
• Avoid carry bags. Use recyclable dustbin bags. Reuse the cartons & plastic bags from our shopping.
• Avoid wasting perishable food: fill the plate with only what I can finish eating, use recipes that utilize left-over vegetables in the fridge, feed left-overs to animals.
• Walk/cycle short distances instead of driving. Use public transport when possible.

I am sure you would already be practicing many of these sustainable habits and much more. Do share them here and with friends/family! Every bit counts in saving the earth.

My investment journey and learnings!

With almost 10 years of investment experience now, it's a good time to look back on my investment journey. I can't claim to have made any out-of-the-ordinary gains so there will be no extraordinary advice here. As they say, most investment stories are boring! However, there might be a lesson or two hidden somewhere :)

Phase 1 - the beginnings

Having luckily bypassed the 2008 recession, my investment journey began in 2010 with my first job after engineering. I took investment advice mostly from personal finance articles in newspapers back then and from http://www.subramoney.com/ (it was a much simpler blog at that time). A good job, no responsibilities, and an innate lack of imagination for spending ensured that I was able to invest the recommended 20% of my salary. While it amounted to only a few thousand rupees per month of SIP in mutual funds, I am thankful to my past me for at least starting to invest which taught me some important lessons:

• Keep aside money for investment and then spend the rest - no amount is enough for spending
• Like anything else, saving is also a habit
• Purchase from savings rather than borrowings
• Know inflation - money decreases in value with time
• Stay away from LIC policies!
• Read a lot, research, make sense of risk & reward, debt & equity, mutual funds & stocks etc.
• Know the difference between saving & investing

Phase 2 - getting serious

1st phase ended with me leaving my job for Mba and withdrawing all my investments and my epf proceeds for paying fees. 2nd phase started with my 2nd job after completing mba with more money to invest, a greater pinch of taxes, learnings from phase 1, some more knowledge from finance lectures, a longer investment horizon, and more spending goals.  Lessons learned have been:

• Importance of health and term life insurance! (with a reminder from a more than minor injury - entirely paid by my health insurance)
• Importance of saving for retirement - dynamics are very different due to very long term horizon
• Investment type must match investment horizon - learnt this the hard way when I had to withdraw my MF units at almost 10% loss because I had no fixed return investments!
• Take advantage of tax saving for investment rather than invest for tax saving
• Lost capital in stock & bitcoin trading - money takes a lot of time to grow!

Phase 3 - coming of age

Some more learnings over the past couple of years, accelerated by COVID times:

• Balancing investments for the long term with spending in short term - it's important to spend on good things!
• Efficient investing - low cost of investments can make a big difference e.g. Direct Funds, Index Funds, NPS, FDs with no foreclosure charges
• Explore more investment avenues - NPS for retirement; online FDs for emergency funds; Gold ETFs/Foreign ETFs, Debt MFs for asset allocation
• Take adequate insurance - not too much, not too less - insurance mitigates risk, it's not an investment strategy
• Invest in building physical + mental health and good habits - money saved is money invested!
• Keep partner informed of total investment, investment platforms, basic investment terminologies

Phase 4 - to be updated after 10 more years! :) 

My new favorite device - a Google Chromebook !

 It was early last year that I came to use Chromebook by chance and I have been loving the experience since! Sharing my story here.

I was looking for a personal computing device (not exactly a laptop because there are several choices now: tablets as good as laptop, laptops as good as tablet, phone as big as tablet and so on)  and doing some research for it. And a listing on Olx caught my attention, it was a listing for used corporate HP Chromebook. The Flipkart listing is here but the laptop itself has been discontinued now. I felt the deal to be a bargain and immediately bought it though I had never used a Chromebook before, I though in worst case I will wipe Chrome OS and install some Linux OS on it!

Please note that it's a top of the line configuration with i5 processor and 8 GB RAM which actually might be an overkill for such a lightweight OS - Chrome OS is basically a browser running as an OS (not completely true tough). Also, the touch screen and convertible form factor open up several use cases, much better than a convertible running Windows. However, even with a modest configuration in modest price, I have read and heard that Chrome OS runs great.

Without further ado, here is why I love my Chromebook:

• Super fast startup - in 10-15 seconds. It has never hung on me in a year and it's super-fast. The battery also lasts a lifetime.
• Ability to install many Android apps (though not every app). This combined with touch screen and ability to use the laptop in tablet mode makes for a great experience - a huge tablet running apps.
• Ability install Linux apps - greatly enhances the software availability. The Linux terminal keeps my geek side happy!
• Good integration with android phone - the laptop can make a direct connection to phone's internet which is way faster than a hotspot and much more battery efficient. This has saved me on several occasions! Recently, there are more integrations like viewing messages and browser tabs from phone.
• Super smooth Chrome browser - it's kind of obvious because the laptop is meant to run Chrome but with Chrome being itself a very powerful and versatile browser, this enhances the experience.

So there are 3 ways to install apps on a Chromebook and all are generally quite straight forward - Android apps, Chrome browser plugins and Linux apps. If somebody is heavily dependent on a Windows software which is not available on either web/Android/Linux then there is no choice but else do give Chromebook a try, it deserves that! 

Do let me know if you want me to cover any other aspect of Chromebook :)