Abhi
What is the point of having a blog if I only talk about money? I know, pretty stupid of me to not be updating you about what is happening in my life, what’s going on in my family and what is occurring in my head. So starting today, I am going to be posting periodic updates on what is happening in my life. The updates will be chronologically titled with the “Day x of my FIRE journey”. Eg: Today marks 180 days since I started my FIRE journey.
Happiness and Smiles everywhere
My daughter is growing up pretty quickly. She has started to say a few words! I mean, she is just 1 and it amazes me on what she is capable of! My wife and I got her a picture book from Blossom bookshop and it is her favorite. She can recognize over 50 words and even lisps out some of them.
Rain, clouds, ball, banana, book, lion, cat, hat, shoes, shirt, car, boat and so much more! When I show her a picture of a birthday cake she even tries to blow out the candle! lol! She remembers her birthday celebration from 2 months back!.
It has been so melancholic with this stupid ass Corona Virus spoiling everything and locking us in. Our daughter is the only respite that brings so much of joy and happiness during this time. I try to spend a couple of hours post work and writing to teach her more. We are currently learning shapes!
Lockdown sucks donkey balls!
It is a major pain to stay indoors. I have not been to a park in over 2 months. What is the point of staying in Bangalore? I just love the parks here. I mean there are about 4 parks within 1 km radius of my house! My neighbors have locked themselves in, so have we. People in the apartment start giving us growling looks if we venture out into the common walk area etc.
Even worse, one of my colleagues who lives in a larger apartment in a different part of Bangalore got issued a official warning by the apartment’s secretary for taking a walk in the garden! I mean, with pandemic comes paranoia and stupidity too!
Expenses have taken a dip, and then they have not
Wifey and I used to go out to fancy restaurants at least 1 to 2 times in a month. We are those people who constantly order food from outside after small fights or even celebrations. So ordering food from Swiggy, Zomato and Uber would happen at least 10-12 times a month in our house. All of that has now stopped. No restaurants, no fancy food. We still order from outside, but about 2-3 times per month for the past 2 months.
While all this has decreased, expenses on groceries have increased a lot! We have already stocked up provisions for several months. Wifey now has started cooking more and she is experimenting with new desserts,snacks and styles of cooking.
All of this is definitely not good on my wallet or weight!
Quickride, I miss you
I am really missing my usual Quickrides. I have a really fun group of fellow riders who make the 3 hour journey in Bangalore traffic morning and evening enjoyable. Now, that has stopped. Even after the lockdown is removed, I doubt we will start Quickride. My offices and more IT offices are planning to increase the number of employees working from homes for some time. I was reading an article which said TCS is looking at permanently having 75% of their staff working from home by 2025. Be careful when picking REITs such as the Embassy group to invest in. This certainly does not bode well for them.
On the investment front
I have sold the debt funds I was holing in Franklin India mutual funds 2 weeks back. It was about Rs.45,000. I bought some Goldbees with that money. My survey on Twitter on if this is the right time to buy gave a neutral response, 52% of respondents say now is a good time, 48% say it is better to wait for some more time. I concur with the 48%, I am going to wait for another week or two to see how things go. For now, I received about Rs.1,50,000 as bonus for the good work I did last year. I have put about Rs.1,00,000 of this in Goldbees in addition to the 45K from Franklin debt funds.
Lots of analysts have started to bat for gold, saying the value of gold will almost double in the next 1.5 years. Let’s see how that goes.
That’s it for now folks. Stay safe and wash your pucking hands. Bye!
P.S: Here are some funny stuff I came across this week
