Time – Money – Ideal state

assets, Financial Independence, passive income

Most of us end up selling time for money at a broad level. Except for people like authors, actors and people with some kind of intellectual property or investors, most of us, are generally selling time for money. Some might be selling it at a higher value than the others.

I was analysing various phases in my life and what my situation was. There was a time when I was overworked and with less income. We were always in an anxious state of mind. The ideal state where you have the freedom of time and freedom of money is the upper right corner in the picture.

Now I have not reached that situation of the blue box but I have at least moved from the bottom right hand corner box to the upper left. One of the reasons that could happen is because I started doing investments which started working for me in parallel to me selling time for money.

The earlier you can get involved in making investments – not savings (if you don’t know the difference, please see my my posts on financial freedom written in the earlier years) – the earlier you will reach this stage where you will not have to work at the same ratio. Obviously during this time as your experience grows your per hour rate at which you sell time could also grow.

The ideal situation is when you work once and you get paid multiple times over as in the case of movie actors and authors whose royalties keep coming. But for most of us who do not have any intellectual property to our credit – making investments in different types of assets is the only way to create a non linear relationship to time and money, such that your money works for you as hard as you work for the money.

Once your passive income grows to such a level where you don’t have to sell time for money that’s when you would reach the blue box area and have the freedom to do things of your choice. That’s the ideal place where I would like to eventually be, but lets see how it goes.

Investments and Bitcoins

Financial Independence, Uncategorized

I was recently listening to the Berkshire Hathaway annual conference addressed by Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger.  This was being beamed live via Yahoo.

In this Yahoo presentation before the conference began they had some of their correspondents check out the people who had cone and then one of the correspondents also did a small interview with Warren Buffet.  One of the questions he asked was – what Warren thought about Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies.  This question kind of has stayed with me because this was something which I myself was not clear for a long time and then a lot of people have asked me.

As is usual of Warren Buffet he gave a very simple explanation for what is an investment and what is trading.  This is something which I found very useful and I thought of sharing.

For him cryptocurrency is not a investment because the cryptocurrency has value only in the eyes of the next person who wants to buy it so it’s a commodity for trading and if someone is willing to pay higher price you gamble on that.

Unlike trading an investment is an instrument of some kind which earns on its own even if there is no one to come and buy it from you… so if you buy farmland in your village and even if the next person is not willing to buy it from you at a higher price, at the farm you can still grow crops and have cattle etc. …. Same would be the case in terms of investment in equity…or for that matter even buying a cow can be an investment and the milk can be sold

So if you are wanting to do an investment keep this fundamental concept in mind …..will this item earn for you  irrespective of somebody wanting that item or not.….if you buy foodgrains with the thought that somebody will buy it from you at a higher price then that is trading. On its own foodgrains will not grow more foodgrains for you

So your house for your own living is not an investment – which is something I had written earlier also is a bad idea, but a house which you buy to rent out to generate passive income is an investment and therefore a good investment

Equity purchase of a company which manufacturers or makes something is an investment because the company will continue to produce its goods irrespective of whether someone else comes and buys that equity from us or not

People become financially free when they make investments. These investments earn for them and compounding grows the earnings multiple times over. The longer the runway –  as Mohnish Pabrai puts it – for compounding to play its part the more wealth you create.

Till next time….when you are in a dilema…think very simply ….will it earn for me irrespective whether the other person wants it or not.

Carpe Diem!!!

 

 

 

 

Living carefree forever

Financial Independence, Uncategorized

Last week I saw this movie “102 Not Out”.

It stars 2 of the best actors in Indian cinema Mr Amitabh Bachchan and Mr Rishi Kapoor. It’s a very sweet story about a 102 year old father and his 75 year old son.
The son has lost his interest in doing anything in his life while the father is still active over the age of 100. It is an extremely sweet movie which I would recommend everyone to watch.

The movie got me thinking on how this person would have lived his life from retirement, which in India is typically at age 58, for another 40 + years.

For sure he must have had enough Investments that could last him for 40 years of zero regular income.

The average age that an Indian is approaching 70, what that means is for every 38 years of working life the average Indian will now have to survive without the facility of a regular income help him through those next 10-15 years

Given that medical expenses and medical inflation are at such high levels you really need to think how will you survive without asking for any assistance from your children

There are very few things which are inflation proof and especially for an economy which is growing so rapidly and looks to become the third largest economy in the next 15 to 20 years, inflation pressures will always be very high.

So you need to think in terms of what are your investments and what kind of returns will they give you for you to survive for those years when you don’t have a regular stream of income and still have the will to enjoy like Amitabh Bachchan in 102 not out.  You need to celebrate life not live a life of drudgery.

Tell next time
Carpe diem!!

There is nothing sexy in achieving financial freedom – part 2

Financial Independence, Uncategorized

Yesterday I wrote about how most of these Ultra rich people – Warren Buffet, Tony Robbins, Richard Koch, Robert Kiyosaki – actually followed a system rigorously even when there were roadblocks around the way

The systems required that they had to do some amount of sacrifices. Maybe they did not go out for a date when they were young because they had to ensure that they were closing something as part of their system.

I also realised when I started a bank mandate initially with just a 1000 rupees. Initially it did matter that even before I could utilise the money, the money went out from the bank. But slowly I got used to it and I went on increasing my commitments to the money getting directly debited from the bank into some Investments.

In 3 years I did not realise what a difference that had made to my financial stability. Based on the possibilities that my investments could do, I actually sat down to figure out a date by which if my assets reached a given value I could leave my job and start doing what I want.

While God has been kind in a lot of these endeavours it is also a matter of the systems working and the investments compounding in the background.

For all those young guys if they read this, just a very small portion of their income if they can directly give a bank mandate, for money to be deducted to go into an investment, without they realising, they can all become millionaires.

If you leave it to your discretion that every month you will invest based on what you save…. You will never be able to invest.

The human brain was designed to ensure that it survived and immediate gratification was more important than long term safety. Hence the brain does not allow you to take a chance with your safety of money and wants you to have it till the last moment. But when you have a system to automatically reduce the money from your bank for an investment the brain gets used to the lesser amount of money and you are able to live a similar Lifestyle even with that less money.

Today there are possibilities of various kinds depending on your appetite and the goals that you have to invest in mutual funds in SAP or in a recurring deposit whichever way you want.

Whatever you do and whatever your risk appetite, put a system in place so that it works in the background and gets you to your goal

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